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June 03, 2022On Becoming an Acquiring Editor
For thirty years I was on the other side of the desk: submitting books to editors who didn’t reply or who took six months to reply, who replied with no-thank-you formulae, or who replied with suggestions ...
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September 03, 2019
On Beginning and Emerging
This is the first of my posts as September’s Writer-in-Residence for Open Book, and I’m thrilled to have been given this opportunity to share some of my thoughts on writing and the writing life. I ...
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November 13, 2017On Being an Ill Writer
Every day for a few years now, I’ve had to navigate my fatigue. Sometimes it’s only subtle, tugging at my consciousness as a toddler might. Sometimes it’s pervasive and insistent: clouding my thoughts, ...
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April 24, 2015
On Being Led by a Poem
Yesterday evening, a friend emailed me a copy of Jan Zwicky’s “The Geology of Norway” from the collection Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (Brick Books, 1998). I’d never read the poem before, ...
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June 29, 2016On Being Plagiarized
Submitted by kevin on June 29, 2016 - 1:36pmAbout a month ago, I came out of a meeting to find a rather strange tweet in my mentions.Someone I had never interacted with before popped up to inform me that ...
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April 30, 2015
On Blogging, Accompaniment, and Gratitude
This has been an interesting April of blogging for me. While I read blogs, I’ve never myself blogged before. It was more difficult than I’d anticipated, and more enjoyable. What I so value in the ...
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March 09, 2020On Book Collecting
My favourite place to write is lying on an overstuffed grey sofa, in what was once our attic. My propped-up knees, with a firm cushion over top, form a kind of makeshift desk, on which my notebook perches. ...
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September 27, 2019On Building a House
When I was a young girl throwing myself into books, I I remember how I used to pull random books from library shelves without concern about what the book was about or who wrote it. I ran my hands down ...
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June 18, 2015On Buttery Butter, Compress to Impress, Less Is More, Etc.
To indicate her displeasure with overwritten sentences, my grandmother used the phrase "buttery butter." What she meant by it was this: if you write "butter" it’s clear already what you’re talking ...
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June 12, 2020On Collaboration and Trust
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." – Helen Keller I crave collaboration. When I was young, I had no desire to connect or work closely with people in the way that I do today. ...
