Ontario book news, interviews and more

The Writers' Trust Announces the Winners of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards, the Journey Prize, & the Dayne Ogilvie Prize

Today in an online broadcast, the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced four prizewinners for its emerging writers awards: the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers (short fiction and poetry categories); ...

"It’s So Much Fuel to Write Forward" the Journey Prize Finalists on Story Origins, Joining the JP Ranks, & Writing Advice

Today is the day! At 2:00pm ET, the Writers' Trust of Canada will announce the winners of their emerging writers' prizes, including the Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The prize ...

How to Engage Online

Online engagement is a reality of the modern writer’s life. It’s rare now for an author to create a story in solitude, and then remain there once their book is out in the world. Digital media now ...

The casting call

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and … as you get older, you become more skillful in casting them.” — Gore VidalThe characters who show up in my stories are truly a mixed ...

Mark Kingwell on How the Pandemic Will Change Our Understanding of Risk and Luck

Professor and writer Mark Kingwell is well known as one of Canada's leading thinkers, and he is almost certainly our most fun one. Whether it's baseball or cocktails, philosophy or futurism, Kingwell's ...

"It Means Going Back to Bronwen Wallace’s Work" RBC Bronwen Wallace Award Nominees on Writing, Genres, & Being Seen

The Writers' Trust's RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers is a closely-watched prize, with its knack for identifying interesting and innovative writers early in their careers. Founded by writer ...

Book Therapy: Lorna Crozier’s Through the Garden

 “The world is violent and mercurial—it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love--love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; ...

Fertile ground

Sometimes story ideas seem to come from out of the blue.“I don't know myself where the ideas really come from, what makes them come, or whether one day they'll stop. I used to tell people the not very ...

Poets Becoming Novelists: On Trusting Leaps and Fragments

I finished the first draft of my novel in mid-March – in the first week of isolation. I hadn’t grasped the gravity of the pandemic then, so I was grateful for the sudden reprieve from the real world. ...

Activist Jamal Saeed's Astonishing Story of a Young Girl Coming of Age in the Arab Spring is Essential Reading

Yara's childhood has been a complicated one: growing up in Aleppo, Syria, as a revolution brewed meant a tense and unpredictable existence. And when the Arab Spring unfurls, it means violence on a scale ...