As a longtime reader, I haven’t always put that much thought into how books are made and published. I don’t mean the mechanics of writing books – someone magically comes up with an idea and has the willpower to write down all 50,000-200,000 words (which basically sounds like science fiction to me). I mean beyond that. How does a book get published, and how does it get promoted? How does the bestseller list work? How does a book go viral and become the book that everyone wants to read that year? And, as we continue to have vital discussions about racism in society – how does systemic racism interfere with Black, Indigenous, and other racialized authors’ success in the publishing world? Continue reading →

After a long day of staring at my screen and working, I usually like to wind down by staring at my screen for a bit longer and watch something mindless, or something I’ve already seen before. And based on the viral craze around anything new that’s posted to Netflix, I’m not alone in my binge-watching bringing me comfort. But what do you do once your comfort show is done? Start over again? Wait a year or two for another season? With everything that’s going on right now, I’m definitely in need of some instant gratification and something to entertain me right away. Continue reading →

Schitt’s Creek, the perfect pandemic binge-watching show has just ended, and the final season brought me so much more joy than seems possible during this time. I’ve been watching Schitt’s Creek from the first season, and seeing the way the main characters and the community have grown and evolved has been so gratifying – a real panacea to all the bad news that seems to be a constant presence in our daily lives in 2020.

If you haven’t seen the television show Schitt’s Creek, let me briefly explain why I think it is worthy of a blog post. Created by father and son duo Dan and Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek is about the Rose family, a rich, socialite family that goes bankrupt and has to turn to the only asset that wasn’t seized – a town called Schitt’s Creek (which I always assume is somewhere in Ontario but is never explicitly stated), purchased by one of the family members as a gag gift. Continue reading →