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May 03, 2016Some of the Best Books I Ever Read Weren't Books at All
I am on the record—somewhere, or perhaps multiple somewheres—as having said that one of the stories in my first collection, What You Need, represented an effort on my part to capture the feel of a ...
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July 18, 2016Service Industry Hell (Part 3): Rats in the kitchen and drunk girls on the floor
A lot of the inspiration for my new book, Congratulations On Everything, came from the things I saw while working in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and from the experiences of friends who did the same. ...
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April 23, 2014
The War Series: Writers as Readers, with Evan Munday
Evan Munday is the Silver Birch Award-nominated author and illustrator of middle grade novel Dial M for Morna, The Dead Kid Detective Agency and the graphic novel Quarter Life Crisis: Only the Good Die ...
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September 02, 2015On the Sensory Pleasures of Putting Pen to Paper
A few months ago, I lost a pen. A beautiful fountain pen with one of those squeezy ink chambers that you fill from an old-school inkpot. The pen had been a university graduation gift from my parents and ...
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May 06, 2016Comics in Parkdale - the Draw of a Good Comic Book Store
My interest in superhero movies has plunged to zero in the past couple of years, but I’ve found myself steadily reading more comic books. Thinking about this just after the recent Authors for Indies ...
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May 24, 2016The Entitled Interview with Nick Thran
Trillium award-winning poet Nick Thran's Mayor Snow (Nightwood Editions) delves into questions of power — personal and civic, poetic and political. Using parody, dark humour, and lines imbued with his ...
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May 17, 2017
Michael Winter's collages
I spent half of March writing a very long abstract (1,200 words) for an essay I was going to present at some conference but I just heard back today and they said no. Two weeks of work for nothing? (Not ...
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January 09, 2017The WAR Series: Writers as Readers, with JonArno Lawson
JonArno Lawson The Hobo's Crowbar (Porcupine's Quill) is an infectiously rhythmic collection of children's poetry, filled to the brim with Lawson's trademark (and award-winning) whimsy and wit. The playfulness ...
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October 24, 2016
A Poetry Bookshop in Toronto
An exciting thing happened in Toronto while I was away. Jeff Kirby opened a poetry bookshop, knife|fork|book, in Rick’s Café in Kensington Market. Having missed the October 6th grand opening, I raced ...
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September 01, 2014Hello, My Name Is Diane!
Well, no. It’s not. But this is what happens when I get nervous—the wrong words leave my mouth. I blurt statements I don’t believe. I say things that are incredibly, obviously erroneous and false. ...
