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August 04, 2017On Productivity
A few months ago I quit my safe, reliable customer service job at Starbucks to focus on writing. I’d just received a grant and I was ready to go full-throttle towards finally writing a book. Those last ...
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August 04, 2017
Interview with Kyo Maclear
Kyo Maclear is one of my favourite children’s book authors and one of the loveliest people I know. She’s the author of many acclaimed picture books including Spork, Virginia Wolf and The Fog, and ...
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August 03, 2017Kevin MacKay on the Coming Ecological and Social Collapse & How We Can Still Avoid It
If you're feeling overwhelmed in the face of the worrisome changes to our economic and ecological environments, you may want to listen to Kevin MacKay. The Hamilton-based professor and activist has ...
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August 03, 2017
Improv Taught Me How to Craft a Story
I know a lot of people who want to write books who don’t actually do any writing. It’s a curious thing to want to do something you don’t do. I used to be one of those people, so I say that with ...
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August 03, 2017Gillian Best on the Power of the Sea, Glaswegian tap water, & a Postcard from Jonathan Franzen
Gillian Best is making waves with her debut novel (we couldn't resist!).The Last Wave (House of Anansi) is an intergenerational drama set in Dover, spanning the decades from the 1940s to the present ...
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August 02, 2017Paul Butler on Subverting Jane Austen & How We Define Love
Jane Austen provided some of literature's most famous (and most beloved) happily ever afters, including in her first novel, Persuasion. But what happens after the curtain falls on those scenes? And what ...
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August 01, 2017
Oh hey, it’s me. Your old friend, Naseem.
I’ll be your writer-in-residence for August. I’m a first-time author and a former librarian, and I’ve worked in children’s publishing for over ten years. I’m a huge fan of improv, stand-up comedy, ...
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July 31, 2017An Interview with David O’Meara, organizer of the Plan 99 Reading Series
In the Manx Pub, a basement bar on Ottawa’s Elgin St., there’s a slim shelf of books – lots of poetry, but also some prose. The books are often browsed, often borrowed, and often returned. They’re ...
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July 28, 2017August writer-in-residence Naseem Hrab on a Cake that Became a Boy & Her First Picture Book
In Ira Crumb Makes a Pretty Good Friend (OwlKids), the debut picture book by Naseem Hrab (illustrated by Josh Holinaty), Ira is the new kid in town. When he realizes that could mean a lonely time at ...
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July 27, 2017An Interview With Catriona Wright
“You start to realize just how culturally constructed ideas of the edible vs. inedible are."Among the themes poets tend to shy away from, gastronomy lives somewhere at the top alongside rent and debt. ...
