The world is agog with ChatGPT—the AI machine that writes for you based on the commands you give it—and the revolution it is going to cause in journalism and the arts. Essay and article writers will go extinct, say the pundits; graphic designers will commit hara-kiri and visual artists would have to take up house …
There was a time when, if you had a problem with a new service or appliance you bought, you called an 800 number, spoke to a live expert, and got your issue resolved. Well, that’s history, right? As we entered the 21st century, as voice-recognition technology improved, as Big Data expanded to gather a myriad …
We got out to book launches and readings again this fall after a two-year shutdown for the pandemic. And the world had changed. People were still reluctant to come out to public events, especially to crowded ones where we breathed over each other. The older demographic was masked and impregnable, and readers were consuming less …
Queen Elizabeth, the only monarch who has ruled over the colonial domains I’ve lived in during my lifetime, finally passed away last month. Her Majesty had a good run, the longest, and has now left an aging successor whose tenure on the throne is suspect, as is the stability of the Commonwealth of Nations, that …
Every time I sit down to write about Sri Lanka, I shake my head. The country never fails to surprise me. And sadden me. The rational side of my brain says, “But you need not concern yourself – you left 42 years ago. You’ve cleaved to another, more rational and prosperous, country – let it …
Every time there is a seismic shift in taste, technology or time-availability, pundits say the novel is dead. And yet this hefty tome that demands so much attention from its reader has ambled on over the centuries. No one really knows when it began, although everyone claims their favourite to be the first novel (Tom …
How the Novel travelled through the internet with me in tow Read More »
It is now a given that you can’t submit work to a major publisher without going through a literary agent, for there are no more publishers’ slush piles. Publishers have also outsourced most aspects of production – editing, design, formatting, printing, distribution, proof reading, marketing and publicity – to “contractors.” What are publishers left with? …
Have Publishers Outsourced Their Slush Piles to Literary Agents? Read More »
My heart mourns for Sri Lanka today when I see the pictures of lineups for gasoline and food, and the mass protests on Galle Face Green urging the government and the president to resign. We had a similar demonstration like that in Ottawa recently, but our “First-World” protestors opened barbecues and saunas for comfort, food …
This article was turned down by my regular publications when submitted in late February, for there was uncertainty about its reception. Then other geopolitical events of larger import got in the way and the article was “drowned in the feed.” But when bikers resuscitated this battered horse last weekend in Ottawa, I decided to publish …
The West has launched economic warfare on Russia with its severest sanctions yet, in the hope that they would cripple the country faster and with less loss of life than with open hostilities. And yet, as I visited Cuba for the sixth time in a span of 17 years, I saw no change in this …