Introduction

 As I introduce this blog to the website, I don’t know just where I will take it. I had intended to use the Reviews section for occasional blog entries, but for a long period my bloggish entries far outnumbered reviews and discussions of the novel and novelette. So I am setting up this blog on trial for now (I am writing this July 21, 2010, 2½ months after the website went online.)

I might write on a range of topics; alternatively, I might become rather inactive: I’ve been offered two weekly newspaper columns in my career, once in the early ’70s, and again in the middle of this first decade of the 21^st century. On both occasions, I wrote only two columns and that was that. If I run into similar motivational problems, I will probably have this blog page done away with.

Assuming I am at least somewhat active (once a week or so), topics might be personal, or involve my writing or the two fiction pieces on this website; what I’ve been reading; and also might stretch to all sorts of oddments, including world events, Canada’s place in the world, and  politics and religion, two subjects of considerable interest to me. I know there is a widely held view that politics and religion ought always to be avoided; and I have seen how politics can inspire flame wars on previously amicable websites. I will deal with this threat by being unfair: I will delete posts I dislike out of hand, without explanation, justification or apology. This goes against my democratic values, but I guess a website isn’t a democracy; and, I want to be free to discuss a range of subjects without inspiring toxic explosions.

I hope you enjoy reading this. You can get a taste of my non-fiction writing approach by sampling some of the blog-like entries in Reviews.