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March 12, 2020What Wolves Are You Missing? How Writing Communities Improve Our Writing
“The Yellowstone river is healthier today than it was in 1995. The wild part about this positive ecological trend (which cuts against so many other ecological trends in the world) is that we understand ...
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August 08, 2020A sentence & a breath
You want to write a book. Terrific! You've thought about this for years. In fact, whenever you tell your stories, people always say, you should write a book. And they’re right! You should. There’s ...
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July 21, 2015
Talking in Public About Writing a Novel
I’m putting the finishing touches onto a talk about my novel, Eulogy, which I’ll present tomorrow as part of the weekly Artist Talk series at Haliburton School of The Arts. This is to be a one hour ...
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December 13, 1901
Thinking the Future through the Present
To begin with: many thanks if you made it through yesterday’s post; you have my gratitude for sitting with uncertainty and/or dwelling in possibility.To continue: I’ll now try to offer an account ...
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June 20, 2015
Bravery Through Bestsellers
In a recent cultural comment in The New Yorker, South African-born social anthropologist and writer Ceridwen Dovey investigates whether reading can make us happier. She describes a session with a bibliotherapist ...
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June 05, 2015On Making Sausages
June is the month of graduation. On campus, SFU students seem happier, despite impending midterms. Relatives in high heels are carrying peonies. All parking lots are full.As I pass by the Convocation ...
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August 24, 2016The Entitled Interview with Eric Beck Rubin
Eric Beck Rubin's School of Velocity (Doubleday Canada) marks the arrival of a talented new voice in CanLit.The novel follows Jan de Vries, whose virtuoso talent at the piano promised him a stunning career. ...
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August 20, 2017
Finish Your Vomit Draft Now
After I posted my last entry, I felt like I didn’t spend enough time talking about why it’s so important for you to finish your vomit draft.How many times have you read a book and thought, “How ...
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October 21, 2020The casting call
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and … as you get older, you become more skillful in casting them.” — Gore VidalThe characters who show up in my stories are truly a mixed ...
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October 01, 2020The sweet spot
First off, it’s an honor to be here. Thank you to Graham and Grace and all the good folks at Open Book for inviting me to sit in this month. I thought I’d start by telling you how I came to writing, ...
