Thanks to poet Rob Macaisa Colgate on @davidnaimon.bsky.social's Between the Covers podcast, I now refer to my bed during the day as my "soft office." #freelancewritinglife

I've seen several people refer to AI-resisters as having their heads in the sand over the last few days. But resisting doesn't mean the same thing as ignoring something. On the contrary, resisting means engaging with research, parsing information, offering critique, and making informed choices.

Cover reveal for my third book of poetry, SUBLUNARY, forthcoming with @ualbertapress.bsky.social in Spring 2026! Cover art by the brilliant @runaikeda.bsky.social. The book is now available for pre-order through independent bookstores across North America.

RIP Fanny Howe, whose idea of bewilderment "as a poetics and an ethics" was transformational for me.

@aaronkreuter.bsky.social's new novel is going to be my treat to myself at the end of the month after my MFA thesis defence.

Such #poetry splendour and warmth radiated by @amandaearl.bsky.social, @margolapierre.bsky.social, @lisarichter.bsky.social and Chuqiao Yang - thank you thank you thank you! Ambling off into the rest of my afternoon happy and aglow ...!

Our April newsletter drops tomorrow! Make sure you're subscribed so it hits your inbox first:

Speakeasy Reading Series is back April 16th, the last of the school year! Featuring the amazing @phillipdwightmorgan @clairegeddesbailey @spondeee.bsky.social & Speakeasy’s very own Chi Leung Lee. Join in person or watch the live-stream on Zoom, 7:00 pm Eastern. ALL are welcome!

Fellow writers, what do you wish you had known at the start of your writing journey/career? I'm looking for advice to pass along to my students who are young emerging writers of multiple genres.

Part 3 of My Adventures in Book Publicity - Book Tours "Launching a book into the world is a mind fuck. It’s exciting but often devastating and can be humiliating."

Shame.

I'm trying to figure out how to curate my newsfeed; I want more Canadian poets and literary content, but all I seem to be seeing is news-related posts. Any suggestions?

A friend of mine just shared "Have you had water yet today?" as an alternative to "How are you," or way of checking in. It reminded me of something similar one of my Korean ESL students once told me, "Have you eaten yet?" as a casual way of asking how someone is. These seem so much more meaningful!

BIG NEWS! I am thrilled to announce that my third book of poetry will be coming out in Spring 2026 with @ualbertapress.bsky.social!!! Stay tuned for title announcement and more info about this strange, vulnerable, surrealist book that my heart has been invested in for the last five years.

The new Questlove doc "SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)" about Sly and the Family Stone is itself a feat of Black Genius (as was Summer of Soul, the incredible film that introduced me to Questlove). Highly recommended.

Essential info if you're in Ontario. Please get out and vote today.

Happy to have three poems in Speech Dries Here on the Tongue, an anthology of poetry by Canadian authors exploring the relationship between environmental collapse and mental health. Edited by Hollay Ghadery, Rasiqra Revulva, and Amanda Shankland.

There are so many questions I wish I'd asked my dad while he was still alive. Ditto for my grandparents. Now I ask my mom the questions that fill in the gaps in my childhood and questions about hers whenever I can. If there's anything you've ever wanted to ask your elders, now is the time.

Never not disgusted by the way educational institutions use the language of disability and accessibility to justify their increased use of predatory AI. Apparently, instructors have no right to guard their IP against companies like Amazon, our lectures used to train the tech that will replace us.

Autocorrect typo of the day: from "poetry jurors" to "poetry churros." Poetry churros sound delicious, I think my Gmail autocorrect may be onto something.

So grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Writers Union of Canada for the Public Lending Rights program, which pays authors for having books in public libraries. Happy annual PLR Payment Time to all those who celebrate!

YOUR REMINDER THAT THE HANDMAID’S TALE DEPICTED ENTIRELY THINGS THAT WERE ALREADY DONE TO GLOBAL MAJORITY WOMEN The novelty was just that they were being done to white women please, it’s not some startling new ground being broken ok

RIP Tom Robbins, whose novels I devoured as a teenager and 20something. They were beautiful and meditative and hilarious and strange. I fell in love with his goofy, wise, rebellious characters with names like Bonanza Jellybean and Marx Marvellous. I hope he's partying in the afterlife somewhere.

It blows my mind that the same generation that can’t get pronouns also frequently took their kids to see Rocky Horror.

I have a new essay, a close reading of Catherine Barnett's shamelessly hopeful poem, "O Esperanza!", up on The Woodlot, @chrisbanks6625.bsky.social's excellent online journal of Canadian poetry reviews and essays. the-wood-lot.ca/2025/01/30/a...

Scrivener is accepting submissions to our return issue, no. 46. The call lasts till February 19. Send everything excellent. #callforsubmissions

So nice to see The Scrivener Creative Review @scrivener1980.bsky.social back in action! These lines from my elegy to George Harrison were from one of my earliest published poems, which appeared in a revised form in my first book many years later. Thanks, Scrivener!

I'm a bit late to the party, but I just watched the new Beetlejuice movie, and it was just as silly and campy as I needed it to be, pretty much peak Tim Burton. Coincidentally (?) after watching it, FB showed me an ad for Nine Inch Nails doing a show in Toronto? Now I have no idea what decade it is.

Around the time of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I attended a ceremony where we wrote down and burned something we wanted to release, then set new intentions for the coming year. The intention I set was to be BRAVE AND FOCUSED. This week, this feels harder yet more important than ever.

Don't let Elon Musk interfere in our elections. Here is my letter to Elections Canada to protect our electoral process from interference by the X algorithm. www.charlieangus.ca/_files/ugd/5... If you are worried about Musk's extremism please send an email to: [email protected]

#SageHillWriting announced their 2025 Spring Poetry Colloquium with Métis poet Marilyn Dumont this year! I did this retreat in 2019 and it was a huge game-changer for me as a poet. Highly recommended! sagehillwriting.ca/writing-retr...

Having a hard time knowing what to say here (considering I rarely used Twitter), so maybe I'll try a different approach. What would you like to know about me? Or hear my thoughts on?

Hero.

Weird that we have to say this, but the government doesn’t get to decide what gender a person is.

For those of you who work with literary mags in Canada, this is for you!

yup

Tenured academics: start printing out materials on LGBTQ history and trans literatures/studies, because conservative governments are definitely going to censor this writing, and queer and trans youth need access to it. We need to build our own print libraries and archives.

I start most days at like 4 a.m. with two toddlers and a poetry podcast. Today David Naimon and Cecilia Vicuña were talking about whale songs, David played a clip of one, toddlers loved it way too much, we've been listening to whale songs for hours. Which is maybe the ideal outcome of a Vicuña poem?

I think fellow Gen X women might appreciate this. Me, trying to explain V.C. Andrews novels to a Gen Z friend: "I guess you could say they were creepy gothic horror?" "Oooh..." "...with a lot of incest." "Oh." Follow-up question: "And you read these books when you were THIRTEEN??!"

I feel sick reading that - this is a frank admission that removing the bike lanes will result in deaths and injuries. And they want to prevent anyone from pressing charges against murderous outcomes of their bill - how can this even be legal?

The devastation and harm that Ford's government is wreaking on our province - and the city of Toronto - is astounding. They KNOW these decisions will cost cyclists' lives which is why they're scrambling to preempt accountability. Proud of my MPP Jessica Bell for fighting the good fight.

On my "can't wait to listen to" list.

I just can't with the world today. Somebody tell me something joyous or hopeful.

I want to talk about my trans son, the other trans people I know and love, and the need to fight for their rights. But I keep just circling back to this more basic statement:

At the same event, Saeed Teebi appears to make reference to Anne Michaels' Giller acceptance speech. “The dead can never read our words and they certainly don’t care what measure of redemption we feel at having solemnly witnessed them while failing to stop it over and over." x.com/cassidymcfad...

Watching the #WritersTrust awards tonight was like a balm to my soul. Madeleine Thien's speech especially moved me to tears. She is donating all of her prize money: to the Woodcock Fund, supporting Canadian writers in need; to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, and to the Lebanese Red Cross. 💜

A gentle reminder before I fuck off to eat breakfast: The push to replace artists with AI is a fascist push. The devaluing of arts and humanities in favor of engineering and computers is a fascist push. Students being unable to read a book is, yep, a fascist push.

Writers who teach: do you call yourselves teachers, educators, teaching artists, professors, instructors, other, and why? (silly answers also accepted).

So far, I haven't found a starter pack of writers of hybrid form/mixed-genre, e.g. hybrid memoir, prose poetry, lyric essay, collage, autofiction, etc. I'd love to connect with other writers/authors whose work fits this description. Please share your favourites and/or your own hybrid books/work!