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April 26, 2020Love Letter to the Fearless Dr. Up
Well, it’s somehow the end of April and that brings me to just about the end of my time here as Writer in Residence for Open Book. At the end of the month I’m going to post a quick wrap up of everything ...
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December 08, 2017Books of the Year
The end of the year is predictably a time for reviewing, taking stock, and of course, lots and lots of best of lists. In the world of books, there are some pretty obvious picks—award winners, best sellers, ...
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November 22, 2016
A Library Tourist
By Bianca Lakoseljac: OB Writer in ResidenceAs a child growing up in a small village in the countryside near Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, I had three problems: first was not having many friends; ...
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June 17, 2021"I Don’t Think I’ve Ever Been More Vulnerable in My Life" Brent LaPorte on His Raw, Moving Memoir & His Father's Difficult Legacy
CW: abuse, suicide, substance abuseSometimes, even questions without answers need to be voiced — to be heard and acknowledged, if only as a cry of the heart. Such is Brent LaPorte's wise, difficult, ...
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August 07, 2018An interview with Jaime Forsythe
“How I fit myself into my work is something I’m still figuring out.”Jamie Forsythe’s I Heard Something finds mystery in the common place. Domestic scenes take on a surrealistic quality as the ...
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April 09, 2014
Madness
Catching up on the frippery of “Downton Abbey,” I enjoyed Maggie Smith’s trenchant Dowager Countess of Grantham listening to her son wax a mite lyrically about land and history and then exclaiming ...
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May 09, 2024Jess Taylor Confronts and Then Says Goodbye to the Past in her Compelling Debut Novel
Memories of childhood, and the realities of what remains in the here and now, are twin prospects that everyone must face and contend with in their lives. Flights of imagination and acts of play often ...
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September 24, 2019"I’m Something Else. Something in Between." Sonja Boon on Exploring Identity and Belonging in her New Memoir
Sonja Boon's memoir What the Oceans Remember (Wilfrid Laurier University Press) is a wise and deeply researched meditation on both her own family history and current issues in migration and identity. ...
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July 18, 2024Meet the Detective at the Heart of a Gripping Noir Mystery by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson
As the winner of the 2023 Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime Novella Award, author Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson knows how to grip a reader and draw them into a mystery with a deft literary hand. He moves ...
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September 12, 2017An Interview with Sarah Pinder
“When you empty out your psychic pockets, how do all the disparate pieces relate to each other?”I read Sarah Pinder’s most recent poetry collection, Common Place, while commuting from my home in ...