Other writing

Essays and reviews

2024

“Menopause Is a Pretty Damn Fine Stage of Life,” The Walrus online (Oct. 17, 2024).

“Pilgrim at Taddle Creek,” The Literary Review of Canada (September 2024).

“On Having Given Up the Piano,” Queen’s Quarterly (Spring 2024).

“Teatime,” The Literary Review of Canada (Spring 2024).

“The Train of Thought,” The Dalhousie Review (Summer 2023).

2023

“Lichen,” Grain Vol. 50 no. 4 (Summer 2023).

“A Piece of Cake,” The Antigonish Review 213 (Spring-Summer, 2023).

“Guinea Pigs,” The Literary Review of Canada (Summer 2023).

“Finding the Form with Susan Glickman,” The New Quarterly online.

“Gargoyles,” The New Quarterly 166 (Spring 2023).

“Garden Is a Verb,” The Globe and Mail, March 16, 2023.

“Over There,” Canadian Notes and Queries 112 (Fall 2022/Winter 2023).

2022

“Right Lane Must Exist,” Queen’s Quarterly (Autumn 2022), 402-411.

“Pencils,” The Quarantine Review online.

“Sunflowers,”  WordCityLitJournal online (January 2022).

2021

“On Being a Jewish Canadian Woman Writer,” Religious Studies and Theology online (December 2021).

“The Dove Dove,” in WordCityLitJournal online (July 2021).

2019

“Finding the Form with Susan Glickman,” The New Quarterly online.

“A Few Thoughts about the Importance of Reviewing for the Practising Poet,” The New Quarterly  151 (Summer 2019).

2017

“An Infinity of Blues: Art as a Form of Attention,” On Writing #123, Ottawa Poetry Newsletter.

2016

“On Going to Art School in My Sixties,” The Walrus online (October 2024).

2015

Goodreads Blog

“Cauliflower & Taxidermy,” The Last Word, Quill and Quire, June 2015, 42.

“In My Opinion,” The Editors’ Weekly online (March 17).

“Artful Flight,” The Editors’ Weekly online (February 3).

2014

“What Does It Take to Start Freelancing?” The Editors’ Weekly online (April 9).

“Editing the First-Time Novelist,” The Editors’ Weekly online (January 28).

2011

“The Questionless Interview.” Open Book Toronto.

2009

“A Precise Woman,” in “How Poems Work,” Arc magazine online.

2008

“About My Purse,” Desk Space: Susan Glickman.

2005

“The Better Mother,” Maisonneuve (June-July 2005), 14-19.

Obituary for Sheldon Zitner, Books in Canada (June 2005), 34.

2004

“Found Money,” Maisonneuve (December 2004), 14; reprinted in Slice Me Some Truth: An Anthology of Canadian Creative Non-fiction, ed. Zoe Landale and Luanne Armstrong, Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2011.

“Why Does a Poet Start Writing Fiction?” Books in Canada (September 2004), 37-8.

2002

“My Life with Northrop Frye,” Books in Canada (September 2002), 39-40; rev. and rep. in A Giant in Time: An Anthology of Writings in Honour of Northrop Frye’s 100th Birthday, ed. Edward Lemond and Suzanne Cyrm. Fredericton: Ellipse, 2012.

1999

“The Violin in History,” Brick 63 (Fall 1999), 27.

1998

Review of Gary Geddes’s Active Trading: Selected Poems 1970-1995, The Journal of Canadian Poetry 13 (1998), 91-4.

1994

Review of Michael Ondaatje’s The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems, The Journal of Canadian Poetry 8 (1993), 85-91.

1991

Review of new editions of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Rising Village and Standish O’Grady’s The Emigrant, The University of Toronto Quarterly 61, #1 (Fall 1991), 152-5.

1990

Review of Peter Dale Scott’s Coming to Jakarta, The Journal of Canadian Poetry 5 (1990), 113-21.

“On the Line,” Poetry Canada Review 1, #13 (Fall 1990), 8-11.

“Praising ‘the form before form,’” Event 19, #3 (Fall 1990), 119-21. (Review of Patrick Lane’s Winter).

“A Note on Poetry,” Event 19, #1 (Spring 1990), 13-14.

“Distance and Desire: Two Versions,” Essays on Canadian Writing 40 (Winter 1990), 147-52. (Review of Don Coles’ K. in Love and David Solway’s Modern Marriage).

1989

Review of Paulette Jiles’s The Jesse James Poems, Canadian Literature 122-3 (Autumn-Winter 1989), 148-50.

“Dictionnaire des idées reçues au sujet de littérature Canadienne-anglaise,” Poetry Canada Review 10, #2 (Summer 1989), 23.

1988

“Second Person Impersonal,” Quarry 37, #4 (Autumn 1988), 77-86.

“The Ring and the Book: Fact and Fiction in Canadian Poetry,” Event 17, #3 (Summer 1988), 105-9.

Review of Ralph Gustaphson’s Winter Prophesies and Plummets and Other Partialities, Books in Canada (May 1988), 29-30.

1987

Review of Gwendolyn MacEwen’s Afterworlds, Books in Canada (June-July 1987), 26. Rpt. Contemporary Literary Criticism, Detroit: Gale, 1990.

Review of Nadine McInnis’s Shaking the Dreamland Tree and Lianne Heller’s Who’s to Say? Poetry Canada Review 8, #4 (Summer 1987).

Review of Diana Hartog’s Candy from Strangers, Poetry Canada Review 8, #2-3 (Spring 1987), 42-3.

1986

“On Finding Oneself in Mexico,” Brick 28 (Fall 1986), 47-9.

Review of Anne Szumigalski’s INSTAR, Poetry Canada Review 8, #1 (Fall 1986), 31-2.

Review of Miodrag Pavlovic’s A Voice Locked in Stone, Poetry Canada Review 7, #4 (Summer 1986), 36-7.

“Indirection: Truth to Life in Fiction,” Poetry Canada Review 7, #4 (Summer 1986), 28.  Rpt. in Open Windows: Canadian Short Short Stories, ed. Kent Thompson, Kingston: Quarry, 1988, 83.

1985

Review of Robyn Sarah’s Anyone Skating on that Middle Ground, Poetry Canada Review 7, #2 (Winter 1985-86), 38-9.

1981

“Seduction and Betrayal at the RestWay Motel: Kent Thompson’s Shacking Up,” Waves 9 (1981), 89-92.

Academic publications

1991

“The Waxing and Waning of Susanna Moodie’s Enthusiasm,” Canadian Literature 130 (Autumn 1991), 7-26. Rpt. Nineteenth Century Literary  Criticism 113, ed. Russ Whitaker, Detroit: Gale, 2002.

“Speaking in Tongues: The Poetry of Erin Mouré,” Essays on Canadian Writing 43 (Spring 1991), 133-43.

1990

“Canadian Prospects: ‘Abram’s Plains’ in Context,” The University of Toronto Quarterly 59:4 (Summer 1990), 498-515.

1989

“Roberts as an Editor: Shelley’s Adonais and Alastor,” Canadian Poetry 25 (Fall/Winter 1989), 56-62.

“Carman’s ‘Shelley’ and Roberts’ ‘Ave,’” Canadian Poetry 24 (Spring/Summer 1989), 20-8.

“Afterword” to Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie, revised New Canadian Library edition, gen. ed. David Staines, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989, 535-43.

1988

“Driving Home with John Newlove,” Essays on Canadian Writing 36 (Spring 1988), 95-109.

1987

“‘Proceeding Before the Amorous Invisible’: Phyllis Webb and the Ghazal,” Canadian Literature 115 (Winter, 1987), 48-65.

“‘All in War with Time’: The Poetry of Don Coles,” Essays on Canadian Writing 35 (Winter 1987), 156-70.

1986

“From ‘Philoctetes on the Island’ to ‘Tin Roof’: The Emerging Myth of Michael Ondaatje,” Spider Blues: Essays on Michael Ondaatje, ed. Sam Solecki, Montreal: Véhicule, 1976, 70-81.

1983

“The World as Will and Idea: A Comparative Study of An American Dream and Mr. Samler’s Planet,” Modern Fiction Studies 28 (1982-3), 569-82. Rpt. Saul Bellow in the 1980’s: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds. Gloria Cronin and L.H. Goldman, Ann Arbor: Michigan State University Press, 1989, 209-21.