Columnists

A draft

For years my partner and I lived in a condo, one of the four sides of which was flanked by windows, only one. The world was out there and we were in here, boxed, safe, separate, tucked away in the proscenium. ...

How to Finish Your Damn Book - For Beginners!

I often joke that writing a novel is like running a marathon---only no one bothers to tell you what the route is. When the gun goes off, you’re just supposed to head off in whatever direction you think ...

On the future of Canlit

You guys, this is my last Open Book column.I have been writing this column for a year now and I’ll admit I didn’t know what I was going to write about when Holly Kent and Kevin Hardcastle asked me ...

An Open Letter to the Stranger Who Asked Me, “How Did You Write That Book for Children If You Don't Have Children?”

Dear Stranger,I realize that writing a book is kind of a self-important undertaking. When I write, I sometimes imagine that there are people out there who might actually enjoy reading my words and letting ...

THREAD! The Role of the Twitter Essay in CanLit

When most people think of Twitter, they think of the short and pithy 280-character messages that the platform is best known for. But perhaps the most interesting content on the social network is shared ...

Form as Home

Every time I sit down to write, I find myself exasperated by the considerations. The considerations of who will be reading it, how it’ll be interpreted, if it’ll hurt someone within or outside my ...

Defending your writing

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. As a kid, I read everything in my library from A – Z. I was the secretary of the Library Club and loved my after-school gig of sorting the books according ...

An interview with Jaime Forsythe

“How I fit myself into my work is something I’m still figuring out.”Jamie Forsythe’s I Heard Something finds mystery in the common place. Domestic scenes take on a surrealistic quality as the ...

On writers, politics, and when to just stop talking

Once upon a time, before the age of social media, Canlit was inclusive and kind, and political differences were settled amicably over whisky in private festival hospitality suites and the kind of dark ...

How to Make $3000 a Month Writing Children’s Books: A Case for Day Jobs

When I was a teen, I thought that every children’s author got to sit at home alone and undisturbed, joyfully tapping away at a computer all day and night. Before I went off to university, I learned ...