Shane Joseph

To make a dent, leave a mark, not be forgotten; to convert stored imagery into art forms whether of music, dance, poetry, prose or painting. Is that what drives the artist? I once pursued the good life by which everyone is measured and scored as “successful” – business degrees, secure job, wife, two children, a […]

I saw them again yesterday and it made me recall the first time I saw them on the bridge overpasses and had nearly dismissed that showing as a protest rally or a union strike. I was on the 401 on that first occasion, driving back to Cobourg from Toronto one twilit evening last fall. I

When Barak Obama took his oath as the 44th President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet, and kicked off a global party full of hope, praise and showbiz, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How long will the honeymoon last?” In our media•bombarded world of nanosecond attention spans, the “long”

This winter the fragility of life came home sharply to me. As I took long walks along the shoreline of my beautiful lakeside town, a narrow strip extended by solid frozen waves of opaque and dirty ice, I realized that I would die in minutes if I fell into those icy waters out on the

The month is half over and I have only posted one article on my blog for 2009– why? The general economic malaise, the ultra•cold temperatures, the flurry of activity around a recently released book, the need to find a job now that it has proven conclusively to me that writers cannot make a living at

Young Bob had cultivated a daily habit. He stepped into his neighbourhood coffee shop, “Joe’s Coffee and Donuts,” and drank a black coffee on his way to work. One day, he saw that the new chain store opened across from Joe’s was also offering coffee, but always fresh. Bob liked that, even though he could

I wrote a novel in the aftermath of 9/11 that was set in a not•too•distant future. It was about a time when the world had split into fragments caused by a great earthquake and a flood brought on by a combination of global warming and terrorism. Consequently, all the Capitalists in the world (the ones

The strains of John Lennon’s song play repeatedly on the radio these days, making me wonder indeed, “What have we done?” Well, for starters John, we imploded on our own financial excess; we continued to fight meaningless wars; gas prices rose to heights that no one could “Imagine” and then plunged to where they should

Ninety•five percent of the writers in the land packed in their tools, finally. There were reasons for this perfect storm: first, not many were getting published. And for the ones lucky enough to see their work in print, most of their books were remaindered or recycled, and royalties had dried up. Their publishers were busy

I have always wondered about that term – the ploy used by ancient Romans to keep their citizens fat, happy and mindless with gladiator games and other sensual entertainment while the coffers were raided and the youth sent off to die in wars of greed and plunder. In Canada, things are different. Our circus has