Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

RBC Finalist Matti Friedman (Pumpkinflowers) describes his life in the Israeli armed forces as  "beyond the mindset of life in Toronto.” --> review by K.J. Mullins for Weir website Matti Friedman When Matti Friedman moved from Toronto to Israel he thought he had landed on another planet.  He was 17 and he was leaving the world’s most diversity friendly city for a place that  was “so beyond the mindset of life in Toronto.” “I was young enough to roll with the punches,” Friedman said of the move from his safe North York childhood home to the Middle East as we started to talk about the differences between North American and Middle Eastern culture and his current book Pumpkinflowers which has been shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction. “I liked the cultural shock. Israel is chaotic with its Middle Eastern culture.” One of the most jarring differences between Canada and Israel is in the military draft. All yo...

Dr. Marc Raboy Raboy's Marconi memoir nominated for the RBC Taylor Prize Feature by K.J. Mullins for Stephen Weir website The rapid rise and steady growth of inventions and patents from Marconi forged the communication world that we live in today. One of the youngest of the early innovators to use sound waves in order to achieve wireless communication Marconi was just in his early 20s when he first blazed on the scene. Marconi's achievements are a marvel and yet the man himself has always been a mystery. In Marc Raboy's book 'Marconi' each aspect of the man's life is examined. Extremely well written this massive tome brings to life the legend of a great man of his time and shows the reader how his insights of wireless communication came to be. The man that author Marc Raboy started to write about when he started the research for his RBC Taylor Prize shortlisted book Marconi is not the same man at all, he found. “I learnt a tremendous amount about ...

Huffington Post Story by Stephen Weir. December 12, 2016 http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/icelandic-reggae-amabadama_b_13533242.html   AmabAdamA  strut their way through the longest night of the year  On December 21 st – Day One of Winter – sunlight in Reykjavik is just a 4 hour 7 minute low-in-the-sky rumour. The dim sol stays lit long enough for Icelanders to shop, grab an espresso, gas the car and suck up what little light the gods offer that day. Busy. Busy. But oh so brief. What do Icelanders do for the other 20 hours of a winter day? For   Gnúsi Yones,  Salka Sól Eyfel and Steinunn Jónsdóttir, the three singing stars of   AmabAdamA   the seemingly never-ending night is time for perfecting the Jamaica strut,   singing and writing reggae music -- all in Icelandic of course!   Next spring when the sun comes back, AmabAdamA will have a new album for their growing world fan base. I celand Crowd Goes Wild When B...

. Susan Pedersen  Reflects On Family and 2015 Cundill Prize  By K.J Mullins Newz4U Winning the 2015 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature has not changed author Susan Pedersen but it did help her have more time to reconnect with her youngest son. Last autumn when Pedersen won the prize she was taking some time off from her teaching position at Columbia University to work on her current project. She used some of the prize money to fly her youngest child to the UK for some much needed one on one time. Pedersen said that winning the prize was special but in terms of academic success did not have a large impact at Columbia University. She noted that the book appearing in the Oxford University Press in summer 2015 was more celebrated at the American school. Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell (l), Susan Pedersen and Chancellor Michael Meighen - Cundill Win! Pedersen is a dedicated academic and a devoted working mother. Loyal to a life of exploring and rete...