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January 15, 2018On Margaret Atwood and the new Canlit
It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday night and my son is asleep. This is a time reserved for me, a time when I usually don’t work or think about work, when I sometimes watch Stephen Colbert videos, or ...
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November 23, 2021Book Therapy: Good Burdens
“You may feel like you’re behind the rest of the world because you haven’t accomplished your to-do list or gotten to inbox zero or have your side hustle rocking like your neighbour next door. (Newsflash, ...
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March 03, 2022Jen Lynn Bailey's New Picture Book Celebrates Both Northern Nature & The Cumulative Story Form
A cumulative tale is a story, song, or folktale that uses repetition, rhythm, and often humour to build to a story's conclusion. You may not have heard the term, but you know the form–think "There Was ...
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August 02, 2022"The Best Part is Having Someone By Your Side" KidLit Dream Team Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault on Life as Co-Creators
The powerhouse team of writer Fanny Britt and illustrator Isabelle Arsenault, highly decorated for their work both together and individually, is the kind of thing literary dreams are made of. Their newest ...
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August 11, 2022"Never Patronize or Hide Things" Nancy Vo Shares Her Philosophy of Writing for Kids & Her New Picture Book, Boobies
Why are we still so uptight about boobs? Long after Canadian women won the right by precedent (if not technically by law) to be topless in public anywhere men can be, we've still got debates raging about ...
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September 07, 2022Dr. Blair Bigham Explores "The Death Dilemma" that Emerges as Technology Blurs the Line Between Life and Death
The common idiom that there's "nothing certain except death and taxes" is beginning to feel a little less reliable in the current era, as we consider technologies existing, emerging, and imagined that ...
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September 27, 2022The Joy of Literary Festivals – And Dreams Coming True
It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the end of September and that the time I have been privileged to spend with you on this Open Book platform is almost over. Looking back at what I have shared with ...
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April 20, 2023"Conflict is the Engine that Drives Fiction" Leanne Lieberman on the Magic of Writing for Teens
When her dad hits rock bottom—again—Jess finds herself determined to change her stars and avoid going down the same dark path. She takes a job cleaning a beautiful country house, where part of her ...
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February 11, 2021"I Like Inhabiting One Character": Philipp Schott on Telling Family Stories, Building Character, & "Invisible Scaffolding"
Philipp Schott's The Willow Wren (ECW Press) follows the complex and harrowing story of Ludwig, a child growing up in Hilter's Germany. Sent against his will to a Hitler Youth Camp, shy and gentle Ludwig ...
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October 11, 2023Vulnerability is a Writing Tool
My most reflexive apology is, “I went to theatre school.” Usually delivered with a shrug or a knowing smirk as if to say I can’t help it, it gets a laugh from the creative set about 82 percent of ...
