Today we've got a somewhat bookish day, starting off with a review of Write magazine's Fall 2000 edition. This issue is full of great stories by accomplished writers. Isabel Vincent gets down and dirty about life on the front lines with a behind-the-scenes look at what makes a foreign correspondent tick. Vincent begins the piece talking about being in Port au Prince, Haiti, during the summer of 1994. Here's a sample:

"Every morning, my colleagues in the foreign press and I did the rounds, counting the number of dead bodies - victims of the secret police - that had been dumped in ditches and on rubbish-strew roadsides. It was after one of these grisly missions that I lost my innocence about being a foreign correspondent."

Vincent goes on to talk about how being stalked by secret police (creepy guys in new blue jeans and wearing mirrored sunglasses), is just part of the job. One morning a young man approached her and her colleagues and remarked "Nobody likes this government. We want Aristide." Suddenly the young man was dragged off into an alley. Vincent continues:

"This isn't really happening. I feel as if I am in a movie. These were my thoughts, spinning over and over again in slow motion as I heard the gun shots come from the alley and realized that the earnest young man had been killed a few feet away from me and my colleagues." This is just a sample of what you can expect from this wide-ranging magazine reach on the disparate art of writing. Ward McBurney provides a warm, homespun tale about the impact Alistair MacLeod had on his writing career. There's a rumination on the impact of technology on the art of the scribe, as well poetry, a poll, some reviews, plus a "how to" section that offers up ten tips on successful reading.

The layout is simple and the lack of any colour images speak to the low budget nature of the mag. However not all good things come in glitzy packages (see Monday's review of Fashion), and if you want good Canadian writing for the relatively low price of $4.95, then this mag's for you.

Writers Inc.: I've been trying to keep you up-to-date on the shenanigans at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto. Here's today's report on what looks especially promising on today's schedule.

Like your sci-fi speculative? Ursula K. LeGuin is undeniably science fiction's hottest female commodity. She's written children's books, screenplays, novels etc -- all located in her fantastical otherworlds. LeGuin's newest science fiction novel is The Telling.

Hey Farley, nice beard, when are you going to mow it! The man who Never Cried Wolf is at the podium reading from his latest text Walking the Land. Farley Mowat's new book is "based on the past and present life of Canada's Barrenground Inuit, who were almost annihilated by the decimation of caribou herds in the early part of the twentieth century."

And a top of the morning to lovers of Irish literature. Maeve Binchy's in town flogging her new novel the Scarlet Feather. Seven of the author's novels rank in the top 20 best selling Irish books of the 20th century. And Binchy's even been on Oprah!

Fine Tuning: Grab the popcorn and tune to CBC for another installment of the gritty, coroner, crime drama DaVinci's Inquest. Tonight's show features a crumbling romance, the continuing mystery of who's murdering the cabbies and a subplot that involves teaching medical students how to investigate a crime scene. On second thought -- maybe you should skip the popcorn. 9 p.m. on CBC-TV