Columnists

Creative Life

I was asked to give a keynote address at the launch of the student literary journal, Scarborough Fair at the University of Toronto Scarborough. The theme was “The Creative Life”. As their Writer in ...

Small Victories: How to Keep Writing When the Odds Seem Stacked Against You

Everyone thinks that once you get a book deal it’s all sunshine and rainbows: a beautiful book, great reviews, book launches! … But it’s not. Getting published often introduces you to a host of ...

How Heated Fitness Classes Improved My (Writing) Life

It’s a given that entrepreneurs are supposed to invest in their business, accumulate assets, and build something bigger than themselves. Writing is what I do, it’s my business. When I started teaching, ...

How to Secure a Literary Agent

With spring just around the corner (we hope), there’s a renewed sense of optimism in the air. Writers are slowly emerging from the depths of their hobbit holes, and some have manuscripts ready to be ...

How Twitter Transformed My Writing Life

“Ugh, I’m on Twitter and I hate it,” I remember telling a friend and fellow writer at her birthday party last year.The room was full of writers and the conversation had somehow shifted to talk about ...

Writing and illustrating children’s books: All the surprises

The process of writing, illustrating and publishing a children’s book can be filled with surprises—good and bad! For example, I’m always surprised by how much my heart explodes when a friend sends ...

An Interview with Ashley Obscura

“What place does the slow-moving technology of love have in our world?” Plainspoken but never simplistic, the writing of Ashley Obscura and her press, Metatron, is emblematic of many of the young ...

When All Your Faves Are Problematic

 Recently, at a dinner with several writer friends, I learned that a writer I’ve long admired has been known to behave rather smarmily around young women. This writer is now on the list of names that ...

On Burnout

I’ve finished my first book. I’ve done the writing, the rewriting, the editing, more rewriting, the copy editing, the fact checking… I think you get the point. It was a lot of work. But now I’m ...

Writing Black Futures: I see you creating strong bonds

In February of 2018 I had curated an event at the Vancouver Public Library called “Where are you really from?” which I hoped would create a safe space for dialogue around what it means to identify ...