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February 20, 2019Poetry School: Rilke’s advice against advice
My aversion to the poetry workshop grew quickly many years ago. Let me correct that: my aversion to the untutored, undisciplined poetry workshop.Although I’ve been writing poems off and on since I was ...
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August 15, 2016The Final Days of Summer Reading
As we find ourselves in last gasps of summer (how is it already August?) it’s time to park it on the back porch and really focus on that list of carefully chosen seasonal reads.The summer book really ...
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May 17, 2021Book Therapy: The Quiet is Loud
“The more people we can have around us that who we can trust, the more we can work on finding ways to thrive in this world we live in.The one that sometimes hates us.”—Samantha Garner, The Quiet ...
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June 08, 2016On Writing, with Tim Falconer
They are plenty of us who dread our turn at karaoke, who wouldn't let anyone hear our shower singing for love or money, who are, to put it plainly, bad singers. Writer and journalist Tim Falconer however, ...
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September 24, 2009Ten Questions with Harry Bruce
Open Book talks to Harry Bruce about his writing, reading and his latest book, Page Fright: Foibles and Fetishes of Famous Writers (McClelland & Stewart).Open Book: Toronto:Tell us about your latest ...
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November 19, 2021Falling in love with audiobooks
I used to have to walk to get my babies to sleep in the stroller. I would walk and walk until they were asleep, loops of the same block, and then I’d sit on a bench, the one bench in my entire neighbourhood, ...
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February 22, 2016
Read Around The World: Part Two of The Extravagant JT Reading Program That Will Never Be Started or Finished
In my last post, I discussed why I think we all (or at least me in particular) live, read, and write: to develop mutual understanding with other people. I’m someone who has often felt alienated, and ...
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January 25, 2022"Love Rang Through Me Like a Bell" Read an Excerpt from Victoria Hetherington's Dystopian Triumph, Autonomy
In Victoria Hetherington's Autonomy (Dundurn, a Rare Machines Book), we meet Julian, who was born in a lab. His closest friend is Slaton, a therapist who's been accused of a crime in the post-privacy, ...
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July 13, 2014Modest Portraits of My Mother
So perhaps my mother doesn’t need to be my queen; simply being my mother is already a lot, even if the rare kisses I place on her cheeks aren’t so majestic. —Kim Thúy, Ru**As a statue:Bootprints ...
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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. ...
