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May 30, 2021
Poetry: A Healing Tool for Dark Days
I started this month with mental health for writers, and I want to end it with a more personal look at the same topic.One of the many reasons I’ve been grateful to Open Book for offering me this residency ...
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July 22, 2021Alma Fullerton Uses Literal Plastic Trash to Advocate for a Plastic-Free Future in Her Inspiring New Picture Book
Alma Fullerton's No More Plastic (Pajama Press) goes beyond simply communicating its titular message in words. Instead, Fullerton got down to the nitty gritty and created her illustrations out of literal ...
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November 23, 2021"Don’t Worry, I Won’t Tell Anybody" Read an Excerpt from Kirby's Unmissable New Book, Poetry is Queer
As the publisher of Toronto's beloved knife | fork | book, Kirby is acclaimed for both for their own poetry, which often celebrates queer love and lust against a backdrop of the stridently heteronormative ...
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December 15, 2021Robert Rotenberg on His Family's Lost Story of Heroism, A Memorable Opening Line, & Going Back to Chandler
Bestselling crime writer Robert Rotenberg, who is also a prominent criminal lawyer, knows how to craft a good story. But he got a serious surprise when two distant relatives wrote a story he'd never heard ...
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February 03, 2022Book Therapy: The Music Game
“I was a human being, and human beings needed to say goodbye, to get together, to cry in the same room.”—Stéfanie Clermont, The Music GameThis deep into the seemingly never ending story that is ...
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October 04, 2022Playwright Natasha Adiyana Morris on The Plays that Shaped Her & Why She Won't Remove Local Culture from Her Work
Playwright Natasha Adiyana Morris' The Negroes Are Congregating (forthcoming from Playwrights Canada Press later this month) became a sensation during its 2020 run at Theatre Passe Muraille. Morris, ...
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October 07, 2022
Best Advice
Good morning folks,Besides reading as much as you write, the best advice I received from other writers was to observe people. To watch them, to note their body language and actions, and if you can, ...
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October 20, 2022
Sharon's Bench
I met Sharon shortly after I started building my home on Green Lake. In the early times we were more like acquaintances than friends, the kind to say ‘hi’ and exchange a few words than to sit ...
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October 24, 2022
Rusted Development
For decades I’ve been cruising antique haunts and farm fields, stopping at those laden with dormant pieces of rusted equipment - harrows, cultivators, thrashers, sickle bars among them. I’m drawn ...
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January 19, 2023Antanas Sileika on the Murderous Children's Poet Who Inspired His Captivating New Historical Novel
Antanas Sileika is one of the quiet stars of CanLit, creating memorable, complex, and entralling stories in his five novels and his memoir. The erstwhile director of the Humber School for Writers (prior ...