Ontario book news, interviews and more
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October 03, 2023
Bradley Peters' Debut Poetry Collection Takes Readers into the Prison Experience & the Systemic Problems Within
One of the poems in Bradley Peters' Sonnets from a Cell (Brick Books) closes with the musing "A sonnet is not memory. More so/ It is a room the shape of my own face." This lyrical creativity and exploration ...
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October 02, 2023
Book Launch Season, Part 2: Being an Audience Member
In the first part of “Book Launch Season,” I talked about how to enter this period of time as an author. Writers are (I hope) readers. As a poet especially, going to readings and sitting there as ...
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October 02, 2023
October 2023 Writer in Residence Peter Counter on Writing After the Unthinkable
Peter Counter was on a perfectly normal family vacation when the unthinkable happened: a stranger shot Counter's father, leaving Counter to drag him, wounded and bleeding, to safety. It was a moment ...
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September 28, 2023
Grant writing 101: Writing a budget
Writing a grant budget can be daunting, but I promise it doesn’t have to be! Many writing grants don’t even require budgets (TAC and OAC!), but some grants, including the Canada Council for the Arts ...
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September 28, 2023
Excerpt: Laurence Beaudoin-Masse Skewers Influencer & Wellness Culture in Her Brilliant YA Sequel
Laurence Beaudoin-Masse's debut novel, Suck it In and Smile was published to wide acclaim in 2022. Exploring our social media-influenced obsession with perfection and appearance, the young adult novel ...
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September 28, 2023
On Motivation
I’m a person who gets called “very prolific” a lot. I won’t get into what I think about that or whether I agree or if I think it’s even remotely good for my mental health or personal relationships. ...
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September 27, 2023
5 Authors Nominated for the $60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
This morning the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the five finalists for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The $60,000 award is one of my country's most prestigious, annually ...
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September 26, 2023
Elizabeth Ruth on Exploring Coincidences in Her Mesmerizing, Icy New Novel
Anyone who lived in Toronto in 2013 remembers the ice storm of that winter, which brought the city to its knees. It's against this dramatic backdrop that celebrated writer Elizabeth Ruth's new novel Semi-Detached ...
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September 23, 2023
The Strangest Places I've Sold Books
As a niche (I use the word niche here as a stand-in for what others have described as feminist or bad) Canadian novelist, I try not to have high (or any) expectations for the success of my books. Sales ...
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September 21, 2023
I’ve been invited to present at a literary festival, now what?
From the Brigadoon-esque setting of The Eden Mills Writer Festival to the hustle and bustle of TIFA Kids, it’s literary festival season. Everyone loves an invite to a party, but make sure you have all ...