Before I get completely submerged under the ripe tomatoes, ditto the grapes and the five-gallon pail of apples, plus the story I’m writing, I want to say something about last week.
I spent it at the Banff Centre in an intensive focus on short fiction led by Alexander MacLeod, literature professor and author of the Giller short-listed collection Light Lifting. I’ve never taken a writing retreat or week-long writing course, so I’m still feeling like a girl on her first trip to Disney. It’s a bit of a wonderful bubble one goes into, for sure. But the Disney analogy ends now: there’s nothing Minnie Mouse about carefully, brutally workshopping others’ writing (that is, learning to read), or being workshopped just as carefully and brutally. We all knew, of course, and tried to remember, this was where the benefit (a.k.a love) lay. Continue reading
He was born to a German-speaking Mennonite family in Siberia in 1917 and named Hans. As the changes wrought by the Russian and then Stalinism penetrated his community, he became Ivan. He served in the Red Army during World War II. When captured by the Germans, he was recognized as German and naturalized as a German. Now his name was Johann and he joined Hitler’s Army, serving on that side until he was captured. After release from an American POW camp, he applied to emigrate to Canada. It was a long, difficult process, but he and his bride Margaretha eventually got permission. In Canada, he became John. 
Borrowing Bones 