And now has it begun? Have we yet moved from roman numeral pages to arabic numeral pages? Can we call him Ishmael yet? No. We cannot. What follows the etymologies of "whale" is “Extracts (Supplied by a Sub-sub-librarian).” Melville's made up this “poor devil of a sub-sub” to frame a

I started Moby-Dick or, The Whale probably ten years ago. I can see it sitting in our Vancouver housing co-op on the very cheapest available Ikea bedside table that we painted blue in Kitchener the same time we painted the Sally Ann dresser whose knobs have now been replaced with

Last year I got to do the Vancouver Island leg of the BC Book Prize tour (with the delightful Alan Woo, whose book Maggie's Chopsticks won best picture book! yay, Alan!). What made it so amazing were the people we met — teachers and students and booksellers and readers. In

The sparking Jean Manky over at Event mag interviewed me a little while ago.

I was right about here on the Okanagan Connector this morning, listening to the news and thinking, "Wow, I'm getting radio reception a lot further than usual," when they announced Alice Munro had won the Nobel Prize. Glee suffused me. Delight and a sense of rightness. I laughed out loud.