keirlowther

We arrive early, gathered along wharfs, idling cars with windows frosted around the edges, marching up the boardwalk, waiting along rocks and beaches and pretty much any place we find a vantage point to watch and photograph and film the boats. We refuse to bundle for the chill, holding onto hope that the warming sun […]

The other day I drove past my daughter and son’s old childcare centre. It’s an unremarkable building, white with a black roof, built to its asymmetrical best through multiple additions spanning decades and whims of past owners. At twelve months old we left our kids there eight hours a day, in the care of almost […]

“When I get older I will be stronger They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag…”  That’s my latest earworm, taken from K’naan’s 2010 anthem “Waving Flag.” If you’ve forgotten it, or never heard it, give it a listen. It’s a brilliant beating heart of a song, with a sobering dose of poverty and […]

My first and only book, Dirty Bird, was published ten years ago. To write that feels savagely wrong, how could so much time have passed between its publication and now? It compels me to try to justify my last ten years. Or what I accomplished, given I write each day. I wake early, brew coffee, […]

So it’s Reading Town PEI week. Check out all the great events going on at Reading Town PEI. If you can’t make it to any of the events, or you live elsewhere, I challenge you over the next week to carve off some time to read. Whether you’re an every day reader or not, find […]

Masters Sunday is iconic at my house. It’s the sleepy music that reminds me of lazy Sunday drives through the back roads. The limited commercials. The docile coverage that echoes to a simpler time in our world. The pine straw. The azaleas. Every hole is named, yet I know them by their slopes and whether […]

Why should you enter the Cox & Palmer Literary Awards?   Firstly, and most importantly, your bucket list needs it! You don’t want to go to the grave regretting that book you never wrote. This is your first step to writing that book. So write a poem, story, children’s book or craft a piece of […]

I may not be religious but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my sacred places. We all do, whether it be in a church, NASCAR on Sundays, the bath, a trail, a leather chair, a room so hot you can stretch your body like it’s young. Sacred places aren’t just a place of comfort, they’re […]

If you are a writer who underestimates the value of a great editor, I suggest you read up on Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish. Read the before and afters. See for yourself how Lish (the editor) stripped away the sentimentality of Carver’s prose and helped create a lean profundity and a crisp layering of detail […]

As kids, we hid. We got our kicks from hiding under blankets, pillows, coffee tables. Waiting to be found, trembling with excitement. We laughed manically when we were uncovered. I remember how it felt to hide, and and what it took to hide well. I now see it in my kids. It seems our house […]