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April 29, 2021On slowing down and appreciating the little things
With so much going on in the world and in our own individual lives, it’s easy enough to let small pieces of happiness slip through our fingers. As a writer wearing so many hats, I won’t lie, sometimes ...
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April 30, 2020On Sounding Stupid: A Love Letter to my OWN DAMN SELF
In my last post here I want to reflect back on what I realized about myself while writing these love letters to my lovely poet friends over the last month of isolation. I wasn’t sure at first where ...
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July 10, 2015On Sports and Writing
Years ago, when applying to MFA Programs, I was asked for a personal essay about my writing and writing influences. Without a shred of irony I stated that my earliest literary influences were televangelists ...
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June 16, 2020On Stage: Jordi Mand on the Freedom of Playwriting and What To Do When The Work's Not Working
Brontë sisters Emily, Charlotte, and Anne have come to a crossroads. While they've long enjoyed writing as a hobby, with a father gravely ill and a brother struggling with addiction, it's up to them ...
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July 30, 2018
On Staying Hungry
One night after a reading years ago, before any of us had published a book, I and another writer I know gave a third writer friend a pretty hard time about not wanting to submit stories to magazines. ...
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June 20, 2019On Synchronicity and Writing: The Path Back to Myself
Last month, I had the privilege of going on a road trip across Northern BC as part of an author’s tour organized by the BC and Yukon Book Prizes, for which my book of poems, Port of Being, was a finalist. ...
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June 09, 2015
On the Benefits of Not Writing (Surfing)
It isn’t (usually) wise to blame other people for things that happen to you, but I blame Dr. Kary Banks Mullis for everything.Dr. Mullis is a Novel Prize-winning biochemist who devised paradigm-shifting ...
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August 31, 2018On the future of Canlit
You guys, this is my last Open Book column.I have been writing this column for a year now and I’ll admit I didn’t know what I was going to write about when Holly Kent and Kevin Hardcastle asked me ...
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September 08, 2014On the Handmade (Part 1): Qs and a Response by Phil Hall
It’s been said that the hand-written letter is becoming lost to us, or that for many of us, it has already disappeared. I’ve heard too that longhand itself is no longer being taught in our schools. ...
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September 08, 2014On the Handmade (Part 2): Q&A with Christine Mcnair
(Part 2 of 3. I'm reposting the introductory text from Post 1 to set up the context for Christine McNair's response.)It’s been said that the hand-written letter is becoming lost to us, or that for many ...
