Rosemary Counter

Several years ago, thanks in equal measure to a stroke of good luck and a healthy dose of deliberate manoeuvring, I found myself in possession of a once-in-a-lifetime literary opportunity: a week-long writers’ retreat on a remote island smack dab in the centre of Lake Erie, with my favourite author on the face of the earth and the queen of CanLit…

It crept up on me, quite literally: a furry little thing already halfway up my naked thigh. I screeched and jumped, as for a terrifying second it looked suspiciously like a centipede, though plumper and slower on fourteen squirmy legs. I knew this because the first thing I reached for, after regaining my composure, was a cartoonishly large toy magnifying…