Using the Methods of Journalists from the Past to Inspire Your Writing Today
My dad told me that his step-father, Robert Matsyk, was a news editor at the Winnipeg Free Press decades ago. He's proud of me for getting into this line of work—for sinking my teeth into literary journalism. For the fact I'm writing good work that people read.
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Accessibility, Gatekeeping, and Who Gets to be Published
To be honest, I'm not someone who cares for traditional publishing. Maybe it's a fear of rejection, maybe it's my anti-authoritarian streak. Regardless, I'm not somebody proudly within the CanLit landscape or on any CBCReads list.
Why You (yes, you) Should Join Medium, Tumblr, and NeoCities.
Let's be honest. You're probably reading this for free right now, and that's the problem. 'Free' trained us to scroll past everything that matters. The attention economy has taught you that, outside of streaming services, nothing is worth paying for.
Ordinary people chose to do the right thing and saved us all. We barely remember them.
History freezes in strange places. Not in decorated marble halls, or on blood-spilled battlefields mapped by generals. History is truly only created in bunkers that smell of sweat and fear, in submarines where the air runs thick as soup.
The forgotten past of Medium's most successful writer.
There's a particular species of internet creature which fascinates me. Not the obvious grifters, those are boring, predictable, easy to spot. No, I'm talking about the shapeshifters. The ones who appear at the crest of each wave positioned tactfully and tactically, speaking the language fluently, building the infrastructure.
Did you know it's actually better than driving?
One of my earliest memories is riding the Winnipeg Transit bus with my Mom, before I'd even started pre-school. We'd go on what I understood only as 'adventures.' Though looking back, we were probably just running errands, maybe visiting the Munro Public Library.
But You Must Allow Yourself to Be Annoyed and Practice the Radical Work of Staying
In my quiet wooden study, I've been staring at my chipped black-painted nails, trying to process the latest news. The cloudy blue-green lava lamp I resurrected from a thrift store two years ago bubbles beside me. Hermanos, a vivid ceramic red skull, watches.
On the downfall of NaNoWriMo, democracy as creative practice, the bread we bake, and waking up.
Soft humming of the radiator is all I hear as the fire glow of sunrise bleeds through the window. I'm awake too early to write this. Eating Mediterranean crackers between paragraphs. Lighting the vanilla incense from the Tibetan shop in Inglewood.
 (edited by the author)](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*CR9re0QrEQ2Cus6P__KliQ.png)
The Necessary, Complicated Legacy of Canada's Best-selling Poet
What is a poet allowed to be? For much of the modern era, the answer has been dictated by a familiar archetype. The solitary genius, often obscure and always allusive, their poetry a fortress guarded by the gatekeepers of academia.
When a Generation Stops Pretending to Dream of Labour
Windows at Element Cafe fog with steam and breath. There's the ambient noise of me and twenty other people who should be at work. 2:47pm on a Tuesday afternoon in Calgary. Everyone locked into a staring contest with laptop screens, performing the theatre of productivity.