This month, I chased Rihanna across three countries for a cover story in American Elle. Fame.

Read excerpts from the article here.

And this happened a while ago (loop, I am out of thee), but I was really pleased to see How Happy to Be short-listed as part of an on-line response to CBC’s Canada Reads series, called Canada Reads 2010: Independently. Alas, the book didn’t win, but I loved the blogosphere discourse around these under-celebrated novels; thoughtful and respectful and very smart. I bow down to any contest that promotes Carrie Snyder and Ray Robertson.  And while I wrote a lot of undergrad papers on Martha Ostenso, I feel like I’ve never read Wild Geese because I was too busy grade-grubbing. Will now check out all these books. Thanks, bloggers.

For eight days a year, the small farms of the Carso in northeast Italy open their doors to local visitors to try their food in wine in a unique Slovenian-Italian tradition

Read article at The Guardian

In the 50 years since its approval, the birth control pill has gone from revolutionary to passe. But we’d do well to remember its legacy

Read column at Chatelaine

What’s with the cattiness about so-called “cougars”?

Read colum at Chatelaine

Whether they’re taking home more medals than our male athletes, or petitioning for equality, it’s our female Olympians who are the true heroes of the games

Read column at Chatelaine

What we know for sure: As Oprah Winfrey, the queen of talk TV, abdicates her throne, she leaves us with a legacy of learning to live

Read column at Chatelaine

A (sort of) defence of Gossip Girl and any number of TV shows about perfectly blow-dried people who are 20 years younger than we are

Read column at Chatelaine

We want to feed our kids the right stuff the instant that pregnancy test comes back positive. Concern is good. But fixating on food is dangerous

Read column at Chatelaine

“It is what it is” may sound cool, but this loaded little phrase says a lot about our anger-averse culture

Read column at Chatelaine