Thread 005: When Stories Find Their Soil

On books, cafés, and the places that write us into being...

Issue 005: A Geography of Words

Different cities write different stories through us. I learned this first in Toronto, where my writing always seems to come in fragments - quick notes scribbled between streetcar stops, ideas caught like fallen leaves in Trinity Bellwoods Park. The city's pace shapes my prose: staccato observations, urban rhythms, the constant interplay of nature and concrete that makes Toronto uniquely itself.

My Toronto stories tend to be immediate, contemporary, grounded in the present moment. They're written in coffee shops where musicians practice in back rooms, in bars where poets still argue about metaphors, in parks where the city's wildness refuses to be tamed. Each neighbourhood demands its own voice - Kensington Market stories feel different from Yorkville tales, Queen West narratives have their own particular beat.

But Barcelona? Barcelona pulls different words from me. In the Gothic Quarter, my writing stretches back through centuries. Every sentence wants to …