January 7 is, I learned when growing up in Winnipeg, “Ukrainian Christmas.” As a boy, I just accepted that Ukrainian people celebrated Christmas on a different day than my family did. At one point, I was taught that Ukrainian people observe Christmas Eve as the day the Three Magi arrived in Bethlehem to worship the […]
Author, IT specialist and peripatetic This is a very special post: a conversation with Ivan Baidak, author of Invisible and five other books. Invisible has recently been published in English by Canadian publisher Guernica Editions of Hamilton, Ontario. I met Ivan five years ago on a trip to California for a writer’s conference in Russian […]
Last month, I wrote that things couldn’t get much worse after I developed shingles and my father passed away from COVID-19. They did. February brought savage weather and the crybaby convoy that shut down my city for three weeks. Then things got even worse, again. As the last of the detritus of the crybaby convoy […]
It’s a tough time to get through, but we have gotten through tough times before. And a sense of humour never hurts. So in the spirit of the day, here’s an excerpt from Under the Nazi Heel, Book 2 of the Eastern Front Trilogy. In this, Maurice shows how his sense of humour was irrepressible. […]
Today is Midsummer’s, the Summer Solstice, long regarded as a special day by humanity. This year, the full moon was just a few nights ago—also an auspicious time for mystics and sky-watchers. The Bones of the Earth, my first published novel, begins at midnight on the Summer Solstice, under a full moon. That coincidence does […]
As we approach what would have been the hundredth birthday of my father-in-law and the subject of the Eastern Front trilogy, here’s a sample that describes life during the Nazi German occupation of Ukraine, 76 years ago. Kalush, western Ukraine 1943 The first Friday night dance was held at the newly established Prosvita Ukrainian Reading […]
Writing can go fast, and then you run headfirst into a wall: how did ancient people live? What did they eat? What kind of clothes did they wear? What were their houses like? This gets more challenging the more obscure you get, particularly when you’re dealing with pre-literary cultures. I’m deep into writing The Triumph […]
