What is a literary festival? Imagine a sort of cross between school and church. There are no actual festivities; what there are is a lot of public readings.
All coffee shops now have WiFi. Why bring a book when you could be wittily attacking some idiot columnist on Twitter, or responding to your date requests, or posting a picture of your foot? All of that is more gripping and immediate and social than books.
Verisimilitude is something I am constantly seeking in fiction. I am looking for surface detail that makes something seem real.
Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a generally sophisticated atmosphere.
Periods of nostalgia are impossible to predict or explain.
Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end; there must be a sense of magic created about the most restrained of naturalism.
Sadly, I don't really believe in the idea of timeless fashion. It's an oxymoron. If 'classic fashion' really never changed, we'd all still be wearing togas.
Anything that encourages a boy to open a book, in a world of more violent and therefore more compelling video games, is something I'm going to pay for.
Men over 60 often think that if they wear athletic shoes - soft-soled referee shoes or hiking shoes or actual running shoes - then they will look more youthful. The contrary is true.
Guys think that the military associations of camo are going to make them look tough, as if they might just break out a shotgun and take down a passing duck at any given moment. I'm not so sure.
If people didn't read books on the subway, underground journeys would be dreary.
Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second Cup.
Wear your clothes with abandon, I say; don't keep them pristine as if for museums: They are meant to wear out. Then you get to buy new ones.
I don't see my artist friends as any more neurotic or addiction-prone than the others. The roommates I have had who were into triathlons or environmentalism were just as crazy as the poets, just as prone to tears over gardening or air conditioners, just as ready to kite a cheque or binge on cookie dough.
The only thing that makes a book YA is that it is about teenagers, and it is written in a very conventional, non-artsy, non-pretentious way. YA is not the place for the oblique or the cryptic. If it is in any way experimental in form, it is not YA.
Yes, the hunky barista looks even more terrifically masculine with three days' growth on his chin. Guys under 50 mostly do. But when your beard is partly or largely grey, that stubble can just look a little unwashed. Sadly, when you're over 50, different rules apply.
A song is a short composition for voice and instruments. It is a piece of sung poetry set to music. It is usually only a few minutes long.
Calls for the simplification of abstract or allusive art have always come from governments suspicious of artists themselves. This is why totalitarian regimes have always legislated some form of realism.
An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign.
Universities can teach maturity. They can teach teenagers how to be adults, and that means to function outside a clique or a tribe.
