Satire encourages critical thinking and reflection, using humour to soften its critique. It is designed to be entertaining yet thought-provoking. Sarcasm, in contrast, is more…
Three other aspiring writers and I have been writing a short story a month for Elegant Literature Magazine since April. We’re given a prompt and…
Conversations at family dinners are decidedly different when there are newly discovered blood relatives in attendance. My older sister gave a baby up for adoption…
My late husband liked to collect things. He also liked to keep things. If he brought something into the house, it stayed there, particularly if…
While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,The fate of empires and the fall of kings;While quacks of State must each produce his plan,And even…
Contentment is for Cows, the Blog, is ten years old! When it was created, the comic strip was supposed to be the star of the…
When my cousin Stuart was a kid he visited our Aunt in Toronto’s west end, circa 1960. She was a single, working, professional woman in…
Last weekend my family, including cousins, in-laws, offspring, plus ones, and other loose bits gathered for a large Thanksgiving celebration; the first of this kind…
A justification is a convenient cognitive process we use to excuse bad behaviour. People everywhere justify their actions all the time. Take for example the…
Families are like a mobile — the kind that are hung from the ceiling with matching parts delicately balanced, moving together on whatever on air…