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May 21, 2018
In Praise of … Performing Your Work
A passion for public speaking, for public performance, has been with me even longer than the passion for writing. I trace it back to when I won a public speaking competition as an elementary school student ...
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September 02, 2018Show Me the (Writing-Grant) Money!
Hello, and Happy September! Thanks to the excellent folks at Open Book for inviting me here, and thanks to you for tuning in, lovely readers-who-I’m-guessing-are-mostly-also-writers.All right, let’s ...
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May 23, 2018Talking Short Fiction with the 2018 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award Finalists
There is short list of literary awards in Canada that serve as reliable prognosticators of future CanLit heavy hitters. One of them is the $10,000 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, awarded to fiction and poetry ...
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May 24, 2018
In Praise of … Reading Widely
I wonder if other writers feel a particular dread I sometimes get when I’m working on a new story or poem. It happens when an idea, or an approach, or a certain trope comes into my mind, one that suddenly ...
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September 04, 2018Shauntay Grant Brings an Important Chapter of Black Canadian History to the Page for Children
Africville was once a vibrant community in Halifax. For over 150 years, it was home to Black Nova Scotians. Due to neglect and targeting by the city government however, the community eventually shuttered ...
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May 24, 2018"The Human Endocrine System Represents a Kind of Poetics" Adam Dickinson on his Poetic, Chemical Autobiography
Adam Dickinson's cerebral and innovative poetry has garnered him honours including nominations for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry, the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and the ReLit ...
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June 21, 2018"The Poet’s Responsibility is to His or Her Poem" Darren Bifford on Poetry Culture & Community
Darren Bifford's False Spring (Brick Books) is devastatingly timely, concerned as it is with the concept of collapse and cultural crisis. Tough, urgent, and unabashed, the poems in the collection push ...
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October 01, 2018Why Does It Take So Long to Make a Picture Book?: Or, How To Get Really Good at Waiting
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t prepared for all the waiting I’d have to do in life. And when it comes to writing, you do a lot of waiting. Waiting for inspiration to strike. Realizing that ...
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October 01, 2018Shortlist for 25th Giller Prize Announced: DeWitt, Dupont, Edugyan, Heti, & Lim
This morning in Toronto, publishers, media, and writers gathered for the announcement of the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist. 2017 winner Michael Redhill was in attendance, as well as Toronto ...
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June 21, 2018Geting to Know Author Claire Tacon: Activism, Guelph Love, and a Badass Grandma
Williams Syndrome is a complicated and little-known condition with symptoms including difficulties with visual and spatial tasks, outgoing, empathetic personalities, and numerous health concerns including ...
