Posts tagged “Canadian”

The Overlap Blog launches

The Overlap Blog has launched, hoping to start a bit of dialog in advance of the event.

I found inspiration in this quote from the introduction to Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers by Shyam Selvadurai

“What kind of writer do you consider yourself to be? Are you a Canadian writer or a Sri Lankan writer?”

It is perplexing, this matter of cultural identity, and I am tempted, like some other writers of multiple identities, to reply grumpily, “I’m just a bloody writer. Period.”

Yet this response would be disingenuous. I suppose I could answer, “Sri Lankan-Canadian writer,” or “Canadian-Sri-Lankan writer.” But this also does not get to the heart of what i consider my identity to be as a writer (and we are talking of my writing identity here). For in terms of being a writer, my creativity comes not from “Sri Lankan” or “Canadian” but precisely from the space between, that marvelous open space represented by the hyphen, in which the two parts of my identity jostle and rub up against each other like tectonic plates, pushing upwards the eruption that is my work. It is from this space between that the novels come.

Eating Timbits in Afghanistan


Tracing the roots of a Canadian icon

Wendy’s International Inc. is expected to spin -off a 15-per-cent stake in Tim Hortons this week, and curious observers are watching to see how many of the shares will land in Canadian hands.

The stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange, but the vast bulk of Tim Hortons’s coffee sales still occur north of the border, where the chain has strong roots.

Tim Hortons now has about 2,597 outlets north of the border and 288 in the U.S.

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan cheered when they learned that Tim Hortons is opening an outlet in Kandahar.

Hmm. Eating Timbits in Afghanistan? A new book idea!

National Post

According to a study of national personalities

which found that this time-honoured perception of our oh-so-unique Canadian psyche — and other cultures’ stereotypes of themselves — are in fact just so much hooey.

‘These stereotypes are as Canadians see themselves and Americans as they see themselves,’ said Robert McCrae of the U.S. National Institute on Aging, a principal investigator of the study on national personalities around the world.

‘Canadians think they’re extremely agreeable; the Americans think they’re very disagreeable,’ he said. ‘Canadians believe that they’re very calm and not irritable, very even-tempered, whereas Americans think they’re more anxious and hostile.

‘The fact is Canadians and Americans have almost identical average personality traits.’

In a measure of five main areas of personality, covering a total of 30 traits, Canadians and their U.S. cousins fell roughly in the middle. Not only that, but they weren’t all that different from other cultures around the globe, researchers found.

The study, published in the latest issue of Science, collected data through personality questionnaires given to thousands of people living in 49 countries.

Obit for Scott Young

From Canadian Press

Peterborough, Ont. Canadian journalist and author Scott Young has died at the age of 87. Mr. Young, father of pop music icon Neil Young, died Sunday in Kingston, Ont.

He travelled the world covering the Second World War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and nearly every major sporting event in North America.

“He was someone who preferred to be at home,” Margaret Hogan, his wife of 25 years, said Monday from Kingston.

Mr. Young began his journalism career as a sports reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. He moved to The Canadian Press in Toronto at the age of 23 after the paper refused to give him a raise. Mr. Young told CP in 1994 that Free Press managing editor George Ferguson told him, “You will never be worth more than $25 a week to the Winnipeg Free Press.”

Mr. Young covered both news and sports for CP, and covered the Second World War from London. In 1957, Mr. Young joined The Globe and Mail as a sports columnist.

He covered Grey Cups, World Series, Stanley Cups, the Olympics and even appeared on Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts. Mr. Young also worked for Maclean’s magazine and the Toronto Telegram. He gave up newspapers in 1980.

Apart from his accomplished newspaper career, he also wrote 45 books. His novels and non-fiction work included The Flood, the two Arctic thrillers Murder in a Cold Climate and The Shaman’s Knife, and 1984’s Neil and Me, about his relationship with his famous rock ‘n’ roll son.

Ms. Hogan said her husband hadn’t written anything in years. Peterborough Mayor Sylvia Sutherland said Mr. Young, who owned a farm in nearby Cavan, left a void in the landscape of Canadian journalism.

“He was one of the outstanding journalists of his time,” she said. “He had an incisive intelligence. He knew how to get a good story. I love Scott. I miss him a lot, everybody will. He’s one of the great legends of Canadian journalism and it’s a loss to those of us who love journalism.”

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