MarisaJun 16What is Free Indirect Discourse in Literature?What do the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf all have in common? Ok, ok, well *other* than being kickass...
MarisaMar 25Talking “Too Muchness” with Writer Rachel Vorona CoteA few weeks ago, I held Le Salon’s first ever author event with Rachel Vorona Cote to discuss her 2020 book Too Much: How Victorian...
MarisaDec 21, 2021The Nutcracker Ballet vs. The Original StoryAfter years of cancelled or postponed in-person cultural events due to Covid-19, I recently had the delight to attend a performance of...
MarisaOct 28, 202110 Facts About Edgar Allan PoeBiographical facts about Edgar Allan Poe, the famous American Gothic writer.
MarisaSep 28, 2021Who's Who in 'The Sun Also Rises'It is no secret that Ernest Hemingway drew on his personal experiences attending the bullfights in Pamplona to draft his 1926 novel The...
MarisaSep 20, 2021The Hemingway Special Cocktail (Papa Doble)While Ernest Hemingway's oeuvre speaks for itself—The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940),...
MarisaSep 19, 2021The Lost Generation in LiteratureIn his memoir titled A Moveable Feast (1964), Ernest Hemingway recounts how writer Gertrude Stein first heard the term “génération...
MarisaAug 17, 202110 Facts About Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ 1. Aware of her growing popularity, Austen had anxiety over how Emma would be received by the reading public, writing: “My great anxiety...
MarisaJul 27, 2021A Historic Glimpse of the French Literary SalonsWhat is a literary salon? Literary salons have their origins in the Renaissance idea of gathering for debate in the courts of Italy and...
MarisaJul 1, 2021Book Diversity in Canadian LiteratureTraditionally Canadian Literature, or CanLit, has highlighted voices of European settlers, been divided along English versus French...
MarisaMay 13, 2021A Jane Austen-inspired Cocktail Recipe from Toronto’s Famous Last Words BarI am so thrilled to bring you a cocktail from the amazing literary-themed bar in Toronto, Ontario, Famous Last Words (FLW)! Over the past...
MarisaApr 29, 2021Capturing the Gothic Life of Shirley Jackson on FilmI finally had the time to sit down and watch the 2020 movie Shirley (currently on Amazon Prime), based on a novel of the same name by...
MarisaApr 21, 2021Charlotte Brontë's Rejected Novel 'The Professor'On this day in 1816, Charlotte Brontë was born! So, it is only fitting that I recently completed my reading of the first novel she ever...
MarisaApr 12, 2021School Textbooks Reflect our Societal ValuesI recently wrote a post about What Makes a Literary Classic in which I was thinking about what we culturally consider a ‘classic’ and how...
MarisaMar 18, 2021Literary Cocktail: Miss Cathy's Whip"Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, 'wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the...
MarisaMar 8, 2021Filling the Literary Gaps: English Female Writers 1750 - 1915Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature (2016) by Shelley DeWees is a delightful...
MarisaFeb 24, 2021Reviewing One of the First English NovelsHow do you review a book that is 300 years old? The grammar, punctuation, and narrative structure are not like anything we see in today's...
MarisaFeb 9, 2021Classic F#@*ing LiteratureNot typical classroom vocabulary, but a historical lesson nonetheless! That oft used F word can be a noun, an adjective, a verb, an...
MarisaFeb 1, 2021What Makes a Literary Classic?Is it the amount of time that has passed? A wide readership? Originating from an ancient civilization? Defining a 'Classic' There is an...
MarisaJan 20, 202125 Books to Help with your Lockdown WanderlustUsually with the flip of the calendar to the New Year, we all begin looking ahead, planning for new adventures. But this year is so...