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March 15, 2022Why Canada Reads Needs Unhappy Narratives
Each year on Canada Reads, five books of fiction and nonfiction are chosen by Canadian celebrities who advocate for their book of choice as one that “all of Canada should read.” One book is voted ...
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April 11, 2017
Alice Burdick on Poetry Exercises
My next few posts as Writer in Residence here at Open Book will feature short interviews with Canadian poets discussing their relationship to poetry prompts and exercises. They'll talk about what they ...
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November 23, 2021
13 Grant Writing Tips
I am not great at a lot of things, but I am great at writing grants. Not my own, particularly, but for others. I fell into grant writing out of necessity—writing my own in my contemporary dancer days, ...
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August 18, 2023Picture Book Trends
Picture books, like all art forms, are subject to trends and shifts in theme, style and format. I don’t necessarily recommend writing to trend, but it’s always good to be familiar with what’s working ...
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September 08, 2015
Literary Perturbations: Math, Rhythm, and the Unforgettable Sentence
I want to write about perturbations created by literature, how when you’re reading something that connects to you, you can feel shaken, disoriented almost, like everything in the world has suddenly ...
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November 29, 2021I am a celebrationist
I am a celebrationist.I celebrate big things and small things, all the things, really—kids getting their final molars, the anniversary of my fella and I meeting, the first day of summer (and fall and ...
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June 27, 2017Jennifer Lanthier on the Magic of Reading for the First Time
Breaking up with a friend is never easy. But it's especially tough when there is an entire world on the line. Such is the dilemma young Oscar finds himself in as he pens a fiery goodbye to his best friend ...
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August 24, 2020What Do You Do When Your Disability Keeps You from Writing? What I Learned When I Launched a Brute Force Hack on my Brain
What Do You Do When Your Disability Keeps You from Writing? What I Learned When I Launched a Brute Force Hack on my Brain [1]A few years ago, I started hiking alone. I enjoyed escaping the city to one ...
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June 27, 2023Read an Excerpt from A Hostage by Charlotte Mendel, A Timely Tale of Power, Politics, & Media
When Charlotte is kidnapped by notorious dictator Kassem in Charlotte Mendel's A Hostage (Inanna Publications), she does what she has to in order to maintain sanity, from creating a compartmentalized ...
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March 12, 2020What Wolves Are You Missing? How Writing Communities Improve Our Writing
“The Yellowstone river is healthier today than it was in 1995. The wild part about this positive ecological trend (which cuts against so many other ecological trends in the world) is that we understand ...
