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May 14, 2018
In Praise of … Rewriting. No, Actual Rewriting
Everybody says to do it. No matter where my writing life has taken me, the message, the orthodoxy, the shibboleth, has always been the same. Journalism profs have said it. Writing manuals spell it out ...
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February 20, 2024
Make-believe and Melodrama Create Comedy in the New Picture Book, The Only Lonely Fairy
Make-believe and melodrama collide to create a heartfelt comedy in The Only Lonely Fairy (Pajama Press), the new picture book by Lana Button, illustrated by Peggy Collins. A story about emotional ...
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April 14, 2014
Ideas
I keep a list of things I think I want to write about. Back when the list was a more manageable size, I’d tackle my ideas at enough of a distance for me to have processed the simple stuff, the details, ...
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November 08, 2018
Karl Kessler & Sunshine Chen Honour Waterloo's Vanishing Trades with Stunning Portraits in Overtime
From shoemakers to sign painters, felt workers to glove cutters, there are countless skilled, traditional trades and jobs that are slowing disappearing from our increasingly mechanized existence. With ...
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November 14, 2017
Stuart Ross on Experimental Novels, Big Ideas in Short Word Counts, & Juggling Multiple Projects
Stuart Ross' contributions to the Canadian literary scene are almost too lengthy to list. From his staggering 20 books of acclaimed writing in multiple genres to his work as part of the small press scene ...
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August 04, 2021
Caroline Adderson's Smart New Story Collection Views the Pandemic from the Perspective of Kids Stuck at Home
Caroline Adderson is one of a few writers who is able to move seamlessly between writing acclaimed books for adults and writing beloved books for young readers, and her newest collection of short stories ...
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September 11, 2024
Two Young Athletes Find Themselves Torn Between the Sport They Love and State Rule in Eyes on the Ice
Already the author of two critically acclaimed hockey biographies for young readers, Anna Rosner has stayed with the sport, but shifted approaches and forms in her latest work. The result is the powerful ...
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May 19, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part II
In Part I of this blog post, I looked at the importance of physical books in my life, how the books represent more than just the stories within them, that they also hold the stories of their acquisition, ...
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May 05, 2017
An attempt to reclaim the selfie
I don’t hate writing. Except sometimes I get so sick of it that I need an antidote. My brain has a hard time shutting off so meditating rarely works and I’m not very sporty, plus this antidote needs ...
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October 18, 2018
My friend Richard
In my last post I talked about some of the influential writers and books that inspired me to seriously pursue my own creative writing. My list is much longer than that, and there are many more storytellers ...