Posts Tagged ‘Celtic Lightning’
Let’s take back Arctic history in Scotland
Faithful readers (hi, mom!) will recognize this image of Abbotsford from my book Celtic Lightning. The historical novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) created this castle-like residence, now a museum, 40 miles south of Edinburgh in the Scottish Borders. Sheena shot the photo a few years ago, when last we visited. End of March, I have…
Read More‘Obscure’ Canadian writer declines to don kilt for CTV appearance
Ken McGoogan, identified recently by the BBC as an “obscure Canadian writer,” has declined to don his kilt to appear on CTV’s Your Morning show. McGoogan, who recently caused an international ruckus by suggesting that Canada invite Scotland to become this country’s 11th province, was quick to add that nobody at the flagship TV show…
Read MoreLet’s invite Scotland to join Canada
Let’s invite Scotland to join Canada. The time to act is now. The Scots aren’t happy with the Rest of Britain. They aren’t happy politically with Britain’s shift to the right. They aren’t happy with Brexit, and with being piped out of a multinational alliance they don’t wish to leave. The Scots want to hold…
Read MoreA Real Canadian can pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day
Gotta love a column by Peter Shawn Taylor that turned up today in the Waterloo Region Record — one week in advance of St. Patrick’s Day. Faithful readers will appreciate that I am a man without bias, ahem, but I do believe Taylor hits his stride when he invokes Celtic Lightning and, all right, paraphrases…
Read MoreAlmost incredibly, against all the odds, despite the forces arrayed against him, and in the face of conspiratorial resistance (you know who you are), Our Hero fights on!
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Read MoreJohn A. Macdonald made mistakes . . . because he had lost Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Again this morning, on CBC radio, we heard the now familiar attack on John A. Macdonald: how in building the Canadian Pacific Railway, and not incidentally laying the foundations of Canada, Macdonald mistreated the native peoples. There is no disputing the allegation. But I would suggest, and do so in Celtic Lightning, that this was…
Read MoreHaven’t we forgotten the French? In Celtic Lightning?
The question is fair enough. In writing Celtic Lightning, and exploring the origins of Canadian nationhood, did I neglect a crucial element? Given that I am one-quarter Quebecois, with pur laine roots stretching back to the early 1600s, I could hardly forget Canada’s French Fact. But I also view myself as a realist. And I…
Read MoreCeltic Lightning strikes: ‘engaging, readable, entertaining, overdue’
Reviews turn up in Toronto, Glasgow, Winnipeg, & Victoria . . . The Globe and Mail: “Celtic Lightning is engagingly personal. We follow McGoogan and his wife as they travel enthusiastically throughout Scotland and Ireland, from Grace O’Malley’s Connemara and Jonathan Swift’s Dublin to the Dumfries of Robert Burns, and even to the St. Andrews…
Read MoreSeeking unsolicited advice? ‘Don’t quit your day job’
Meanwhile, at University of Toronto . . . . Creative Writing, School Blog With his latest book, Celtic Lightning: How the Scots and the Irish Created a Canadian Nation, author (and instructor at the School) Ken McGoogan plunges into the perpetual debate about Canadian identity: Who do we think we are? He argues that the Celtic ancestors…
Read MoreOur Hero battles federal election AND the world’s indifference
Here we see Our Hero atop Spy Hill in Westport, Ontario. This is the morning after he had wonderful fun participating in the Westport Writers’ Festival. Our Guy looks to be leading a charge. Truth to tell, he sees himself as engaged in a two-front war. The first front is the usual one any writer…
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