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November 30, 2023
7 Ways to Develop Secondary Characters
Many authors do a good job at developing their protagonist or POV characters. After all, readers will be in these characters’ heads throughout an entire book. But as many readers can attest to, sometimes ...
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June 03, 2017
Kai Cheng Thom wins the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers
Today in Vancouver, the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced that Kai Cheng Thom is the winner of the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers. The $4,000 prize, unique in its focus on rewarding ...
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July 31, 2017
An Interview with David O’Meara, organizer of the Plan 99 Reading Series
In the Manx Pub, a basement bar on Ottawa’s Elgin St., there’s a slim shelf of books – lots of poetry, but also some prose. The books are often browsed, often borrowed, and often returned. They’re ...
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November 03, 2016
The Art of Giving Feedback
In 2009, after I had finished an early draft of my first book, God Loves Hair, I gave some of my closest friends a copy of the manuscript for their feedback. It was a vulnerable experience, especially ...
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September 01, 2021
Introduction to my Residency: On Walking, Emergence, and the Weaving of Story in Place (or Wander with me to the River)
This is my first residency, so in preparing for it I did what I know how to do — began researching what others had done before me to get an idea of how things are done. I spent some time looking through ...
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February 05, 2013
I Have No Idea What I'm Doing
As someone who spends a good part of their life and career on the internet, I have a sneering, love-hate relationship with memes. Many of them are misused and go off the rails, but a good one can be golden. ...
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April 28, 2023
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 ...
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July 13, 2021
Read an Excerpt from Rob Benvie's Darkly Brilliant New Novel, Bleeding Light
Writer and musician Rob Benvie's newest book, Bleeding Light (Invisible Publishing) defies easy description. It follows four people, seemingly unconnected to one another, through wild journeys both physical ...
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July 05, 2016
Chasing Ghosts at Four in the Morning
I can only write fiction before dawn. Part of that is simple adaptive behaviour: most of the past two decades have been filled with children and day jobs that happen, by definition, during the day. The ...
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July 28, 2016
Service Industry Hell (Part 5): Sex in Cemeteries and a Dancing Monkey
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. ...