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July 04, 2016Service Industry Hell (Part 1): One Angry Writer and Two Warring Bosses
A lot of the inspiration for my new book, Congratulations On Everything, came from the things I saw while working in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and from the experiences of friends who did the same. ...
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January 11, 2017Hearing the Muse
I was always fond of my teachers but one couldn’t help but love Mary di Michele. I realize that my impressions and recollections are fifteen years old but so what? Of all my professors at Concordia, ...
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April 10, 2024Adam Pottle Takes Us Behind the Curtain of the World's First Deaf Musical
Searching for more fantasy and escapism in modern theatre, acclaimed author and playwright Adam Pottle paired his love of genre work with the power of music, using the medium as more than just a listening ...
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October 14, 2015Kid Lit Can, with Susan Hughes: Q and A with 2015 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction Nominees, Part II
Welcome! Today I continue my chat with the three terrific authors whose five books have been nominated for the CCBC Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People: Patrick Bowman, Marsha ...
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February 24, 2020
Blogpost 6: DOES WRITING KID’S BOOKS MAKE SENSE? Part 1 Getting Wise about the Why?
This blogpost is part of a two-part series— DOES WRITING KID’S BOOKS MAKE SENSE/CENTS? In 2018, The Writers’ Union of Canada published the results of a study showing that not only do Canadian ...
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November 30, 2020When old ways, thoughts, beliefs, and people no longer serve you
“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” —T.S. EliotLately I have been thinking about the act of releasing the things in my life that no longer serve me. When I revise a piece of writing, the first ...
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July 08, 2017
humour as a form of Indigenous revitalization
Humour is a powerful force which animates our lives and gives us energy. Humour binds us with each other, helps us relax, and helps us to think beyond our ordinary perceptions. It allows us to imagine ...
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April 16, 2018
"A Book is a Window to the World": Biblio Bash Guest Authors on What Libraries Mean to Them
In a city with a lot of charity galas, Biblio Bash stands out, especially for book lovers - it's the only party in town that takes place in the stacks of the Toronto Reference Library.Through the course ...
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March 05, 2018"Loss and Absence Challenge Us to Become Who We Are": Kathleen Venema on Her Unique Mother-Daughter Memoir
The impact of mother-daughter relationships is hard to overstate. In Kathleen Venema's Bird-Bent Grass: A Memoir, in Pieces (Wilfrid Laurier University) the extraordinary influence of the mother-daughter ...
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November 29, 2017So You Want to Write About Race
Somehow I have become on expert on writing race.This was not something I planned for. When I started publishing, I was writing fiction about Chinese Canadian characters, about families who had been invisible ...
