Life Sentences
Bryan Demchinsky, David Goldbloom, Jim Withers, Barbara Black, mark abley, Emira Tufo, Jennifer DeLeskiePersonal Essays
| Platform |  | Pricing | Freemium | Publishes | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 129 | Founded | 2 years ago | Last Issue | 39 hours ago |
| Active | |||||
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bryandemchinsky.substack.comLatest Issues
Keeping Faith With His Roots
A Hutterite farm on the Prairies (Hutterite Marketplace).
Don Macdonald spent a good part of his life chasing crooks when he worked as a financial reporter at The Montreal Gazette. As his editor, I watched him go after perpetrators of pump...
Plus ça change ...
Parti Québécois supporters cheer as results come in at PQ headquarters on election night in Montreal. (Photo by: The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes)
Round and round on the hamster wheel of life. Some days that’s what it feels like living in...
Monkey Business
The Chicken’s Wedding, a 17th century tile work, in the Museu Nacional do Azulejo in Lisbon. (BD photo)
“I got nuthin.”
So said my friend Joel Yanofsky when he occasionally got caught bluffing at the poker table. (He was a masterful playe...
Wooly-Bully
A duo called The Reasons performs at Huff Estates Winery. The audience
provided the singer. (BD photo)
Times are gloomy, so here’s something a bit lighter.
T.S. Eliot: “I grow old ... I grow old …”
Neil Young: “Keep on rockin’ in the fr...
Dad’s T-Bird Was no Phoenix
Stu Withers driving. (Withers family photo)
The ill-fated ’62 T-Bird. (Withers family photo)
Jim Withers and I go back a long way as friends, to the mid-1970s when we worked at the long-defunct Ottawa newspaper The Journal. One thing we s...
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| Subscribers | Engagement | 74 | Monthly Web Visits | ||
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
Former Montreal Gazette editor. Still writing, still editing.
I'm a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto who has retired from clinical practice and academic hospital life - so now I have more time to write.
Jim Withers is a diarist and former newspaperman.
Barbara Black Is a writer, broadcaster and museum docent in Dorval, Quebec.
Mark Abley is a longtime Montrealer now living in Gananoque, Ontario. His book "Numb: The Politics of Overwhelm" will be launched on Thurs., May 28, at Pulp Books in Verdun.
Emira Tufo is a Bosnian Canadian writer based in Montreal. Her work has been featured in literary journals, national newspapers, and on CBC. She is currently working on a memoir about the siege of Sarajevo.
Jen DeLeskie is a writer and Editor-in-Chief of Quist, QWF's youth literary journal. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, The Globe & Mail, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Everclear, is forthcoming from Flame Arrow Publishing in August 2026.
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