My preview of next week’s Philip Scriven organ recital…

…was in yesterday’s LeaderPost. It begins: When the organist and “Master of the Choristers” of the centuries-old Lichfield Cathedral plays recitals, you might expect him to limit himself to the most traditional pieces of the classical repertoire. In the case of world-renowned Philip Scriven, giving a recital at Holy Rosary Cathedral on Oct. 22 at …

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Things I Found in my Mother-in-Law’s House: The Medicine Cabinet

Notes for today’s CBC radio spot… *** It’s a bit of a cliché: the guest who can’t resist poking through his host’s medicine cabinet, just to see what’s in there. Well, Ed Willett isn’t a guest in his own home but he sometimes feels like it, because it’s full of odds and ends that have …

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A nice new review of Marseguro…

…is now up at the McNally-Robinson Bookstore site. It’s by Chadwick Ginther. An excerpt: Regina Author, Edward Willett has filled his second novel with both memorable characters, great world-building and interesting science. The planet of Marseguro becomes a character itself under Willett’s stewardship, and the Body Purified, a frightening yet believable antagonist. Each of Marseguro’s …

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My review of Saturday’s Regina Symphony Orchestra concert…

…,Big Bands to Broadway, is in today’s Regina LeaderPost. An excerpt: Leora Joy Godden, Mark Oddan, Jeffrey Pufahl, Kaitlyn Semple, and Tahirih Vejdani sang a selection of current and past Broadway hits, interspersed in the first act with numbers by the RSO Big Band. Accompanying the singers were the full orchestra and, sometimes, the Halcyon …

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What I’ve Just Read: City of Bones

The cover of City of Bones, a young adult fantasy by Cassandra Clare, caught my eye several months ago, but I didn’t buy it until just recently, on the strength of a snippet of dialogue quoted on somebody’s blog. (Sorry, I’d love to give a little link love, but I can’t remember whose it was.) …

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Male managers as animal show-offs

I’ve been a freelance writer for 15 years now, so the world of office politics is something I know about only through second-hand accounts and television shows. I say that just so you know I can’t personally vouch for the accuracy of the study that caught my eye this week. The study, authored by Jeffrey …

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Preview of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is online

My preview of Globe Theatre‘s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is online now at the LeaderPost. An excerpt: For audiences, it’s not physical vocabulary but Shakespeare’s 400-year-old verbal vocabulary that may intimidate. But Geoffrey Whynot, who plays Theseus and Oberon, points out that “in real life we don’t necessarily hear every word someone speaks. …

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Canadian Chamber Choir tour is getting close!

From October 18 to 25, I probably won’t be blogging much, if at all, because I’ll be touring Saskatchewan with the Canadian Chamber Choir. Here’s the information about the tour from the official press release. If you’re in the neighborhood of one of our concerts, please come out! It’s a great group. We sing really …

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Things I Found in my Mother-in-Law’s House: Vices

Notes for this week’s CBC column (which you can listen to here): Ed Willett has been exploring the recesses of the house that has been in his wife’s family for 70 years…and this week has uncovered shocking news: people in the past used to smoke cigarettes. Also, they were known to drink alcohol on occasion. …

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Willett of the Day: A.T. Willett, photographer

I dabble in photography, but A.T. Willett, based in Tucson, is the real thing: check out the beautiful images at his website. Here’s a bit of biography from the section of his site devoted to his book Passion Junkie: “A. T. Willett has been a Photojournalist for the last 18 years. Starting work at the …

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The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes

It’s October, which means not only that I am now getting up in the dark, but that it is time for the Ig Nobel Prizes, given annually by the Annals of Improbable Research “For achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK” (apparently IN CAPITAL LETTERS). The 2008 prizes were handed out last …

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What I Just Read: Midnight Never Come

I recently (before I started blogging books) read Bill Bryson’s excellent short biography of William Shakespeare, and so I was well-prepped to enjoy Midnight Never Come, a fantasy novel by Marie Brennan, predicated on the notion that Queen Elizabeth’s court and rule over England above was mirrored by a fairy queen of equal power and …

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