About three weeks ago, a poet on Instagram found out about my poetry book, contacted me, and asked to meet in a café. That is the first thing I noticed about Christina Strigas, the poet in question: how comfortable she is to DM a stranger. It struck me, as someone who has sometimes great difficulty to share her work online and even greater difficulty to promote my book, that another poet would be interested in my book. That alone made me admire and respect Strigas from the first second of our encounter. I mean, who has nowadays the guts to reach out to people, to share talent, and to pour out their soul online for everyone to read it? A whole lot of us, of course. However, the majority of this whole-lot-of-us, so-called poets or writers, write the same quotes repeatedly and have the nerve to call this annoying and atrocious piece of “art” a “poem” or “prose”. Nevertheless, Christina Strigas is different. She is an incredibly inspiring and youthful woman. Her personality radiates a humbling and positive energy. She is the kind of woman a 20 year-old would like to become in the future: confident, thick-skinned, and young at heart. At now 48, Strigas, who studied in literature at Concordia University, has now three novels (a trilogy), and three poetry books under her belt, including Your Ink On My Soul, and the newest one Love & Vodka. She is the proof that you can make your dreams come true anytime, but only if you have the passion, the courage, and the will to do it.  (more…)