New Media

This made me happy. A 29-year old deaf woman can hear for the first time in her life.

Yup. That’s my opinion. Anonymous political bloggers are cowards who don’t have the guts to stand by their own words.

This blog post is an open thread. Bring the debate, people. Comments are open.

Mind you, anonymous commenters are cowards, too, IMO.

Shortly I first arrived in Vancouver, one of my first freelance journalism gigs here was writing for the Western Jewish Bulletin (which today is called the Jewish Independent). So it’s particularly heartwarming to see my novel, A History of the Middle Eastside, covered in that worthy publication. Thanks for the feature, people.

Explained Narvey to the Independent, “Two clichés I’ve often heard when discussing the politics of the Middle East, whether in formal surroundings or over pints at the pub: ‘It’s a rough neighborhood’ and ‘It’s complicated.’ So I ran with that: ‘What if I write a novel that breaks down the 20th century of the region into a simple parable of street gangs stabbing each other over turf?’

“I thought back to Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. I was also reading Michael Chabon’s incredible novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I thought that writing in that style, with the story set in a surreal world of gangsters and the underworld, might be both entertaining and also accessible for a mainstream audience.”

He added, “If you like a rip-roaring tale of action, it works straight up as a pulp fiction gangster novel. If you’ve already got a pretty thorough grounding in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and world diplomacy in the 20th century, or want to learn a bit more about it, it works on a deeper level as well. I like the idea that it can educate, though from what I’ve heard from some of my readers, it can also feed into preexisting biases. It is what you make of it.”

Buy a copy of A History of the Middle Eastside on Amazon

What if God had a blog? The New Yorker answers this age-old question. Hilarious? Check. Blasphemous? Also, check. Nicely done.

H/T Ophelia Benson

I must confess, I’ve been a bit of a hermit when it comes to social-media focused events ever since Northern Voice wrapped up. The last Vancouver Blogger Meetup was a while back, so I’m excited to get back into it with a bang. There are already 40 cool bloggers RSVP’d for the next Vancouver Blogger Meetup happening at the Network Hub!

What’s happening at this event? We’ll have pizza and some bevies (non-alcoholic) and it’s just going to be a friendly, fun place to get to know your fellow Vancouver bloggers. Come meet with web pundits, online scribes, photobloggers, vloggers, social media mavens and more. See you there!