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May 29, 2020Making Time: Why Now is the Perfect Time for Tarot
I don’t want to pretend that I know the history of the Tarot or how it should be used, but I’ve been using it for the last three years because it’s been immensely helpful. I’m not an “expert,” ...
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July 04, 2019"For Me, Voice is Everything" Talking with Michael Libling About Writing, Advice, & His Debut Novel, Hollywood North
Michael Libling's Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels (Chizine Publications) mines the rich - and largely unknown - history of a surprising Canadian film hotspot: Trenton, Ontario.Dark, smart, and ...
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May 11, 2020Goals from another time.
I found this piece of paper recently. I’d made it many years back and stuck it to my wall when I was trying to get organized with my linked short story collection, Coconut Dreams.Some observations:I’d ...
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March 13, 2021
Permission to dream
When I started writing, I didn’t understand the invisible work. The models of labour I was most familiar with—whether in a coffee shop, at a hotel, in a firehall, or at a construction site—were, ...
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August 03, 2021In Praise of Editors
I believe the most important relationship in publishing is between the author and the editor. It’s a fundamental partnership that turns ideas into prose and drafts into polished works. When the editing ...
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October 21, 2020The casting call
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and … as you get older, you become more skillful in casting them.” — Gore VidalThe characters who show up in my stories are truly a mixed ...
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February 26, 2021Grinding Out a New Novel
Writing a novel is a grind. It’s an arduous, meticulous, and often repetitive process that can take years. There’s the actual typing of words onto the page, and then come the edits and rewrites, which ...
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May 16, 2020Readings...that feeling never goes away.
I always get that feeling right before reading my work in public. You may know it: the urge to simultaneously faint, throw up, and run out of the room. My first few readings were terrifying. I was fortunate ...
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October 26, 2020"Say what?"
“All the information you need can be given in dialogue.” — Elmore LeonardAnytime dialogue carries the story it’s pure joy. Sometimes it’s straight up, other times it’s slippery with manipulation. ...
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October 22, 2018
Uncomfortable Questions
One of the most common questions any writer from a marginalized background gets is “who did you write this for?” A variation of that is “what audience did you have in mind when you wrote this?” ...