Categories
Book review What I read

Monthly Review: May 2023

Read my first John Banville and Alice Munro, and my first Jhumpa Lahiri novel.

Categories
Microstory

Rage

[Image credit] This 100-word story was originally published in Fairfield Scribes Issue #27. *** Up and down the condo tower mid-desert, pipes dripped, taps leaked, and toilets dribbled. The residents, paying a flat-rate water bill, whistled about their days. The background watermusic trickled gently on. The activist/artist watched, then began a performance piece at the […]

Categories
Microstory

Change

This 100-word story was originally published in Fairfield Scribes Issue #28. *** Chanchal’s always complaining about her university. The class sizes are unmanageable, the dress code ridiculous for a professor, and administrative duties leave no time for research. She applies everywhere. She can’t wait to tell her colleagues she’s got another job. She won’t flaunt […]

Categories
Flash story

Dusk

[Image credit] This story was originally published in Proem Vol. 2 (2020), available in print only. At dusk, the old man jogs slowly to a halt. He’s been jogging an hour. Three laps around the park. He’s slow. Many young walkers overtake him. But those young ’uns tire after one lap. Then they climb on […]

Categories
Short story

Timeshare

What if you could store, and buy, and sell time, as you can money? Is youth really wasted on the young — and could we use our time better if we got more of it later?

Categories
Microstory

Walking

[Image credit] This microstory was originally published in OPEN Journal of Arts and Letters. *** I speedwalk down the tessellated concrete tiles. I’m bored stiff, but my headclock says I’ve only twenty minutes left. I never bring a watch: that makes me impatient. I never count laps: that makes me rush. Round and round the […]

Categories
What I read

Monthly Review: April 2023

A month of endings and beginnings.

Categories
What I read

Monthly Review: March 2023

An eventful month. Also got a bit of reading and writing done.

Categories
Flash story

Dusk

Flash story set in Company Garden, Allahabad

Categories
Film review What I read

Monthly Review: February 2023

A slowish month. Problems to fix. But got a couple of new experiences.

Categories
Book Excerpts & Overview Book review

The Sublime (Cambridge Elements series on The Philosophy of Kant) (2018) (Melissa M. Merritt)

NOTE: This is mostly a summary, not a review.. I’m trying to resume reading nonfiction occasionally to keep sharp. *** Major theorists mentioned, besides Kant: John Balliie, a physician who wrote an essay about aesthetics; Alexander Baumgarten; Edmunde Burke; Joseph Addison; Seneca; Longinus. The sublime is a perspective of nature whose contemplation inspires the human mind […]

Categories
Microstory

Afterwards

When you get what you want…

Categories
Book review

The Andromeda Strain (1969)

An exciting premise, with clear and detailed accounts of (what was then) cutting-edge science, but the action lags, and ultimately everything in the novel feels pointless.

Categories
Microstory

DIY

Image credit Bottomless masala chai with flaked almonds kept the grownups warm. We ran around playing Lock-and-Key. Dinner was at twilight: slow-cooked mustard greens, butter chicken, paranthas swimming in ghee, and daal so thick the ladle chopped it up like a mountainside. In winter in Ropar, we dined in our coats. The steam from the […]

Categories
Book review Film review What I read

Monthly Review: January 2023

What I read and wrote and published and how I fared

Categories
Short story

Night

Dark short story published in The Dalhousie Review (Summer 2022)

Categories
Flash story

The Revolutionaries

Alternative history. If the political-historical relations of two nations were reversed, would the characters of the nation’s peoples be reversed too?

Categories
Short story

Re:Birth

A grieving mother has shut herself away from the world. Can she rediscover love and life?

Categories
Short story

Courage Anniversary

Astrid has a dream. Pleo likes dreamers. What could go wrong? In this story written in 2020 I dip my toes back into magic realism.

Categories
What I read

What I Read, Wrote, and Published in 2022

Read a lot, but not enough. Several unfinished WIPs. A fair number of publications, including in four good magazines . Attended my first writing workshop online; it was fruitful. Joined the volunteer staff of two lit mags. Grew my circle of critique partners. Spent most of the year working on short fiction, a new experience for me. Discovered several authors I plan to read more of, and revisited some old favourites.

Categories
Film review

Avatar 2: The Way of Water (2022). James Cameron

Visually resplendent, and laudable for its environmental messaging, this film suffers from an underdeveloped story, incoherent editing, flat characters, and a resolution that resolves nothing. “Humans = bad, greed = bad, and living with nature = good.” I guess that’s a message we can all stand to be reminded of, but I do wish the packaging were more artful.

Categories
Film review

Knives Out 2: Glass Onion (2022). Rian Johnson

An entertaining and neatly-fitting little puzzlebox, much like the one in the opening sequence.

Categories
What I read

Monthly Review: December 2022

A slow month for reading and writing. Stocktaking underway. Working on revisions of a few longer stories.

Categories
Short story

Retreat

It’s easy to chafe against your privilege, to resent it as constricting. But what happens when a tiny incident shows you the extent to which your privilege protects you from life’s tooth and claw?

Categories
Microstory

Sunday Afternoon

Or: What is it Like to be a Housewife?

Categories
Flash story

Backsides

A funny flash story.

Categories
What I read

Monthly Review: November 2022

A slowish month.

Categories
Advice on Writing Personal Essay

Take Your Time: Let the Wine Mature

Short essay on craft.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Doll

100-word story.

Categories
What I read

Monthly Review: October 2022

An English Hollywood actor’s autobiography, my first Cormac McCarthy and J. M. Coetzee, a study of my favourite novelist, and some Bertie & Wooster to round things off.

Categories
Artists & Scientists

Giveaway: *Sandman*

Answer a simple question for a chance to win a hard copy of *Sandman.*

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Interview

Interview with David W. Berner on *Sandman*

Last Sunday I reviewed Berner’s 2022 novella *Sandman,* a novella that uses golf as a metaphor. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with David about the book, his experience with the sport, and the writing life.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Flash story

The Hours

“The Hours” explores deracination via the protagonist’s skewed time perception. How do you tell time when you’re insulated in a climate-and-lighting-controlled environment, doing the same desk work day after day, isolated from the weather, the changing seasons, and the life rhythms of the people on the street? Having realised you’re alienated, which way do you go — back to life, or deeper into the belly of the beast?

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sandman (2022). David W. Berner

Full of humour and vivid natural scenes, colourful characters and introspective passages, Sandman is many things: a coming-of-age tale, a mystery, and a meditation on golf as a metaphor for life.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review Film review

Monthly Review: September 2022 (Almost No Memory; The Sound and the Fury)

Full-length book reviews: Lydia Davis’s short story collection *Almost No Memory*; Faulker’s *The Sound & the Fury*; began reading *godel Escher Bach* and abandoned it; short reviews of some films I watched in recent months including *American Beauty* and *Sleepy Hollow.* Wrote a fair bit, including rewrites and microstories.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Film review

Film reviews: Rewatching My Favourite Television Show & Movie (Breaking Bad and LOTR)

Over the last few weeks I’ve rewatched *Breaking Bad* and *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy. Here’s what I thought of them.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review

Monthly Review: August 2022 (Out of Sheer Rage; Circe; Coral Glynn)

What I Read: Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of DH Lawrence (Geoff Dyer, 1997): The narrator is trying to write a book about DH Lawrence, but keeps getting sidetracked: by trips to Greek islands where everything is dull but the traffic, the unpredictable unavailability of cornetti at his favourite café in Rome, his […]

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Short story

Mothers and Sons

The lives of two women & their sons intersect against a background of violence & secrecy. Do we feel less able to hurt someone when we realise they’re already hurting?

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Microstory

One Day

A set of ten loosely linked microstories set in Allahabad. Tales of ambition, grind, love, loneliness, & social conflict.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review

Monthly Review: July 2022 (The Red & the Black; A Swim in the Pond in the Rain)

Read: Stendhal & George Saunders. Wrote: a fair bit of short fiction. Fared: energetic, optimistic, & focussed, bordering on manic territory.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Novellas & Novelettes

To Decide or Not to Decide

Ganesh is trapped at home in Bangalore w/ Achal, his wife from an arranged marriage. Covid has brought Ganesh unexpected new opportunities. The life he’s living feels suffocating, & he now has the chance to escape from it to pursue the dreams he had as a child. Will Ganesh seize the day, or keep writhing in the grip of decision paralysis?

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review

Monthly Review: June 2022 (City of Victory; The Wind in the Willows; The Psychology of Money; White Noise)

What I read, wrote, & published, & how I fared.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Short story

Last Day of Freedom

Forty-year-old Elef enjoys his last day of freedom before heading to prison. He catches up with Clive and accompanies him on his errands. Elef contemplates the crimes that have condemned him to prison for the rest of his life.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Flash story

Waiting

A new couple drive up a mountain to enjoy a day together, but they’re both waiting for something.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review What I read

Monthly Review: May 2022 (Pulp; Post Office; Macbeth; Much Ado About Nothing; some short fiction)

Bukowski & Shakespeare. Some writing; some publications. Another depressive episode, followed by introspection & course correction (ongoing).

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Novellas & Novelettes

At Play

A young girl spends a summer back home in Calcutta in the 1990s. She makes a new friend. Both girls face crises and contemplate the future of their friendship.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Microstory

Highway

A 100-word story.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
What I read

What I Read, Wrote, & Published: April 2022 (Kafka’s Letter to my Father; Tropic of Cancer; Ordinary People; The Lost World; The Poison Belt; Black Beauty)

What I Read: Kafka’s Letter to My Father. Finished Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Judith Guest’s Ordinary People. Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (reread after primary school) & The Poison Belt. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Needed a light read, and I’d never read this. This is super-light, touching when it’s not preachy, not a story […]

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

Categories
Book review Personal Essay What I read

What I Read, Wrote, & Published: March 2022 (Treasure Island; Blink; Anthony & Cleopatra; The Lesson; some short fiction)

Lots of stuff.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.