I am always late to every party - except for the ones where I show up embarrassingly early, so happy to have been invited anywhere! - so I started up a Substack a few weeks ago. I first uploaded some pieces I previously published on Medium and then added a new one today. For now, I am keeping it all free, as I do not know how often I will write here. (You can still pay for it, though, if you so desire! And I would appreciate that.) I am not allowing comments…for now. I have traumatic recollections of blogging in the early aughts/noughties and the hell that the comment section could bring. I no longer have the fortitude for such toxicity (not sure I ever did).
If you would like to support me, you can purchase my book, an edited collection of my uncle’s World War II letters, with an endorsement from Canadian historian J.L. Granatstein. The blurb from Professor Granatstein is on the paperback version only - I did not have the nerve to ask him when I initially published the e-book. Had I known how kind he was, I would not have feared. (FYI, the Amazon link above is for Canadian Amazon, but the book is available at Amazons around the world and the e-book version is available on Kobo. Apparently, it can also be ordered through certain bookstores.) It’s a bit of a family history, and also a bit of Toronto history, Canadian history with a lot of military talk and some of my uncle’s poetry. My uncle died in August, 1944, at Falaise pocket/gap. Here is a Wall Street Journal piece where I write about visiting his place of rest: the Canadian War Cemetery at Bretteville-sur-Laize.
Also, please feel free to visit my website here.
Thanks all, for reading!