Culture

Author, poet, and playwright Marie-Claire Blais died last week. One of Canada’s most celebrated writers, publisher Barry Callaghan called her “a writer like no other writer this country has produced.” La Presse published a moving tribute to her by author Dany Laferrière and letters from many readers about which of her books they loved best

More than twenty Indigenous authors will participate in the 10th annual Salon du livre des Premières Nations, including Michel Jean, Joséphine Bacon, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Yves Sioui Durand, Darrel J. McLeod, Jocelyn Sioui, Janet Rogers, Shayne Michael, Isabelle Picard, and Jean Sioui. This year’s Salon happens in Quebec City from November 18 to 21, 2021

Hello again …I’m so happy to be back and blogging for another season with the RVF/Fondation canadienne pour le dialogue des cultures.  Last week my RVF blogging colleague, Vanessa Lisabelle, tipped me off about Saskatoon’s 16th International Francophone Film Festival, known as the Cinergie Festival. I have family history in Saskatchewan, so I’m always quite

I’m a fan of Michif (Métis) visual artist Christi Belcourt’s art.  I recently learned that the Gabriel Dumont Institute in Saskatoon, SK has a large collection of Belcourt’s paintings, including her portrait of Rose Fleury, shown above.  Rose Fleury was born Rose Gariepy near Duck Lake, Saskatchewan in 1926. She was raised by her maternal

In June, Librairies indépendantes du Québec released a resource called Je lis autochtone! (I read Indigenous), a fifty-two-page booklet to help readers discover the variety and richness of Indigenous literatures. Je lis autochtone! includes a host of reading suggestions, advice from booksellers, book reviews, author interviews and portraits, and suggestions of other resources to learn

The Association des francophones des Kootenays Ouest (AFKO) has created a portrait of the diversity and richness of the Francophone community of the West Kootenay. L’Arbre ambulant (the travelling tree) project coordinator Mohammed Koné asked 175 students from local schools as well as adults in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia to share their

Thursday, June 24th is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, and it’s also launch-day for the third annual Tout pour la musique. Tout pour la Musique is an online event that celebrates some of our country’s most accomplished artists and invites all Canadians, regardless of mother tongue,  to come together and show their pride in and solidarity with French-speaking

I live in a small community in interior BC. It’s a beautiful place and I’ve made a great life here, but it’s several hours away from the nearest city, and sometimes I’ve missed being able to go to festivals and events happening in Vancouver or Calgary. In this way, the pandemic has been a game-changer.

It’s the month of the Francophonie, and this year’s RVF celebrates the many facets of Acadia, so I thought… What better time to read Tyler Leblanc’s new book, Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion? Leblanc is a journalist, screenwriter, and storyteller living in Halifax. He grew up in an English-speaking family and didn’t