Ontario book news, interviews and more

5 Tips to Stand Out in the Slush Pile

You’ve finished your manuscript. It’s been edited by a critique partner. You’ve assembled a pitch. Now what? The next step is securing literary representation to pitch your project to prospective ...

writing & what & why

Writing is a strange and lonely experience where you spend a lot of time in your head trying to create worlds that weave in and out of reality.Writing is an exhilarating experience when it goes well. ...

The In Character interview, with Suzette Mayr

Suzette Mayr's Giller-nominated Monoceros charmed and moved readers across the country upon its publication, so it's no surprise that readers are excited about her new novel, Dr. Edith Vane and the ...

Talking about Poetry with the 2017 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award Nominees

The RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers (administered by the Writers' Trust of Canada) has an all-star list of past winners and nominees, including names like Madeleine Thien, Jeramy Dodds, ...

Photos! Authors Descend on Ottawa for Politics & the Pen

Every spring, the Writers' Trust of Canada hosts their annual Ottawa-based fundraiser, Politics & the Pen. The event brings together politicians, diplomats, donors, and authors at the iconic Fairmont ...

The Word on the Street launches Writing DiverCity Writing Contest

One of our favourite festivals, The Word On The Street Toronto, has launched its first fiction writing contest, open to writers under 35. Writing DiverCity aims to highlight the ever-growing variety and ...

Happy Birthday, Marian Engel!

Today is the eighty-fourth birthday of Marian Engel, or it would be, had the novelist not died of cancer in 1985. Now, instead of a person, she is a name, survived like all people by her family and friends, ...

Paul Vermeersch & The Holy Order

I don’t need a special space to write. I don’t need candles, or a window to look out onto a body of water or a forest. There’s nothing interesting on my desk, no amethysts. I believe that in the ...

The In Character interview, with Terri Favro

Debbie Reynolds Biondi, the protagonist of Terri Favro's Sputnik's Children (ECW Press), is the author of a beloved comic series. But lately, with her fanbase and her own inspiration waning, things ...

Gotta read

The way it was, shapes of letters in the alphabet were like suggestions of different parts of insects. That was in the beginning when I first became aware of them, how different they were—the construction ...