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December 04, 2017A New National Emblem Revisited
I was too hasty the other day. For nice, polite Canadians, the spider icon is just too darn ornery. In true Northern fashion, I apologize. We need something more civil yet found from coast to coast ...
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December 04, 2017"What's Your Story?" Final Instalment of the 2017 Obpo Writing Contest Winners: Etobicoke
Today we're proud to present the winners from the final instalment of the Ontario Book Publishers Organization's and Arts Etobicoke's What's Your Story? writing contest. Our final region this year, ...
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December 02, 2017The Colour Purple
I am very, very short-sighted. Way off the normal sight spectrum. Like a career politician. The spawn of two myopic parents, I am a mole, midget-sighted. My natural focal point is my own nose. No, I have ...
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December 01, 2017The Essential Energy of Solitude: Jack Davis in Conversation with Pedlar Press' Beth Follett
Poets famously embrace a degree of alone time, but Jack Davis puts most to shame: he's spent the last ten summers manning a remote fire lookout in the woods of the northernmost Alberta wilds. His debut ...
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November 30, 2017A New National Emblem
Canada is a land of plenty. But it is a state poor in symbols. Our national emblems are few and time-worn. Canada’s plant is the maple tree, which, in an annual strip tease, releases red leaves clogging ...
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November 30, 2017December 2017 writer-in-residence Dan MacIsaac on Not Stealing Leonard Cohen & Sopping up Blood with Shakespeare
Reverent and vibrant, Dan MacIsaac's debut poetry collection Cries from the Ark (Brick Books) has been praised as "carnal and joyous", with fellow writers declaring "Not since Eric Ormsby’s Araby have ...
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November 29, 2017
And finally, nouveau noir...
My exploration of noir is coming to an end, with this last post. Thank you very much, Open Book Toronto, for having me as WIR, and a big thanks to all the writers who gave so generously of their time ...
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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 ...
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November 27, 2017Mariam Pirbhai on Bringing Invisible Characters into the Spotlight
An earthquake survivor, a resort hotel maid, a migrant worker on a chicken farm. These are just a few of the fascinating and diverse characters in Mariam Pirbhai's short story collection Outside People ...
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November 26, 2017
Graphic noir
It seems like a natural flow, to move from arcade noir to graphic noir.I have such a huge respect for graphic novelists and I feel they are such unsung heroes, particularly in this day and age. Back in ...
