Columnists

How to Keep Making Children’s Books Right Now, Or Not

As this new normal becomes, well, more normal, those of us able to self-isolate may start to find a bit of space in-between all of our feelings and obligations to build new writing routines, drawing routines ...

Book Therapy: Lean Out by Tara Henley

 (T)he notion—singular, unquestioned—that the only way to succeed in any industry, and especially mine, was to give it everything you had.”—Tara Henley, Lean Out By 2016, successful journalist ...

Bring Back the Good ‘Ol Days of Getting Lost in Fiction

“The anonymous woman in bed beside me adamantly shakes my shoulder.”—Amber Dawn, Sodom Road Exit“Sometimes we would hide in the closet when the drunks came home from the bar.”—Tanya Tagaq, ...

When My Mind is Frenzied, I Don’t Read—I Listen

Being read to is a luxury.Growing up, there were no bedtime stories in my household, at least none that I can remember. There were true stories traded around dinner tables of course, but there was none ...

Making Time: Finding Healing with Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama. You know her. You took a selfie in the Infinity Mirror Room at the AGO. You’ve seen her polka dots all over the Internet. You’ve seen her sobering gaze, her blunt bob.On April 15, Kusama ...

A Crip Writer’s Advice for Surviving a Pandemic

 “Write a book!”“Finish your memoir!”“Turn all this fear and grief into brilliant poetry!”As we have all now found out, the cultural imperative to be as productive as possible doesn’t disappear ...

All of this listening

It was hard to write this column. Like everyone else, I’m all for trying to grasp at normalcy where I can, but I don’t have many writing tips to share right now. (Actually, I do have one writing tip: ...

KiPoWriMo

Remember February? It was a whole lifetime ago in this pandemic moment. In retrospect, it seems innocent to have hated on winter so hard, to have been holding out for March and the advent of spring when ...

Book Therapy: Cordelia Strube’s Misconduct of the Heart

“I so wanted things to be normal.”“They can’t be normal. Make a new normal.”—Cordelia Strube, Misconduct of the HeartFrom the moment we went into isolation, people were making jokes. I don’t ...

Guest Column: What exactly is a ‘rights sale’?

Have you ever wondered how books rights are sold, and what kinds of rights are in play when a book is published? Many published authors are still mystified by some of these aspects of publishing, so we've ...