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May 16, 2019
5 Tips on the Editing Process
Edits, edits everywhere, and several drops to drink...The final edit of the interior pages of my new middle grade adventure, THE LOST SCROLL OF THE PHYSICIAN, is due this Monday.Now is the time when I ...
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April 05, 2019
Don’t Stand Too Close to this Poetry!
Your computer/tablet/phone are listening . . . and learning . . . and not always in the way you might expect it to benefit you.Bruce Schneier wrote that “Surveillance is the business model of the internet.”Search ...
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September 30, 2019
"When I Write Poetry, I Feel Limitless and Free" Hasan Namir, author of War / Torn, on Process & Poetry
Hasan Namir's debut collection, War / Torn (Book*hug), was one of the most buzzed-about books of poetry in the spring 2019 season for good reason; Namir's lucid, visceral examination of masculinity ...
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April 17, 2019
Creative Life
I was asked to give a keynote address at the launch of the student literary journal, Scarborough Fair at the University of Toronto Scarborough. The theme was “The Creative Life”. As their Writer in ...
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April 23, 2019
Literary Road Trip Destination: Talking about Prince Edward County's "County Reads" Festival with Barbara Sweet
There's more than wine, bike tours, and golden beaches in Prince Edward County. Fast becoming a centre for the arts in Ontario, one highlight of the County's jam-packed arts calendar is the County Reads ...
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June 28, 2019
Navigating Microaggressions as a Black Writer in CanLit
Story time! Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of doing a talk with the wonderful and talented Olive Senior and I was excited because it was held in the same neighbourhood where my protagonist, Kara, ...
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March 01, 2020
On Photography
Writing, for me, often begins with an image. By this, I mean not an imaginary image that appears in the mind’s eye, but rather an actual photograph I stumble across in my daily life. A certain picture ...
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March 15, 2020
On Research
I can be nerdy, at times. I love exploring libraries and getting lost in the archives, as one might expect of someone who’s written two historical novels. My first novel, After the Bloom, focuses on ...
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August 04, 2020
Retreating from writing
Sometimes our stories practically beg to come to life on the page. Yet despite that begging, that longing, that desire to write, stories almost never just 'come to life' as easily as we might have imagined. ...
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August 04, 2020
My Attraction to Gritty Stories
Not all stories are romantic or are tied up neatly at the end. Sometimes characters do not have a redeeming quality, and sometimes their experiences have made them hard and difficult to “save.” Gritty ...