Shawna Lemay

Thank you!

Lovely to see! @palimpsestpress.bsky.social

alllitup.ca/women-asking...

Sometimes you just need to scream “I embrace the world!” (Gojira song. Very therapeutic!)
And another saying that has always helped is one @shawnalemay.bsky.social always says: “you are required to create something beautiful.”
That’s all I know. Hopefully it’s enough. ❤️

Live Like an Artist – Overwintering — Transactions with Beauty — I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of overwintering, as I have brought in a couple of geraniums to spend the next season or so on my kitchen windowsill, and a hibiscus plant for another corn...

“People do things like read or look at art because they want to be delighted, or be shocked by beauty, or for joy or surprise or to be taken outside of where they are. … How can we show people that more? I mean, of course we can. We need to keep trying.”
– @shawnalemay.bsky.social

Books are Life — Transactions with Beauty A while back I wrote a list of non-fiction books that I find to be important to my life. Lately I came across this on The School of Life insta : “You’ll likely read only a few thousand books in you...

“Once I’ve read one thing by an author that I’ve loved, I tend to read all. I’m a re-reader, too, often re-reading the entire book or just favourite passages. I’m the dog-earing type, the underlining type. I like to have a few books on the go at all times.”
– @shawnalemay.bsky.social

Finding Your Next Read (Old School) — Transactions with Beauty I’m an expert at finding life changing books for myself (and maybe for you too, if you’re a regular reader of this blog). I’m confident in saying that I excel in magically summoning the most amazing b...

On finding your next read.
transactionswithbeauty.com/home/finding...

Shawna Lemay’s tribute to Jane Austen: on learning to “view the world at a comedic distance” “The most important thing I go on learning from Jane Austen is to view the world at a comedic distance,” writer and photographer Shawna Lemay says in the tribute she composed for “Unexpectedly Aust…

“The most important thing I go on learning from Jane Austen is to view the world at a comedic distance. I read Jane Austen because she’s funny and she’s sharp and she’s tender. I read her for her layers of understanding and for the way she sees.”
– @shawnalemay.bsky.social

Where Shall I Begin? Living with Jane Austen — Transactions with Beauty “Where shall I begin? Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?” This is Jane Austen writing to her sister Cassandra on June 17, 1808. Later in that same letter she says, “You know ho...

“Every re-reading will reward you with a new and deeper understanding of humanity, of her genius. If you truly wish to understand the meaning of ‘wit,’ it is there in Austen’s works.”
– @shawnalemay.bsky.social

Millions of Canadians work full-time and still struggle to afford a new pair of shoes.

As costs rise, here’s one person’s story of making (and faking) it in Canada as part of the working poor.

macleans.ca/society/conf...

Blessings and Praise and What Do You Want From Life? — Transactions with Beauty It’s the time of year, maybe, when I remember my friend Michael McCarthy . I have some cornflakes in his honour. I read my favourite poem by him. I think of all the lives he touched, and how he touch...

I needed these kinds of blessings today. Maybe you do too. 💖 @shawnalemay.bsky.social

transactionswithbeauty.com/home/blessin...

What is the best Love you’ve ever had in this world? Be quiet while thinking about that Love. If someone comes along and starts talking, quietly shoo them away, you’re busy, you’re a poet… Be quiet so quiet, let the very sounds of that Love be heard in your bones.

—CAConrad, from “(Soma)tic 6”

The cover of Shawna Lemay's Apples on a Windowsill. It's a photo of several green apples and pears on the sill of a large open window, with sun shining on them. The interior room is very dark. Beyond the window, there is a deliberately-blurred light brick building

Read @amandaearl.bsky.social's review of @shawnalemay.bsky.social's Apples on a Windowsill (pub. @palimpsestpress.bsky.social)!

Lemay teaches us how to be attentive to the beauty in our lives, in ordinary things and their poetry, and in our own ordinariness...

www.thetemzreview.com/earl-lemay-3...

Thank you!

The Greatest Invention — Transactions with Beauty I remember reading Jason Guriel’s essay about browsing in The Walrus when it came out in 2021. I actually picked up a copy of his book (which contains the essay) on Indie Bookstore Day — I was t...

The greatest invention: transactionswithbeauty.com/home/thegrea...

Live Like an Artist – No Guarantee of Happiness — Transactions with Beauty — This week I’ve turned, once again , to Benjamin Moser’s book The Upside Down World . In a chapter discussing Meindert Hobbema, there is the line, “Painting is no guarantee of happiness. Neither ...

“Painting is no guarantee of happiness. Neither is not painting.”
– Benjamin Moser
@shawnalemay.bsky.social

"... what I know is that if you use the same music for a piece of writing it does something to your brain — fast tracking you to the space of your work."

Writing Music — Transactions with Beauty Do you listen to music while you write? Or as a prelude? I saw t his post on Instagram and I loved how a lot of the music mentioned was also music I listen to as a prelude to writing and sometimes ...

transactionswithbeauty.com/home/writing...

Such a terrific event!

Bookstore interior (Audreys Books). A main with a beard and glasses, wearing a white t-shirt, holds a book and an Edmonton Indie Bookstore Extravaganza passport.

Children's books department, Audreys Books. A woman wearing a black shirt and glasses is looking at a blue dragon puppet that is sticking up from behind a shelf of books.

Two of the marvellous photos taken this past weekend by official @yegindiebookstores.bsky.social Extravaganza photographer @shawnalemay.bsky.social.

Love that! I'm also a Taurus :)

Well done you!

Many thanks!

Bookmark — Apples On A Windowsill Essays, photos by Edmonton's Shawna Lemay

A nice review of my book of essays on Galleries West. Very chuffed to see my work discussed in an art magazine.

www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/boo...

Live Like an Artist: Rituals and Alignment — Transactions with Beauty — I’ve been reading The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han. Rituals stabilize life, he says, and he quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who says rituals are “temporal techniques of making ones...

transactionswithbeauty.com/home/artritu...

REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #73 DREAM POEM ABOUT REAGAN & CO when we are dirt poor and no longer have our mountains for shelter when we are conquered and cannot go to our forests for comfort when we are hungry and our valleys will no longer sustain us then we will see these men in their true light

“Our valleys will no longer sustain us” A poem by Diane di Prima.

An Incomplete Biography of Jane Hirshfield in Six Jobs (with Poems) 1. Truckdriver and Farm Laborer. After graduating college in 1973—the year Bob Dylan released “Mr. Bojangles,” the year of the Roe vs. Wade decision, the Watergate trial, the beginning …

Heather Swann considers the many roles of Jane Hirshfield (with poems!).
lithub.com/an-incomplet...

Mixtape: The Time of My Life — Transactions with Beauty Here is today’s mixtape in the effort to live the words of Goethe, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a fe...

transactionswithbeauty.com/home/thetime...

On #poetry…

Side note, the title of the first poem shared in the post (Allegro Ma Non Troppo) reminds me of why I love the Italian language so much. (“Happy, but not too much” is literal translation, better English would be “happy but not too happy”)

"How fragile we are, between the few good moments."
- Jane Hirshfield