Cultural Nationalism 3.0

Michael LaPointe’s essay on CanLit in the May LRC challenges Canadians to measure both our awareness of our national literature and our level of contentment with the very idea of a national literature. LaPointe continues an ongoing conversation that almost certainly does not happen in most of the rest of the English-speaking world. Yet it is a conversation I have been having in one form or another for my 20-some years in the business of writing and publishing in Canada, and one I am increasingly anxious to leave behind.

It is a truism that an actual writer writes, while a wannabe writer talks about writing. Every writer knows that “other” writer who talks a great game, endlessly describing his or her workspace or scheduling habits, detailing the many plans and intentions for all the writing that is going to be accomplished. I have a sad suspicion it works the same way at a national...