ESSAY: Pray for the Paintress: the life of Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524-1588) by Bob Foulkes * Editor’s note: since 2019 The Ormsby Review has hosted the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, home to many fine essays, memoirs, stories, and of course book reviews. We are delighted to have the GLS Journal under our roof and to…
Read more 1223 The painter & prioress of Florence
ESSAY: Why I love Lucy Maud by Carol Volkart * When I first met Lucy Maud Montgomery in her journals a few months ago, she was a sparkling flirt of 14 tumbling off sleds in winter snowbanks, losing her hat and laughing, laughing, laughing. When I said goodbye to her recently, she was an anguished…
Read more 1183 Why I love Lucy Maud
obittersweet: Life Lessons from Obituaries by Tamara Macpherson Vukusic Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781771615280 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * As a long-time reader of obituaries, I was delighted to receive a copy of Tamara Macpherson Vukusic’s collection of essays which is aptly titled obittersweet. Describing her Sunday morning ritual “with coffee in…
Read more 1177 Paint those final portraits
Big Reader; Essays by Susan Olding Calgary: Freehand Books, 2021 $22.95 / 9781988298818 Reviewed by Heather Graham * “When things go right, I read; when things go wrong, I read more.” Thus wrote Sara Nelson in So Many Books, So Little Time, published in 2004. Nelson’s witty observation about her own reading habits may not…
Read more 1143 Essays personal and impersonal
Letters from the Pandemic 32: Hidden in Plane Sight by Keith Shapland * In 1969 when I was seven, Robin Shapland, my father, a Boeing engineer, hid me in the trunk of our 1967 Impala so that he could sneak me past security at the gate and onto Boeing Field in Seattle so that we could…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 32: Hidden in Plane Sight
Here on the Coast: Reflections from the Rainbelt by Howard White Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $24.95 / 9781550179248 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Is this Howard White’s swan song? Probably not, but it would be a good one if it was. White has been an important player on the west coast literary scene…
Read more 1110 Cedar stumps and coastal rambles
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Two: Push and Pull: Tommy Norbury and Emigration by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 2 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the…
Read more 1104 The call of the Kootenay
ESSAY: The Militant Mothers: Civil Disobedience in Raymur Housing Project by Meg Stainsby * The 1971 actions of the “Militant Mothers of Raymur” was one of the first direct action campaigns in Vancouver history. The successful, swift campaign ran from early January through late March. It has been documented and celebrated in newspaper and radio…
Read more 1093 The militant mothers of Raymur
Surreal Surrebutter Rebutter Sandwich Spread by Ernest Hekkanen * Editor’s note: The archives of the New Orphic Review (NOR) are a popular part of The Ormsby Review website. Since 2018 all the back issues of NOR have been housed under our roof. Founded in 1998 by Ernest Hekkanen and Margrith Schraner, NOR was a semi-annual…
Read more 1078 Hekkanen’s Kootenay Surrealism
ESSAY: Remnants of Sumas Mountain by Natalie Lang For those who came before and those not yet arrived. * And forever before me gleams, The shining city of song, In the beautiful land of dreams. But when I would enter the gate Of that golden atmosphere, It is gone, and I wonder and wait For…
Read more 1071 Remnants of Sumas Mountain
ESSAY: Sacred Cows by Sheila O’Donoghue * At The Ormsby Review we are pleased to host Letters from the Pandemic: A 30th Anniversary Commemorative Public Writing Project of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program of Simon Fraser University. Since December 2020, we have uploaded 27 letters and essays described by program director Sasha Colby as “moving…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 27: Sacred Cows
ESSAY: Anne Carson: Ambiguity, Uncertainty, Ecstasy by Bob Foulkes * On an otherwise ordinary day in 1965, a precocious, eccentric fifteen year-old discovered a book in the sales bin of a Coles bookstore, a serious tome by Willis Barnstone on Sappho the famous ancient Greek poet. The book was bilingual — ancient Greek and English,…
Read more 1067 The uncertainty of Anne Carson
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 East Kootenay off-grid, old-style
ESSAY: Advanced Typography Workshops in Quarantine by Thomas Girard * In October 2020, Thomas Girard of the Graduate Liberal Studies programme at Simon Fraser University taught a course in Advanced Typography at a design school in Vancouver. Here, he provides a summary of that course with nods to the history — and ubiquity — of…
Read more Teaching typography in quarantine
ESSAY: Walking in the time of Corona by Nina Watts * It was a Friday morning in May and I had arranged to meet my friend on a street corner close to her home in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. We were planning an urban wander with no particular destination. As I walked west from…
Read more 1015 Letters from the Pandemic 18: Walking in the time of Corona
Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David by Max Wyman * This letter to his childhood friends in England by Max Wyman is one of a series of Letters from the Pandemic published in the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, hosted by The Ormsby Review. The entire series of letters can be seen here….
Read more #993 Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David
Great Expectations: Reflections on Museums and Canada by Jack Lohman Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2019 $14.95 / 9780772673039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “Isn’t it amazing that in 2019, Canadians are so passionate about the past?” In this era seen by some as haunted by a toxic past which must be erased as…
Read more #989 Passionate about the past
Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860336 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Kate Braid’s new memoir, Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman, provides glimpses of her life as a carpenter, primarily in the Lower Mainland, during the 1970s and 1980s. Through a series…
Read more #978 Crazy about lumber
A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott (editors) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780889777569 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Seldom has this reviewer encountered an essay collection that is so topical and as important as A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living…
Read more #977 Tips for the Anthropocene
On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia by Jean Barman, edited by Margery Fee Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $34.95 / 9781550178968 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space,…
Read more #973 Barman’s BC fundamentals