I bought those Hemingway baby shoes, the ones he said had never been worn. I examined them when they arrived, and it wasn’t true: a baby had clearly spit up on the laces. Why would Hemingway lie? Everything is worn, if only by the air around it, and by time.

Izzy Ferguson has written for several journals (Pank, Books in Canada, Cottage Life, Section A et al), was an associate editor at The Idler, even won a Silver Medal from the International Magazine Association. One of his essays appears in a college ‘How-to-Write’ textbook between Jonathan Swift and John Updike, a couple of guys who might vouch for him. Canada’s national literary competition (the CBC Literary Prize) shortlisted him for the Poetry Prize, longlisted him for the Fiction Prize, tacked on three longlistings for the Creative Non-Fiction Prize. And he directed a Toronto improv troupe for several years (until “The Kids in the Hall” emerged from it), more recently devolved into a Fringe Festival and cabaret storyteller.