Ontario book news, interviews and more

Class, History, Fiction, and Form Part 3: "To See Someone Who Does Not See"

So now I have to do what I said I would do and start offering some ways of escaping the individualist narrative conventions of the bourgeois novel. They will by no means be the only ways. Not by a longshot. ...

Read an Excerpt from The Trauma Beat, Tamara Cherry's Call for Journalists to Change How They Cover Violent Crime

Imagine you've just experienced the worst moment of your life – the worst moment most people could imagine: the violent, unexpected loss of a loved one. In the shock-numbed minutes and hours that follow, ...

Emily Osborne on Weaving Together Translations of Old Norse Skaldic Poetry with Personal Lyrics in Her Bold Debut

Sometimes in discussing poetry, there is an idea that a collection must swing towards either the personal and emotive, creating powerful connections with readers in that vein, or towards a more form-focused ...

Class, History, Fiction, and Form Part 2: Is the Bicycle Dead?

Before I do anything else, I have to try to say what I mean by fictional forms. I do so with a lot of trepidation, because my sense of these things is idiosyncratic and perhaps wrong. But here goes.People ...

Who Gets to Tell Stories? Deborah Dundas Challenges a Collective Reluctance to Talk about Class

These days, Deborah Dundas is known as an acclaimed editor at the Toronto Star, a fixture in the literary and journalistic communities, and a beloved figure who is an insightful, tireless supporter ...

Class, History, Fiction, and Form Part 1

It’s Monday, May 1st. If you’re reading this in Canada or the United States, you are most likely working today. I know I am. At this very moment I am probably guiding a group of adult learners through ...

Literary Secrets

And this is my last post as Writer-in-Residence with Open Book, and I’m grateful to you for reading and revelling in poetry-world with me. I didn’t know how to start this, or how to quantify the month’s ...

May 2023 Writer in Residence Geoffrey Morrison on the 7 Words That Sparked His Captivating Debut Novel

In a strangely deserted public park, Hugh Dalgarno is falling apart. Through an entire day and night, his fevered mind will take him, and anyone along for the ride, on a rollicking interior journey, touching ...

The Word on the Street's 2023 Line Up Will Feature Catherine Hernandez, Kenneth Oppel, Zoe Whittall, & More

The Word on the Street is one of Toronto's most beloved literary traditions, and two changes to the festival last year proved to be popular tweaks: the festival moved back to their old stomping grounds ...

Book Therapy: The Remembering Stone

“But Alice didn’t want the perfect stone to sink to the bottom like all the others, so she put it in her pocket.”-Carey Sookocheff, The Remembering StoneFor my family, last year was defined by loss. ...