Bill Arnott’s Beat: World Poetry

I was making my way across town. Town being Vancouver, BC. We have to say that as there’s another one, a perfectly pleasant American one, its pleasantness being its proximity to Vancouver, BC. I was to be the guest on World Poetry Café, an unassuming FM radio program with a shockingly large listenership – one-hundred-thirty-three countries, at last count.

Bill Arnott’s Beat: Independents’ Day

Independent bookstores shouldn’t exist. Brick-and-mortar bibliophile havens are retail models waiting to be business school case studies, “Why These Can’t Work.” TV narcissi could bleat indefinitely as to why they’d never invest in such ventures. But they do exist. And despite every reason why they shouldn’t, they thrive.

A Philosopher, a Psychologist, and an Extraterrestrial Walk into a Chocolate Bar by Jass Richards

Spike, a psychologist and activist, and Jane, a philosopher and writer, leave their dead-end temp jobs in Toronto and head for Paris–on their lunch break–by car, stopping frequently to stock up on chocolate. Along the way, they meet X, a lost extraterrestrial.