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March 01, 2020
Blogpost #8: TRENDING CURRENTLY: Top 8 Diverse Middle Grade and Young Adult Themes I’ve Observed
Dear Reader:This is my final post as the February 2020 Open Book Writer In Residence. (And, did you catch that this is the 8th blogpost and I am listing 8 middle grade and young adult themes? Didn’t ...
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May 09, 2019Excerpt! Peek into the Dark & Unpredictable World of Cara Martin's Young Adult Novel, Shantallow
Meeting the girl of your dreams is supposed to be wonderful. But Tanvi isn't Mischa's dream girl; she's the girl he can't stop seeing in his nightmares. This is the premise that opens Cara Martin's chilling ...
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October 13, 2017Adam Bunch's Toronto isn't Boring - It's Deadly
We've all heard of a life story, but what about a death story? Just in time for the spookiest season, Adam Bunch's The Toronto Book of the Dead (Dundurn Press) offers a unique portal to the history of ...
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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, 2024Make-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, 2018Karl 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, 2017Stuart 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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September 07, 2022Dr. Blair Bigham Explores "The Death Dilemma" that Emerges as Technology Blurs the Line Between Life and Death
The common idiom that there's "nothing certain except death and taxes" is beginning to feel a little less reliable in the current era, as we consider technologies existing, emerging, and imagined that ...
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August 04, 2021Caroline 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 ...
