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July 19, 2017Fifth Business; First-Person Shooter - Whither the Great Video Game Adaptation?
When an author mentions a book adaptation, the next question the author fields is invariably about casting. The book adaptation is assumed to be a film or television series. After all, books have provided ...
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April 07, 2023Poetry Tours: Funding
Last time on the WIR blog, I talked about tips for planning a poetry tour, including tips on building a tour from existing events. In this post, I hope to share some resources on funding a poetry tour, ...
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April 01, 2023Poetry as Joy: A Retrospective and Introduction
April in Ontario is unpredictable. There can be warmer days to soak up the sun by a river, or ice storms to coat everything with a perfect translucent film. In any case, April feels ideal for poetry—the ...
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June 13, 2022Feel the Power of Indigenous Spoken Word in an Excerpt from Slam Coalkan Performance Poetry
Back in 2021, the Festival of the Peripheries (FLUP) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) came together to stage a spectacular poetry happening: 17 Indigenous ...
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October 09, 2024Natasha Ramoutar's Collection, Baby Cerebus, Contains Multitudes in its Imagery and Depth of Feeling
Emerging literary star Natasha Ramoutar has already made an impact with her debut poetry collection, Bittersweet (Mawenzi House), which was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and established ...
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February 04, 2021Read an Excerpt from Parliamentary Poet Laureate Louise Bernice Halfe's Newly Re-Released, Iconic Collection Blue Marrow
Louise Bernice Halfe - Sky Dancer is an icon of Canadian poetry, so it was a celebratory moment when, earlier this week, she was announced as the ninth Parliamentary Poet Laureate, one of the country's ...
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December 05, 2022Get Some Chocolate Ready for When You Read Sandra Bradley's Cocoa Magic, a Perfectly Cozy Picture Book
Sandra Bradley's Cocoa Magic (Pajama Press, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard) is coming out at just the right time: combining a story of kindness and generosity with a fragrant chocolate shop as its homey ...
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April 05, 2016How to Give Good Read
In a month, I will be hitting the road to tour my new book of poetry, even this page is white. In addition to trying to manage the general anxieties that arise when putting art into the world, I have ...
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February 16, 2019Poetry School: Denise Levertov on form as a revelation
After reading poet Denise Levertov’s 1965 essay “Some Notes on Organic Form,” I had a revelation: I write poetry mainly in organic form. Given that the notion of the work of art as a self-germinating ...
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February 01, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 1 of 9
When I was first approached by Open Book about doing the author residency for the month of February, my first thought was that I would do a serialized short story and write a piece of fiction in the same ...
