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October 25, 2022On Giving Yourself Room to Change (Or, Eros the Bittersweet)
A few months ago, I talked to someone on the phone. I didn’t know this person well and though I’d seen them over Zoom somewhat regularly for our work together, I never really noticed them too much. ...
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June 27, 2019On Hanging Laundry
I have an obsession with laundry hung on lines. The image literally stops me in my tracks. There’s so much thought put into the way the sleeves of shirts are pinned just close enough to the hem of a ...
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March 05, 2020On Illness
When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. It was my ballet teacher who first noticed that something was amiss; I could see it in the curiosity and concern that splashed ...
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January 31, 2011On Illustrating, with Jon Klassen
Jon Klassen, winner of the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for Illustration, talks to Open Book about his prize-winning (and heart-warming) illustrations for Cats' Night Out (Simon & Schuster) ...
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July 09, 2020
On Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city
Music has always been part of my DNA. I consumed it with the same intensity as I did literature, and at no less voracious a rate. Large swaths of my adolescence were spent lying on the floor, eyes closed ...
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September 10, 2018On Kindness, and Generosity
The Toronto literary community has recently lost two very bright lights, mourning the deaths of Priscila Uppal and Ann Ireland.Though I didn’t know either Ann or Priscila all that well, I feel fortunate ...
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October 29, 2020On Listening to Your Gut Instinct When Editing Your Work
First, there’s that twisty churny feeling that crawls across your skin when something doesn't feel right. It’s similar to the feeling that can arise when you are walking home late at night and you ...
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July 20, 2018On Literary Festivals and Crossed Boundaries
As a writer of creative nonfiction—in particular, one who draws very heavily from my own life and experiences—I’ve learned it’s important to determine whether something I want to write about is ...
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September 15, 2021
On making art and writing and the cover of Glorious Frazzled Beings
I like to draw, and collage, and paint with watercolours, and glue bits of lichen and bark I find in the forest onto the things I draw, collage and paint. Sometimes I make a painting and then I cut it ...
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March 30, 2016On Making Connections
In my last post I talked a bit about the importance of connection to others, giving thanks towards and for others, and would like to continue with this theme by focusing on the "how" of connection. No ...