Search
-
April 01, 2024Jody Chan's New Poetry Collection Challenges Systemic Failings in Community Care
Writer and therapist Jody Chan has had plenty of experience with systems of mental health treatment in Canada, and the ongoing shortcomings in care for citizens who are ill and look to these entities ...
-
May 26, 2022
The Soul of Story: Authenticity
My first car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel hatchback, payment for which I had earned working 60 hours a week at two jobs all summer. It was a gutless four-speed manual with a top speed of eighty km/hour. But ...
-
November 27, 2019The Entitled Interview, with Fereshteh Molavi
Fereshteh Molavi's newest book, Thirty Shadow Birds (Inanna Publications), is an exploration of the challenges faced by new immigrants and the deep scars left by a legacy of violence.Fleeing the bloodshed ...
-
September 13, 2019The Unbearable Lightness of Being Between Writing Projects
Lately, I’ve felt a bit unmoored. For the last 6 years, I’ve organized my spare time around working on my novel. I’ve either been working on it or worrying about not having time to work on it, or ...
-
July 11, 2019Why We Need to Celebrate All Our Writing Milestones – Even the Small Ones
A few years ago, I got an offer to purchase a small personal finance blog that I ran. The buyer agreed to the amount that I asked for – only there was a catch. They would give me a third of the money ...
-
May 01, 2025A Budding Cicada Enthusiast Learns That Some Wondrous Natural Events Are Worth Waiting For in When the Air Sang
It's always special to see authors speak to young readers about the wonders of the natural world, and our featured book today does exactly that. Further, Laura Bontje's latest work digs down to a micro-level ...
-
October 05, 2021Poetry Should "Be Surprised By What it Says": David O'Meara on Why Poems Shouldn't Try to Be Poems
Canadian writers know Ottawa-based poet David O'Meara not only for his acclaimed collections but also his contributions to the community. From serving as the founding Artistic Director for VERSeFest ...
-
September 29, 2015Booking Up: with Big, Big Names at No, No Prices, Appel Salon Events Are Filling up Fast
As summer span slowly towards fall, and as book people gathered to talk about the heavy calendar that lay ahead, a new literary lineup was among the topics under discussion. The Bram and Bluma Appel Salon ...
-
February 02, 2017
My issue with social justice poetry
We need to have this discussion. As the world becomes a more unstable place, with more incompetent leaders, more writers will be driven to write and perform politically-driven poetry. But, most social ...
-
February 14, 2017
The importance of romantic poetry
Just like the Super Bowl, Christmas, and any other commercial holiday, I awoke today with little knowledge of its significance. Of course, it's Valentine's Day. In Japan, on Valentine's women deliver ...