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June 01, 2023Why I Write About Difficult Topics
I believe in my readers: their vulnerabilities, their resiliencies, their self-awareness, their goals and aspirations, and their ability to change. That’s why I write about difficult topics.More than ...
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June 28, 2018July 2018 WIR Daniel Perry on Favourite Reads & Biggest Literary Influences, from O'Brien to du Maurier
You can almost feel the dusty air of Currie Township in Daniel Perry's stories. The desire to escape the rotting barns and crumbling roadways is palpable, and captured viscerally in the character of ...
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April 01, 2016Writing in Public
Harlan Ellison would occasionally set up a typewriter in the front window of a bookshop and crank out a story on public display for anyone who cared to watch him. The point he was making (other than the ...
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March 01, 2022Happy St. David's Day
Happy St. David’s Day!St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and every March 1st I make Welsh cakes. A Welsh cake is like a pancake –– you cook it on a griddle. It’s also like a scone –– ...
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June 07, 2023Shane Neilson & Roxanna Bennett's Collaborative Poetry Collection Explores Ableism in the Pandemic & CanLit
The pandemic lockdowns were an isolating, complex time that were difficult in myriad ways for everyone effected. But for people with disabilities, mental health challenges, and neurodivergence, there ...
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August 14, 2024Author Sita MacMillan Begins an Essential Series Starring Sarah Ponakey, Storycatcher
It's often the case with young readers, and writers, that they simply do not see the stories that they would like to read and write being published with frequency. This is a distinct problem in CanLit ...
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April 16, 2014
Puzzle
At the suggestion of a friend, I gave my students a Seamus Heaney poem, “A Personal Helicon,” cut up into a puzzle of words, running the gamut from eight “a’s” to one “you” and “your” ...
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December 14, 2020Contest: Reconnect with the Land with Inspiring Nonfiction from Wolsak & Wynn
It's all too easy to take the land we live on for granted, to forget how much it gives us, and who has lived on it and taken care of it. But as we hunker down for winter, and the land enters its chilly ...
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July 24, 2025Read an Excerpt from Iris and the Dead, the Debut Novel from Miranda Schreiber
We're excited to feature the debut novel from acclaimed writer and researcher Miranda Schreiber today on Open Book. It's a haunting work that weaves elements of magical realism and folklore with grounded, ...
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March 09, 2021
A love letter (to books)
The first quote-unquote serious novel I read was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. My eighth grade teacher set down a box at the front of the classroom and, in a seemingly ...
