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Writing non-fiction’s a bitch – a truth not universally acknowledged.

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What an interestingly inviting read on this mind muddled morning. Thanks! Coffee, Please?

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Mark Paterson

OCCUPY CHRISTMAS

Little Brother, Remember the Christmas?

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Short story

by Mark Paterson
25.12.2011

Remember the Christmas when you got into Mom’s purse? They caught you in the closet, lipsticks and keys and coins and tissues on the floor, encircling you like a wreath. You were building a little pyramid of pills, your fingers chalky with pink dust.

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BOOKS

Working Girl

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The Big Dream, by Rebecca Rosenblum, Biblioasis

by Mark Paterson
06.11.2011

Of the many charms that made Once, Rebecca Rosenblum’s 2008 debut, such an outstanding book, one of the best was the way the author wrote about jobs. From a fruit factory to a hotel laundry, from an IT department to a bookstore, Once was filled with genuine, vivid observations of the world of work, capturing both the loathing and the grudging affection for the things we do to pay the rent.

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BOOKS

True Gloom

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Something About the Animal, by Cathy Stonehouse, Biblioasis

by Mark Paterson
25.09.2011

The stories in Cathy Stonehouse’s debut collection depict life as a series of sad, violent, and sometimes insane acts. Fittingly, they are populated by sad, violent, and sometimes insane characters. This is not uplifting, syrupy beach reading. Something About the Animal is a dark, often unsettling book that remains true to its own gloomy fictional universe.

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BOOKS

Out of Nowhere

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Bats or Swallows, Invisible Publishing, by Teri Vlassopoulos

by Mark Paterson
08.05.2011

“I learned early on that things don’t come out of nowhere,” says the narrator in “Baby Teeth,” one of eleven stories in Teri Vlassopoulos’s Bats or Swallows. “There is always a buildup.”

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BOOKS

Delight, then Bite

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Up Up Up, by Julie Booker, House of Anansi Press

by Mark Paterson
21.03.2011

From soups to cocktails to Chicken McNugget sauce, sweet and sour is one of the world’s most popular and enduring flavours. I have a theory about why this is so. The key to sweet and sour’s success is in its ability to deceive. The first thing my palate detects is the sweet. In a flash, [...]

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BOOKS

Fine Young Pyromaniacs

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Krakow Melt, by Daniel Allen Cox, Arsenal Pulp Press

by Mark Paterson
25.10.2010

For somebody who writes with a sledgehammer, Daniel Allen Cox is pretty damned eloquent. The Montreal author’s second novel, Krakow Melt, is rampage on paper. But for a few distractions, it scorches its way through 151 pages and, like all good fires, leaves a smoldering afterglow.

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BOOKS

This Isn’t Your Father’s Canadian Notes & Queries

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Canadian Notes & Queries #79, The Short Story Issue, Biblioasis

by Mark Paterson
26.09.2010

With reports of the printed word’s imminent death arriving on a near daily basis, it is uplifting to see a magazine, rather than crumple before the seemingly inevitable, make a concerted effort to improve its physical package. With its 79th issue, Canadian Notes & Queries unveiled a smart redesign for which they entrusted the vision [...]

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