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Andrew Lafleche is an award-winning poet and author of No Diplomacy: Musings of an Apathetic Soldier. He is editor of Gravitas Poetry and the Evil Musings anthology. Lafleche served as an infantry soldier from 2007-2014. He earned an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Gloucestershire. Visit AJLafleche.com for more information.

Ken Newport is a successful Ottawa entrepreneur who has co-founded several life sciences and biotechnology companies. Ken draws upon these experiences in his writing, along with his love of music and bands like the Beatles, Arcade Fire and, yes, the Tragically Hip. This excerpt is from Ken’s debut novel No Dress Rehearsal, to be published by Ottawa Press and Publishing in September.

Grey Owl has been called the world’s first environmental activist, a lofty claim for an English school boy who ran away from home, changed his name and tricked the world into thinking he was an Apache Indian from northern Ontario. It says something about the times – Grey Owl was writing in the 1930s -- that no one stopped to think much about an Apache Indian coming from Northern Ontario.   

It may also say something about the times, and the times to come, that Archie Belaney’s books were hugely popular. Here is a short story from Grey Owl’s third book, a collection of short stories entitled The Adventures of Sajo and her Beaver People.

In mid-December of 2011 Frank Kuiack awoke with a sore eye. It was his left eye, and he rubbed at it, blinked, rubbed at it again but the eye remained sore. He lay in bed trying to remember if he had done anything to the eye -- splashed it, poked it -- but nothing came to him. When he got out of bed and stood he was surprised to discover his vision was blurry as well. Not up close or mid-distance, mind, and not far-away all the time, but throughout the morning and at times of the day afterwards that...

We will suppose that the tourist has taken the direct route from Toronto to Ottawa, by the Canadian Pacific, already described. If he has gone first to Montreal, he may go thence to Ottawa by the Canadian Pacific, the Canada Atlantic, or by boat up the Ottawa River. We should advise the route up by rail, and the return by boat. Ottawa, the capital of the federated provinces of Canada, is in the province of Ontario, on the south shore of the Ottawa River, 126 miles from its mouth. For picturesque grandeur the site of Ottawa is second only to...