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February 12, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 4 of 9
The creation of tension and suspense and mood shifts to me are just as important as creating characters and the plot themselves. Tension and suspense is what makes the story come alive. For the short ...
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February 28, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 9 of 9
One thing about the pandemic is that it has changed how we socialize and interact with other humans. Even before the pandemic people seemed to be becoming more engaged online and less actually connected. ...
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May 30, 2021
Poetry: A Healing Tool for Dark Days
I started this month with mental health for writers, and I want to end it with a more personal look at the same topic.One of the many reasons I’ve been grateful to Open Book for offering me this residency ...
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March 21, 2018On writing politically, or how not to make your fiction sound like a lecture
When I started writing my most recent novel, The Conjoined, I began with the idea of subverting classic crime fiction, something that I thought would be a fun bookish game. What if I could write a literary ...
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November 26, 2014With Mark
With Mark A bag of mixed nuts, a stranger (Mark), Marvin (again), a Saturday, a good one.
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November 30, 2014
A tiny closing present
My movement teacher told us a story at the end of class yesterday. He walked into a cafe, and was assaulted by the power of a painting. It was glorious, incredible, alive. An article hung beneath the ...
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September 18, 2023The Places I Write, Rated
I’ll write anywhere but not all writeable spaces are equal. My latest novel was written all over the place (see: How to Write a Novel in a Month) and if I learned anything from that experience it’s ...
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December 29, 2023When Life Influences Form
What’s the best form for your next writing project? Often, this is decided by the sort of thing you want to write. Your sprawling epic fantasy idea likely won’t work as a short story, for example. ...
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July 08, 2024The Magic of Letter Writing
Summer challenge: Write a letter to your favourite authorWhen I was in Grade 3, I loved Jean Little’s books. So I did what I always do: I wrote her a letter. I told her all of my favourite things about ...
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September 17, 2024Jacob Wren Stumbles Into a Strange Utopia Amidst a Raging War Zone in Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
It's a difficult task to distill the political struggles of our time into fiction, and authors run the risk of either alienating readers by doing so, or by creating a story that is simply too close to ...
