Search
-
November 20, 2020Writing Beyond the End of the World
We spend our days scrolling through countless words. Many of us are fixated on screens from the moment we awake until the moment we return to the same bed to sleep. And from day to day, not a whole lot ...
-
November 17, 2016The In Character interview with John Jantunen
Guelph-based author John Jantunen's A Desolate Splendor (ECW Press) is an end-of-the-world tale told in multiple voices. Hidden in the wild outskirts of a world forced back into a pre-technology existence, ...
-
December 04, 2017A New National Emblem Revisited
I was too hasty the other day. For nice, polite Canadians, the spider icon is just too darn ornery. In true Northern fashion, I apologize. We need something more civil yet found from coast to coast ...
-
October 20, 2015How Tarot Can Help You with Your Writing
I was 13 the first time I tried to see the future in a playing card.I’d been at the grocery store with my parents, and in the checkout line was a small rack of books. I was immediately drawn to one ...
-
April 10, 2014
Perfection
I’ve been running a writing workshop all winter and, once again, marveling at the courage that it takes to tackle the tricks and complexities of the English language. The writers are exposing themselves ...
-
April 29, 2014
Questions Not to Ask While Facing a Blank Page
Is enjambment supposed to be pronounced with a French accent?What do you do when you unpack a line and can’t figure out where you thought you were going in the first place?Is a metaphor just a simile ...
-
April 28, 2014
Shake It Up
Range is something to aim for – a poet’s ability to go multiple, whistle one minute, moan the next. Sound like a basset hound, then go for a high-pitched squawk of geese. Try tender, then bold; try ...
-
August 16, 2017Read an Excerpt from Tim Bowling's The Heavy Bear!
The main character of The Heavy Bear (Wolsak & Wynn) by award winning novelist and poet Tim Bowling is a man named Tim Bowling.And that's far from the strangest detail in this rollicking, moving, ...
-
March 31, 2016Gearing Up for National Poetry Month
It has been such a pleasure and honour to be the Writer in Residence for OBT this past month, and especially in light of the fact that next month is also one that I take pleasure and honour in: April, ...
-
July 08, 2015
The Gift of Interacting with Readers
Many years ago I finished reading a book that resonated for me. The characters in it and their struggles felt real. I lived with them for a while, found pain in their sorrows, amusement in their foibles, ...
