McGill and Montreal – the two inextricably linked – represented independence, autonomy, the pursuit of some romantic idea I had of myself.
To get there, from a conservative, even fearful, immigrant household in the north Toronto suburbs was like embarking on a great adventure, the only one I could imagine at the time. Once there, I hoped to find others like myself, either breaking away from conventional constraints or, more exciting still, having already done so.
All these years later I look back at my four years at McGill and my only regrets are that I didn’t do more, learn more, experience more of what McGill and Montreal had to offer. Still, the first real triumphs I experienced as a writer were there: a play in the McGill Drama Festival, a story in the Scrivener.
The substance of that early work is what I continue to mine to this day, largely about Russian-Jewish immigrants in that north Toronto neighborhood I was so desperate to escape. That some of it has made its way into the pages of The New Yorker or been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize feels like the continuation of a dream that found its first expression at McGill.