Derelict shed in alleyway behind Brooklyn Avenue, Leslieville
It was time for a new look.
Cursive Mechanics will be four years old later this year, and it was beginning to show its age. It wasn’t a derelict space by any means, but it did need updating to reflect the content evolution that has taken place since the first post ...
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Detail of sandwich board at Lil’ Baci restaurant, Leslieville
Food writing! It only took me 36 years to figure this one out.
When I answered a “food writers wanted” post a few weeks ago, put out by a new blog dedicated to food and drink in Canada, I could only hope that I would be making the following announcement. But here ...
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“All U Can Eat” photograph, Nuit Blanche 2007
Today is this blog’s anniversary and I’m going to level with you: the second year of blogging has been a tough one. Cursive Mechanics has just gone through the Terrible Twos.
Never mind that my output in year two was well behind CM’s inaugural year; life gets in the way of one’s extracurricular ...
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Reeds, High Park
By the time mid-September rolls around, Michael and I will have gone three summers without camping. When we lived in Montréal, where back-country canoeing was a scant two hours away and all parks operated on a first-come-first-served basis rather than a reservations system, we disappeared into the wilderness at least twice a summer. One of our favourite spots was ...
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Rouge Hill GO train platform sign swathed in morning haze
Dear Journal,
I have a confession to make: I’m having a hard time adjusting to a writing life without Lake Watch. You know better than anyone how Lake Watch miraculously focused years — so many years — of scattered effort. For those who aspire to write, regular practice is essential. Novels, ...
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Snow day in Riverdale Park
I went for a walk in the snow after work today. All day I had watched it fall from the sky, steadily and heavily, undeterred. As I cut a new path through Riverdale Park, pulling my knees up high after sinking midcalf into the white blanket, I looked around at the the city’s clean glow and the ...
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Altocumulus stratiformis undulatus over the Toronto skyline
It arrived! Lunchtime on this work-at-home Monday was permeated with a giddy excitement thanks to delivery of the morning mail. Awaiting me in a small, stiff brown envelope with a London, England, postmark and “Please do not bend” stamped in red was my membership certificate and badge for the Cloud Appreciation Society, an ...
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Riverside Books storefront, Queen Street East
Lately, I have been wondering about my voice, my writing voice. Do I have one? If not, do I need one? If I do, what it is like? Do these blog posts capture it? Does it suit me? Is it still developing? Will it change? Can I shape it? Does having a unique “voice” even matter? ...
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Dream Site Sign, High Park
Cursive Mechanics was born in the parking lot of the Port Credit GO Station.
The desire to work creatively in a medium completely unrelated to my career as a development editor at an educational publisher had been gestating for some time. So too had a longing to discover moments of joy in what had otherwise come to feel ...
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