Tag: writing

  • “Don’t Exhaust Yourself” (from Sisters in Crime)

    The full quotation from this morning’s email from my favourite organization is “Challenge yourself; don’t exhaust yourself.” I’m doing a “January Jumpstart,” which is a kind of crime-writing marathon training of daily writing practice. My relationship with my writing gets tetchy if I don’t write five or six days a week, and it’s much like…

  • The Idea of a Female Literary Tradition: Unfashionable in 2025?

    The premise of my book project is that there is something distinctive about the way that Canadian women writers craft crime fiction, even though they do so in contrasting genres of the cozy (domestic setting; food and friends; no gore), the thriller (domestic or public setting; more enemies than friends; potential gore), and the police…

  • Library “Privileges” and Alice Munro

    I awoke with a keen sense of excitement and anxiety this morning, the first day of the year. Per Louise Penny’s novels, I quickly murmured “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” before getting out of bed to feed our rabbit-like cat, who was already making soft cooing noises. She appreciates my early wake-ups. The question on my mind…