Editrice Note: TouCanada, With Love

Once upon a time, Editrice Liz was in love. Editrice Liz was in love with someone whose greatest aspiration was to be… Canadian, despite living in commodious Illinois. In fact, in their copious emails (such are the hazards of writers’ romance), Liz’s significant other used exclusively “Canadian” spelling (mouldy, colour, favourite) to pledge allegiance to Ottawa. This was not why love ended, as your valiant Editrice found this quirk charming, nor (take the needle off the record) are the echoes of lost affection reason for the Canadian Issue. However, it is the inspiration for the proliferation of Canadian spellings you see in these pages—we promise it has nothing to do with being too lazy to copy-edit (what was that about the Kids in the Hall marathon?). Liz just misses those extraneous u’s.

But alas, you need not know the sordid affairs of the editrices’ hearts. The Valentine’s Day issue was last year, and this year, our February issue appears on Heritage Day, Canada’s Valentine to itself. Ever since we posted on a Canadian writers’ site, http://www.placesforwriters.com/, we’ve wanted to send our Northerly friends a Valentine too. Our Canadian pals and those impersonating Canadians for issue purposes have voices that will stick in your head long after you rest the pages in a bed of maple leaves (good luck finding them in all the snow). Canada does not get off clean here—the characters paint it as a confused, overly placid democracy in “Suburban Sushi Blues”, with subways like the rest of the world and even the threat of cougars prowling Toronto streets (the animal variety). The poets are tortured souls wrestling with “Truth” and giving a “Scowl” to progress. And, in a nod to the recently averted holiday, we have some “Literary Missed Connections” for you, just in case you missed a date with Romeo, Gatsby, or Scarlett. We know we did, sadly—the green bulb must have blown before we could slip on our curtain dress. Oh, incidentally, check out Editrice Laura’s cartoons—they may confirm some of your suspicions about our editorial procedure, just sayin’.

While we’ve realized in putting this issue together how much we love Canadians’ work—after all, they gave us Glenn Gould, the aforementioned Kids, and the original ghost writer of the Hardy Boys—we want to hear from you, no matter where you are. So check us out online at www.thetoucanonline.blogspot.com. If you like what you see, send some work to thetoucanmag@gmail.com; we can always use a scribble here and there. Yes, Liz’s IO, even from you, and should you encounter your shout-out, hope you handle it with humour despite the lack of contractual agreement.

The 3000-mile away neighbours, eh

Liz and Laura, Toucan Editrices