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July 31, 2017An Interview with David O’Meara, organizer of the Plan 99 Reading Series
In the Manx Pub, a basement bar on Ottawa’s Elgin St., there’s a slim shelf of books – lots of poetry, but also some prose. The books are often browsed, often borrowed, and often returned. They’re ...
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December 06, 2016The Proust Questionnaire, with Bruce Meyer
Countless Canadian writers have created memorable characters in the pages of their books, but in Bruce Meyer's Portraits of Canadian Writers (Porcupine's Quill), the writers are the characters. From ...
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July 31, 2019Why you should re-read books
I am a big reader, but I am an even bigger re-reader. Yes, I have a mountainous stack of to be read books, but I believe that it’s important to my writing practice—and to my basic existence—to dive ...
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November 03, 2016The Art of Giving Feedback
In 2009, after I had finished an early draft of my first book, God Loves Hair, I gave some of my closest friends a copy of the manuscript for their feedback. It was a vulnerable experience, especially ...
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July 05, 2017Rebecca Rosenblum on the long path to her acclaimed novel So Much Love
Rebecca Rosenblum was already acclaimed for her short fiction when she released her debut novel, So Much Love (McClelland & Stewart) this past spring. So Much Love has shown that Rosenblum is ...
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September 26, 2025Celebrated Poet Robyn Sarah Returns After a Decade with a Brand New Collection, WE'RE SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW
Today on Open Book, we're featuring the new poetry collection, We’re Somewhere Else Now: Poems 2016–2024 (Biblioasis). This is a triumphant return from Robyn Sarah, and her first book of new poems ...
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May 29, 2019Andrew Forbes on Titles Shaping Stories, Finding Ideas in Government Jargon, & His Musical Inspirations
Andrew Forbes' Lands and Forests (Invisible Publishing) is a gift to short fiction lovers - a spare, smart, thoughtful collection that feels like a gritty Alice Munro descendant peeling back the ordinary ...
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August 21, 2018THREAD! The Role of the Twitter Essay in CanLit
When most people think of Twitter, they think of the short and pithy 280-character messages that the platform is best known for. But perhaps the most interesting content on the social network is shared ...
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December 11, 2019A note to future book creators from a friendly book publicist
It has recently come to my attention that not everybody is familiar with what a book publicist does. On paper, a book publicist’s main responsibilities include, but are not limited to securing earned ...
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February 19, 2019On Burnout
I’ve finished my first book. I’ve done the writing, the rewriting, the editing, more rewriting, the copy editing, the fact checking… I think you get the point. It was a lot of work. But now I’m ...