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January 04, 2017The In Character Interview, with Paul Carlucci
The characters in Paul Carlucci's A Plea for Constant Motion (House of Anansi Press) are not necessarily people you'd want to befriend, but they are not people you'll ever forget. From the damaged to ...
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June 23, 2020
The Male Default in Children's Literature - What It Is and Why It Matters
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Bechdel Test for movies. A film that passes the Bechdel Test must have at least one scene in which two female characters are talking to each other – and not about a man. ...
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August 24, 2017
Revising Your Vomit Draft
Every time I sit down to revise a new picture book (aka vomit draft), I can’t remember how to do it. How can I turn something terrible into something better? How do I make things actually happen in ...
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October 30, 2025Melanie Dennis Unrau Excavates History and Language in the Poetics of GOOSE
In the exciting new collection, Goose, poet and researcher Melanie Dennis Unrau reimagines the language of industry as poetry, unearthing new meanings from the pages of Northland Trails by S. C. Ells, ...
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February 07, 2017
Kid Lit Can: Spotlight on Middle Grade Fiction - Part 1
Happy 2017! This month and next, I’m spotlighting middle-grade (MG) novels -- stories written for readers who are generally within the 7 to 12-year-old age range. I’ve written one MG novel (Island ...
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May 15, 2017The Dirty Dozen, with Catherine Hernandez
Catherine Hernandez's Scarborough (Arsenal Pulp Press) is a force to be reckoned with. Filled with the vibrant voices of a struggling but tight-knit community in the titular city, the story immerses ...
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February 07, 2019Blue Moon Publishers Puts out Justin Bieber Book with Foreword from the Pop Star Himself
Canada is no slouch in supplying some of the most famous actors, musicians, and artists to the rest of the world. But one Canadian in recent years has achieved an almost unprecedented level of fame - ...
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May 22, 2022
The Reasons I Write
I can think of many reasons why I should not write. The pay is terrible. The hours, though flexible, are insufferably long (i.e., even when I stop doing writing, I am thinking about writing). It can be ...
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June 13, 2018"All Transformations Have a Cost" Dian Day on Her Arresting New Novel The Madrigal
It's no surprise that in a novel called The Madrigal (Inanna Publications), music is front and centre. Frederick (who shares a surname with the title) and his mother are both singers - but they experience ...
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July 16, 2018Why It’s Okay If You Haven’t Finished Your First Book Yet
I thought I would finish my first novel by the time I turned 25.I laugh at the absurdity of that now. But in my early 20s, I believed it when people told me that anything was possible with hard work and ...
