Search
-
June 16, 2023Writing Family and Community Stories
Why do we write? Some people want to write the definitive work on a subject. Others want to create new audiences or business potential. Some want to introduce readers to a place or time they wouldn’t ...
-
October 24, 2013Writing Fatherhood
What do we know about pregnancy1.I shall begin, by speaking. Incubate, introduce a glossary. Just on the tongue. Unpaginated.2.Something is growing, inside. Occupant. Connects whole milk to healthy industry. ...
-
October 22, 2023Writing For Ghouls
It’s spooky season, and here in Atlantic Canada the ambiance is that of a flooded crypt. The smell of wet fallen leaves, rainy days that feel heavy and dark as night, smoke on the air indicating warmth ...
-
February 26, 2016Writing Hangovers Are Denim on Denim: Part 2 of Four New Writers to Watch
I posted the first half of my interview with four exciting writers-to-watch, Noor Naga, Sofia Mostaghimi, Kristel Jax, and Faith Arkorful, earlier today. We talked about writing into dark places, what ...
-
March 18, 2014
Writing Sex
"And Panhuyzen really gives good sex.” ~National Post, August 1999 Sex! Did you hear that, sex! We’re talking about sex today. Oh, what’s that, you don’t want to talk about sex? Well, too bad, ...
-
September 30, 2015
Writing Through Life Change
I used to think that writing was an all-alone endeavor: I thought that all you need is a laptop and some time. I don’t know why I thought that. It’s not true, it turns out. I’ve had help. This help ...
-
March 01, 2021
Writing violence (again)
On violence and trauma and repetition...When I was nineteen, I went to dinner at a friend’s, and afterwards, her father invited us all upstairs to see his attic art studio.There were so many canvasses ...
-
July 13, 2018
Writing What You "Know"
I’m one of countless writers who found his way thanks to this old standby, and having just published a book of stories set in small Southwestern Ontario towns a lot like the ones where I grew up, it’s ...
-
May 31, 2016Writing What’s Closest to Home
Last year, when I turned in the first draft of a memoir on rape trauma, my editor had a pretty reasonable observation. Despite divulging various details of violation, illness, and the path to getting ...
-
November 02, 2020
Written and On-Screen Selves: On Diaries and Social Media
Do you remember your first diary?Mine was a baby blue hardcover with a cute little rhyme on it that I still remember to this day:People, places, faces. My life in words and phrases. All I've thought ...
