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May 07, 2018Craig Terlson on Exploring Truth Through Scandal and Conspiracy
Illustrator Craig Terlson spent more than twenty years drawing for the likes of The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, and Saturday Night magazine, racking up numerous awards. After making it to the ...
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April 30, 2018May 2018 writer-in-residence Mark Sampson on Indoor Life, the Music in His Head, and Cocktailing
Mark Sampson does it all. From poetry to short stories to humour writing, Sampson's literary chameleon quality has garnered him wide acclaim as a versatile, insightful, wickedly witty writer. Now Mark ...
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June 26, 2021What Makes a Good Writing Routine?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm fascinated by other people's writing routines. Not only am I just a somewhat nosy person (as many writers are, I imagine), but I don't have much in the way of a ...
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November 07, 2019
Where Ideas Begin
Questions every writer is familiar with: “Where did you get the idea?” or “How did you decide what to write about?”How did Denis Johnson decide to make a character obsessed with Elvis Presley’s ...
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May 21, 2018On racialized motherhood, writing, and sleep deprivation
The day before my son’s due date, I sent what I thought was the final draft of The Better Mother to my editor. The baby’s bedroom was finished: yellow walls, penguin stencil, gingham curtains. My ...
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November 12, 2019
Keeping Momentum
After the initial idea for a story is grounded, but before there’s enough material for real revisions and edits, writers are somehow expected to get words on the page. This is intimidating! Here a couple ...
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May 14, 2020Bring Back the Good ‘Ol Days of Getting Lost in Fiction
“The anonymous woman in bed beside me adamantly shakes my shoulder.”—Amber Dawn, Sodom Road Exit“Sometimes we would hide in the closet when the drunks came home from the bar.”—Tanya Tagaq, ...
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March 09, 2021
A love letter (to books)
The first quote-unquote serious novel I read was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. My eighth grade teacher set down a box at the front of the classroom and, in a seemingly ...
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November 19, 2019Revision Part Two, Long Projects
Short stories, essays, or poems are wonderful to revise—I say this while I’m revising a longer project, but story length does make a difference. You can reading through a short draft in an afternoon, ...
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June 09, 2023Affirmations for Writers
Pursuing a career as a writer can be hard on your self-esteem. It requires incredible stamina, faith, and unbelievable amounts of patience. Here are some things I like to remind myself of when the urge ...
