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May 29, 2023Philipp Schott on Weaving Together Iceland, Ostriches, and ASD in His Newest Mystery Romp
After a long period of dominance by dark and gory Scandi-style titles, the mystery genre seems to be spreading some love to less grim aesthetics, as book lovers twig to the pleasure of reading tightly ...
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August 30, 2022Carolyn Huizinga Mills on Spark Sentences, Creating Vibrant Settings, & Why a Writing Process Requires Chocolate
In Carolyn Huizinga Mills' new novel, Sins of the Daughter (Cormorant Books), Danah Calsely is doing just fine. She's working diligently towards her PhD and her life is calm. The fact that her mother ...
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October 28, 2021November 2021 Writer in Residence Lindsay Zier-Vogel Creates an Unforgettable Debut Inspired by the Story of Amelia Earhart
Famous for both courageously breaking barriers for women and her unsolved and mysterious-to-this-day disappearance, there is much about Amelia Earhart to capture the imagination. But for Grace Porter, ...
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December 06, 2024In the New Speculative YA Novel, Defy, a Brave Teenager Fights to Save His Sister from the Clutches of an Authoritarian State
Narratives about dystopian autocracies have been written for many decades now, but each generation of writers finds new inspiration in the examples from the world they live in. These stories can issue ...
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August 30, 2023Michael Melgaard Delves into the Dark Side of True Crime in His Debut Novel
In many true crime tales, the focus shifts to the intrepid reporter, detective, or armchair expert who is intent on solving a mystery. Or, even more problematically, the story centres—sometimes with ...
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May 31, 2014So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye
This marks my last post as Open Book Toronto's writer-in-residence, and I want to thank everyone for their support this past month. Everyone has been extremely kind – both those authors, artists, and ...
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September 23, 2020"Talent is Long Patience" Jack Wang on Teaching Writing & Why Talent and Genius Aren't The Endgame
Jack Wang's extraordinary debut book of stories, We Two Alone (House of Anansi Press) weaves a path across the world, following the Chinese diaspora over nearly a hundred years. It's the kind of collection ...
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October 10, 2024Saad T. Farooqi Grasps a Sliver of Hope in the Unique Dystopian Landscape of White World
Inspired by lived experiences, and the geopolitical issues that have gripped the countries that he's lived in, Saad T. Farooqi has always had a desire to write dystopian stories that speak to the heart ...
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May 12, 2022"Maybe Writing is Outside of Time" Lisa Moore on What She Learns from Every Book She Writes
Despite the input of well meaning people (and sometimes even ourselves), we cannot always choose who we love. The nature of love, whether you consider it a feeling, an act, an experience, or otherwise, ...
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April 01, 2021Novelist John Jantunen on Opening Scenes, Naming Murderers After Friends, & the Strange Time He Met His Protagonist in Northern Ontario
In the not too distant future, a prison filled with hardened inmates is suddenly plunged into darkness. The power has mysteriously gone out, and it's not coming back. The guards flee the prison, leaving ...
