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December 13, 2018David Goutor on Mining Family History to Write an Extraordinary Winnipeg Man's Fight Against Fascism
In 1936, a German man living in Winnipeg was following the inexorable march of Franco's armies towards Madrid. Hans Ibing recognized the significance of the Spanish Civil War in the struggle against ...
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March 13, 2021
Permission to dream
When I started writing, I didn’t understand the invisible work. The models of labour I was most familiar with—whether in a coffee shop, at a hotel, in a firehall, or at a construction site—were, ...
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July 21, 2015
Talking in Public About Writing a Novel
I’m putting the finishing touches onto a talk about my novel, Eulogy, which I’ll present tomorrow as part of the weekly Artist Talk series at Haliburton School of The Arts. This is to be a one hour ...
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February 27, 2020The Entitled Interview: March 2020 Writer-in-Residence Leslie Shimotakahara Finds Inspiration Through Family
Reading Toronto-based author Leslie Shimotakahara, you get the sense that family, and history, have always been important to her work.Her first book, the Canada-Japan Literary Prize-winning The Reading ...
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February 07, 2018Watercolour Illustrator Qin Leng Shares her Dreamy and Inspiring Workspace
Yesterday we introduced you to Jessica Scott Kerrin, author of The Better Tree Fort (Groundwood Books). Today, we are thrilled to welcome Qin Leng to Open Book, whose beautiful watercolour illustrations ...
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March 27, 2026A Long-Buried Secret Reshapes a Family’s Understanding of Itself in THE BREAKWATER by Leslie Shimotakahara
A long-buried secret reshapes a family’s understanding of itself in The Breakwater (Cormorant Books), a multigenerational story that moves between past and present to trace the impact of silence, displacement, ...
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December 20, 2016The Dirty Dozen, with Jen Sookfong Lee
Author and broadcaster Jen Sookfong Lee's newest novel The Conjoined (ECW Press) is being praised as both gorgeously written and compulsively readable. It opens with an unforgettable premise when Jessica ...
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January 19, 2021Trina Davies' Brilliant New Play, Silence, Brings an Overlooked Figure in History to Centre Stage
It would be hard to find anyone who doesn't know who Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was. But Mabel Hubbard Bell isn't a name that pops up in many history classes. The untold story ...
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May 30, 2023Feed Your Brain, Read Widely
Writers are often advised to read within their genre to better understand it. And when it comes to readers, it can be tempting to stick to their favourite genre too⎯it’s a favourite for a reason!I'm ...
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May 01, 2025A Budding Cicada Enthusiast Learns That Some Wondrous Natural Events Are Worth Waiting For in When the Air Sang
It's always special to see authors speak to young readers about the wonders of the natural world, and our featured book today does exactly that. Further, Laura Bontje's latest work digs down to a micro-level ...
