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January 13, 2022The Writers' Trust Amplified Voices Programme Offers Support & Promotion for BIPOC Authors Impacted by the Pandemic
Picture it: You've worked for years on a book, pouring your heart and soul into every sentence and idea, and you even managed to find a publisher. It's supposed to be a dream come true, and often involves ...
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April 29, 2022May Writer in Residence Mark David Smith on His Macbeth Inspired Witch-Detective Series for Kids
If you read Macbeth and thought (like us) "less political scheming and more of those fabulous witches, please", you're in luck because teacher and writer Mark David Smith's The Weird Sisters: A Note, ...
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September 14, 2023The Pull of Two Needles
My first version of this essay was about how my two obsessions, knitting and writing, don’t compete with each other. I wrote at length about how they spin together in my brain in complicated steps, ...
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January 24, 2018Poet & Artist Judy Lowry on Her Reading Life, from Wordsworth Woes to Beat Poet Surprises
Judy Lowry's unforgotten dream (The Brucedale Press) is a poetry collection informed by the stark beauty of Grey County, where Lowry (who is also an artist) lives. The poems range freely, living up to ...
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October 30, 2017An Interview With Phoebe Wang
“Like jarring a sore bone, you wince, and the poem gasps out of you...” - Phoebe Wang The geography of Phoebe Wang’s Admission Requirements feels like it’s always in a state of flux. The speaker ...
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September 29, 2015Booking Up: with Big, Big Names at No, No Prices, Appel Salon Events Are Filling up Fast
As summer span slowly towards fall, and as book people gathered to talk about the heavy calendar that lay ahead, a new literary lineup was among the topics under discussion. The Bram and Bluma Appel Salon ...
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September 14, 2014On the Idea of a Secret (Part 1)
“The idea of a secret that will be revealed always results in one of two scenarios: death and destruction, or self-discovery and recovery beyond our wildest dreams of unification. And in the greatest ...
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April 18, 2019Brenda Leifso on the "Wonderful Odd Ordinariness" of Poetry & an Act of Kindness that Led Her to Writing
Brenda Leifso's lush new poetry collection Wild Madder (Brick Books) delves into the strange, long process of finding one's way. Leifso is unafraid to let the rawness of disorientation, loss of identity, ...
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March 31, 2019Writer at Work: Criticism is Care
When I began the “Writer at Work” series for Open Book, I wanted to explore what it means for me, a poet and a writer, to be at “work.” As a woman of colour and an emerging writer, I have many ...
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June 28, 2019Navigating Microaggressions as a Black Writer in CanLit
Story time! Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of doing a talk with the wonderful and talented Olive Senior and I was excited because it was held in the same neighbourhood where my protagonist, Kara, ...