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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 ...
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August 11, 2020
On Returning to Pen & Paper
The last time I wrote a story in a notebook must have been back in elementary school. I can remember handwriting in the thin cahiers we were given, double spacing my writing as instructed. Because I was ...
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July 13, 2016
The In Character Interview with Scott Gardiner
After AMC's Mad Men, the life of charismatic advertising types became a topic of fascination for many, with the glitzy — and at times, manipulative — backdrop of the ad world acting as a perfect backdrop ...
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March 16, 2016
Poets in Profile: James Lindsay
March 30, 2016 - Toronto book lovers already know James Lindsay as one of the friendly faces behind the counter at indie darling TYPE Books on Queen West, but his own acclaimed poetry has also been appearing ...
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September 07, 2015
A Piece of Fiction Is a Piece of Consciousness– a Conversation with Dr. Keith Oately
This summer, I pestered Dr. Keith Oately. He’s a Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Toronto, and the author of three novels and many works of non-fiction. He’s specialized in, among ...
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July 02, 2015
On Getting My First Novel into Print
My first novel, Eulogy, has just been published.What has the experience been like?Well, it only took eleven years, so I guess it wasn’t too bad. Things could have been far worse: I could have never ...
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June 14, 2016
The Pitch
Submitted by kevin on June 14, 2016 - 1:26pmI spent the last three weeks in a writing room with some of the most talented comedy writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.One of the most exciting ...
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May 20, 2009
More About Knowing Where We’re Coming from
Funny. In the last post, talking about the need to preserve our cultural creations, I said that we have to know where we’re coming from or we won’t know where we’re going. Today, by accident, I ...