Search
-
April 30, 2025The Joys of Rereading
Like any other avid reader, my TBR pile can feel out of control most of the time. For me, it’s partly because I’m a mood reader with an aversion to to-do lists of any kind, but it’s also because ...
-
May 26, 2021"Mysteries and Tensions and Splinters of Awe" Poet Michael Lithgow on Craft, Inspiration, & Great Reads
Behind the facade of comfort or beauty lurk questions and uncertainties — the things we're not only unsure if we know, but if we want to know. Such is the tension of Michael Lithgow's haunting second ...
-
November 19, 2018
Some of the Best Books Come With Pictures
A friend of mine once told me that his favourite form of reading is instruction manuals. Seriously. Anything he could get his hands on that went through the process of describing how something worked ...
-
May 22, 2022
The Reasons I Write
I can think of many reasons why I should not write. The pay is terrible. The hours, though flexible, are insufferably long (i.e., even when I stop doing writing, I am thinking about writing). It can be ...
-
March 10, 2026PRECEDENCE by Pujita Verma Makes a Case for the Importance of Being Heard
Precedence (Brick Books) begins with a real legal case that brings a young woman back home to face her father in a Canadian courtroom. The experience is shaped by distance, family history, and the limits ...
-
March 16, 2016Writing "Well"
Illness spoils any story that desires a certain romanticism of adventure or self-discovery, the solitary act of Manifest Destiny. Many of history's beloved novels have entertained (and sometimes genuinely ...
-
March 31, 2016Gearing Up for National Poetry Month
It has been such a pleasure and honour to be the Writer in Residence for OBT this past month, and especially in light of the fact that next month is also one that I take pleasure and honour in: April, ...
-
September 25, 2020"Generosity of Spirit" Hamish Cameron of University of Toronto Press wins Janice E. Handford Award for Canadian Publishing
Yesterday, Hamish Cameron was awarded the Janice E. Handford Award by the Ontario Book Publishers Organization (OBPO), Open Book's sister organization.The annual prize recognizes a person who has advanced ...
-
September 16, 2020Adan Jerreat-Poole on Comfort Reads, Finding Identity in Fairy Tales, & One Fabulous L'Engle Quote
As readers enter Adan Jerreat-Poole's The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass (Dundurn Press), they sink into a richly rendered fantasy world at war, where witches' assassin are the most deadly of weapons. Like Eli, ...
-
February 20, 2014
If One Can Argue Against Traditional Non-Academic Literary Schools, Then One Can Reason Against a Purely Academic Model (Final)
Part 3: Writing as academic practiceDid I mention these are strictly my opinions?First, I am not saying that English, or English Literature, or Creative Writing degrees are not legitimate degrees. (With ...
