Ontario book news, interviews and more

"They Speak for Themselves" Souvankham Thammavongsa on Editing Best Canadian Poetry 2021

Though she's also garnered enormous success for her acclaimed fiction (including last year's Giller Prize winner How to Pronounce Knife), Souvankham Thammavongsa began her career with poetry, with her ...

An ode to letter writing

Writing Letters to Amelia took a long time—finding the form, and the voice, and then the plot, it all took years. When it was time to write the letters from Amelia Earhart to her rumoured lover, Gene ...

"Who Were We, and Why Did We Live?" Diane Schoemperlen on Editing the 50th Edition of Best Canadian Stories

Diane Schoemperlen knows a thing or two about short fiction. The acclaimed Kingston-based author, who has been honoured with prizes including the prestigious Engel Findley and Matt Cohen Awards from the ...

‘AMELIA THANK YOUS.docx’: The single Word document that kept me going

The first thing I do when I start reading a book is read the acknowledgments. I like to know where the book I’m about to read came from, and all the people who helped the author along the way. I love ...

Tomson Highway & Katherena Vermette Win Big on Formidable List of 2021 Writers' Trust Award Winners

This afternoon, the Writers' Trust of Canada announced the winners of six major literary awards, totalling an incredible $330,000 in prize money going to Canadian writers. JJ Lee hosted the livestream, ...

Irish Writer Elaine Feeney on Setting Her Darkly Funny Debut Novel, As You Were, Entirely in a Hospital

In As You Were (Biblioasis), the debut novel from acclaimed Irish poet and playwright Elaine Feeney, Sinead Hynes has a secret that no one can find out. Even when she arrives in hospital, she keeps ...

"It Was Time to Say It" The 2021 Weston Prize Finalists on Why and How They Wrote Their Acclaimed Books

Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 3, the Writers' Trust Awards will take place via livestream, with six of Canada's biggest and most prestigious literary awards announced. One of the most hotly anticipated ...

"Human Justice Still Demands It" Read an Excerpt from Die Walking by Obadiah M, an Raw, Anonymous Account of the Rwandan Genocide

Die Walking: A Child's Journey Through Genocide (House of Anansi Press) by Obadiah M. tells the story of the Rwandan genocide through the perspective of one incredibly brave man who experienced its horrors ...

'Write when the baby sleeps' and other impossible writing rules

Years ago, long before I had any kids, I read that Alice Munro wrote when her baby napped, so when I was pregnant with my first kid, I told myself I’d do the same. It was 2015, six years before my first ...

SOLITARY FANTASIES

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.― Maya AngelouWe have arrived at my final writer-in-residence blog post. For me, it was indeed an October to Remember. I ...