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April 12, 2014
Oh, Suspense!
In some literary circles, "suspense" is a bad word. Some feel that rich language and interesting characters should be enough to engage a reader's attention, and those who need a little pep in their fiction ...
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March 17, 2014You Are God
Writing is all on the page. Take most other arts: film, music, painting, and what goes into the making of each – the processes, the materials, the effort, are not obvious, are not laid out bare. There’s ...
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March 14, 2014
The Reading Rulebook
I used to go to a lot of public readings of poetry and fiction. Then I had kids, and rarely went, but recently, due to changing circumstances, I've been out to a few more, and what hasn't changed are ...
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February 26, 2019"I Write to Be Lifted into Life’s Largest Possibilities" The 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Finalists on Nonfiction
This Monday, March 4, will see writers, publishers, and nonfiction lovers gathered in Toronto's historic King Edward Hotel to find out the 2019 winner of the $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize for Nonfiction. ...
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September 18, 2025In Defense of Procrastination
The procrastinating author is a time-honoured trope. For me personally, I’m at my most productive with other tasks (vacuuming, crocheting, washing dishes, doing laundry, clearing up clutter) when I ...
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March 12, 2020On Family Secrets
Why does my writing tend to focus on family secrets? In particular, on children trying to unearth secrets tied to their parents’ pasts? I’m often asked these questions during interviews. The first ...
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February 25, 2020A Love Letter to Scarborough Writers
To busy writers, penning poems on the back of receipts, scribbling into notebooks on Line 3 — this is for you.I rarely find time to sit down and write anymore. Instead, I create fragments wherever I ...
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July 26, 2015“I Love That Ability to Capture the Surreal and the Comical” — a Chat with Emily Schultz
Emily Schultz is the co-founder of Joyland Magazine, host of the podcast Truth & Fiction, and creator of the blog Spending the Stephen King Money. Schultz’s newest novel is The Blondes (St. Martin's ...
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September 13, 2016At the Desk: Anna Humphrey
Clara has a secret, and it's a big one. She thinks she just might have superpowers. It's a lot for a fourth-grader to deal with, but Clara has already got a lot on her plate: her favourite neighbour, ...
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February 21, 2022
*Well, excuuuse me, Princess
Welcome back, Open Book reader. Lovely to see you again, hope you’re doing well. As promised, I’m going to give some insight into what fuels all this nerdiness I’m brimming with. The relatively ...
