Ontario book news, interviews and more

Instructors Colin McAdam, Kyo Maclear, & Alissa York on the Unique, Intense, Transformative Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop

The Humber School for Writers is one of the oldest and most prestigious writing programs in the country, and has turned out numerous bestselling authors including the likes of Vincent Lam, Shari LaPena, ...

Scarborough: A Setting

When I was growing up in Scarborough, I loved it and hated it. I don’t think it’s an uncommon feeling towards places where we grew up. But there are things about coming of age in a suburb as a racialized ...

Dayne Ogilvie Winner Ben Ladouceur on the Intense Craving to Read beyond His Own Intersections

In June, Ben Ladouceur added the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBTQ+ Writers to his list of honours (which already included the Earle Birney Poetry Prize and a Lambda nomination). The 12-year old ...

Stepping Twice into the Same City

On a recent trip to read from my new book in Vancouver—my second trip there, the last being more than 12 years ago—I found myself in conversation with Heraclitus.Best known, according to Plato, for ...

"What's Your Story?" Read the Winning Texts of the 2018 OBPO Writing Contest Winners! Part Three: Scarborough

It's summer and that means the best time to read - whether it's inside with a fan or out in a park or on a beach. So grab your refreshment of choice and find some shade to take in four brand new, exclusive, ...

Photos from the Griffin Poetry Prize Gala!

It is Canadian poetry's sparkling night and it happens once a year - the Griffin Poetry Prize Gala is a highlight of the literary calendar when poets and poetry lovers alike can don their finest threads ...

July 2018 WIR Daniel Perry on Favourite Reads & Biggest Literary Influences, from O'Brien to du Maurier

You can almost feel the dusty air of Currie Township in Daniel Perry's stories. The desire to escape the rotting barns and crumbling roadways is palpable, and captured viscerally in the character of ...

Mentors & Allies 5: David Chariandy

When I think about writers whose words have influenced me, those powerful words are usually nothing more than a short line, phrase or fragment that embeds itself in my mind. Writers who have lodged their ...

"How Do We Transform?" Susannah M. Smith on Her Unique, Imaginative Novel The Fairy Tale Museum

Susannah M. Smith's The Fairy Tale Museum (Invisible Publishing) is populated with a cyborg cyclops, fortune tellers and vampires, lovers with the heads of birds, and countless other characters who live ...

Why Do We Keep Picture Book Authors and Illustrators Apart? - or How to Play Well With Others

I completely underestimated how emotional the whole process of creating a picture book would be. When my first picture book was being published, I became a horrible self-involved troll-person. I couldn’t ...