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August 01, 2017
Oh hey, it’s me. Your old friend, Naseem.
I’ll be your writer-in-residence for August. I’m a first-time author and a former librarian, and I’ve worked in children’s publishing for over ten years. I’m a huge fan of improv, stand-up comedy, ...
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November 14, 2018On Fairy Tales
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…[w]e look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition ...
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August 09, 2018City of Toronto announces powerhouse shortlist including David Chariandy's decorated novel Brother
The City of Toronto and Toronto Public Library have announced the five 2018 Toronto Book Awards shortlisted titles. Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the awards honour books of literary merit ...
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November 19, 2019Revision Part Two, Long Projects
Short stories, essays, or poems are wonderful to revise—I say this while I’m revising a longer project, but story length does make a difference. You can reading through a short draft in an afternoon, ...
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April 28, 2023Literary Secrets
And this is my last post as Writer-in-Residence with Open Book, and I’m grateful to you for reading and revelling in poetry-world with me. I didn’t know how to start this, or how to quantify the month’s ...
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September 29, 2021Helen Humphreys' Field Study Digs Through History Via the Connection Between People and Plants
Whether you've got a home filled with flourishing plant babies or a few bits of dried wheat in a jar, it's hard to deny the power of plants have to effect our mood and surroundings. Field Study: Meditations ...
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March 20, 2016Should I Write a Novel?
I can’t even count the times when folks have asked me what I'm writing about—or more precisely, what novel I'm writing. And when I indicate that I am putting together a poetry collection, suddenly ...
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May 12, 2017
Sit How You Want
What I want to quickly talk about is outlines. I hate them but I think in fiction they’re a must. I hate them because they mean all this extra work and they stop me from diving into the rainbow pool ...
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February 01, 2016
Well, hi.
Well, hi. How’s it going? What you up to? Are you having a good evening?I’m talking to you from Open Book: Toronto as the Writer-In-Residence for the month of February. I’ll be taking you through ...
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January 30, 2025Audiobook Magic
Poetry books rarely come in audio format, and perhaps this is the reason it’s taken me until 2025 to discover the magic of audiobooks. In 2024, I began writing more fiction after several years of focusing ...
