Yesterday's post republished on Maisonneuve

So my essay from yesterday on arts funding has proven to be quite popular. So popular in fact that Carmine Starnino, editor of Maisonneuve magazine, contacted me out of the blue (we've never met) just hours after I posted it to ask if he could re-publish it on the Maisonneuve blog. I was immensely flattered. You can find it here.

There are probably very few readers of my blog who don't know who Carmine is, but in case you don't: he's an extremely accomplished poet and critic with several books under his belt, and he has won or been shortlisted for a number of major literary awards, including the Governor General's Award for Poetry. If you haven't encountered his stuff yet, you should definitely go check it out.

I was also pleased to see my good buddy Zach Wells give a shout out to this blog when the essay went up. Zach wrote his own passionate piece against arguing for arts funding on economical grounds about three years ago. Zach wisely weaves criticisms of Margaret Atwood into his essay, as she's also been known to argue for arts funding using the language of business. I myself had some jabs at Atwood in the first draft of my own post, but I ended up cutting them because I couldn't get them to flow well enough with my invective against Florida (and the post was getting too dang long as it was).