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May 24, 2024A Discussion of Blasphemy and Other Ancestors: 4 Novellas by Padgett Powell, Darius James, Lee Henderson, & Jean Marc Ah-Sen
"It's the fate that awaits us all," says Jean Marc Ah-Sen of the four novellas in Blasphemy and Other Ancestors (Gordon Hill Press), written by him, Padgett Powell, Darius James, and Lee Henderson, explaining ...
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July 20, 2017Getting Personal with Nicole Lundrigan: Love Notes, an Autopsy, and More
Nicole Lundrigan's first five novels secured her reputation as an acclaimed, creative, and clever writer telling captivating stories in beautiful language. Her newest book, The Substitute (House of Anansi), ...
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July 22, 2017Inspiration of Old Cree Stories
For years, I have been retranslating a book of old Cree stories. I am presently retranslating a story told by sâkêwêw: the story of opwâsimow kâ-kitimâkisit okimâwipayiw [a poor Stoney/ Nakota ...
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November 20, 2017Talking to Picture Book Creators - Part One
Admit it: Don’t you just wish you were me sometimes?Because when I recently came across four super picture books—A Bedtime Yarn by Nicola Winstanley, The Walking Bathroom by Shauntay Grant, Federica ...
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November 30, 2017A New National Emblem
Canada is a land of plenty. But it is a state poor in symbols. Our national emblems are few and time-worn. Canada’s plant is the maple tree, which, in an annual strip tease, releases red leaves clogging ...
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April 02, 2016The Proust Questionnaire, with Andrew Forbes - Open Book's May 2016 Writer-in-Residence!
We are thrilled to announce that Andrew Forbes is our May 2016 writer-in-residence here at Open Book. Andrew is the author of The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays and the short story collection What ...
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May 31, 2014So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye
This marks my last post as Open Book Toronto's writer-in-residence, and I want to thank everyone for their support this past month. Everyone has been extremely kind – both those authors, artists, and ...
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April 05, 2014
Fear of Flying
I gave a public performance the other night. It was supposed to be a reading from my recent novel, “The Outside World,” but I thought I’d sneak in a few poems from my “Invisible Dogs” as well. ...
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March 13, 2017
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Becoming a Writer #9: Monica Heisey
Some years in the writing life are better than others. A few years ago I was having a bad one. My draft of The Best Kind of People wasn't working out. I wasn't sure it was ever going to be good enough ...
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October 23, 2016
Poetic Inspiration III
This is the third in a series of posts highlighting inventive poems that have broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. (The previous instalments ...