Search
-
June 05, 2015On Making Sausages
June is the month of graduation. On campus, SFU students seem happier, despite impending midterms. Relatives in high heels are carrying peonies. All parking lots are full.As I pass by the Convocation ...
-
July 18, 2016Service Industry Hell (Part 3): Rats in the kitchen and drunk girls on the floor
A lot of the inspiration for my new book, Congratulations On Everything, came from the things I saw while working in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and from the experiences of friends who did the same. ...
-
August 22, 2017Literary Titans Revisited editor Anne Urbancic on the Two Kinds of Titles
In Literary Titans Revisited: The Earle Toppings Interviews with CanLit Poets and Writers of the Sixties (Dundurn Press), editor Anne Urbancic uses recently unearthed recordings to take us back to ...
-
June 06, 2019Interdependence as Disabled Poetics and Praxis: Or Why My Novel is Dedicated to My Disabled Friend Maddy
People often say that they couldn’t have written their books without the help and support of friends and family. This is particularly true for disabled writers. Finishing my novel required many hours ...
-
November 08, 2014A Terribly Inexpensive Friend
If you buy a second-hand book, it has a price and some degree of wear. This book was 48 cents.Many books, second-hand books, are crusty. That’s how come some people won’t buy them. People eat pizza ...
-
September 10, 2019
On Reading
Writers need to read— I offered this advice earlier in the summer— and I sincerely hope it’s not news to any writer looking at this post that reading is a most instructive way to learn what does, ...
-
January 25, 2018"The Writer’s Ability to Fully Inhabit Their Characters Makes for a Much Richer Story": Talking with Susan Marshall, author of NemeSIS
Sisters have a special bond - and sometimes a complicated one, especially when you throw some parental turmoil into the mix. When Nadine and Rachel's Dad leaves, and their mom falls apart, the two sisters ...
-
July 28, 2020Suzanne Evans Explores Food, Women, and War in Her New Biography
During the second World War, in Singapore's notorious Changi Prison, Ontario's Ethel Mulvany suffers and starves alongside hundreds of other women. To ward off their debilitating hunger pains, they use ...
-
October 13, 2021Read an Excerpt from Hannah Moscovitch, Maev Beaty & Ann-Marie Kerr's Painful & Beautiful Exploration of Motherhood for Modern Artists
We're continuing our week-long spotlight on excerpts at Open Book, bringing you delicious free samples of some of the most exciting Canadian books out this year. Today we've got something special: our ...
-
November 21, 2017Geoff Berner on Unforgettable Characters: "My Favourite Characters are the Fabulists"
DD has disappeared. The mysterious, charming, mercurial (and fictional) musician is gone and no one knows where, leaving novelist Geoff Berner to search for her and put together everything he can through ...
