Search
-
May 25, 2021"I Felt Like I Had Found a Place" Poet Vanessa Shields on the High Highs and Low Lows of a Life Spent Writing & Publishing
Every family story contains at least one unforgettable character. A person who inspires those who come after with his or her strength, struggles, and legacy. For poet Vanessa Shields, it was her grandmother, ...
-
September 05, 2017Debut picture book author Carolyn Huizinga Mills on Montgomery, Atwood, Mistry & More
Who doesn't love a nice warm bath? Sally, the protagonist of Carolyn Huizinga Mills' The Little Boy Who Lived Down the Drain (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) certainly loves taking baths -- but as the title ...
-
July 18, 2016Service Industry Hell (Part 3): Rats in the kitchen and drunk girls on the floor
A lot of the inspiration for my new book, Congratulations On Everything, came from the things I saw while working in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and from the experiences of friends who did the same. ...
-
April 23, 2014
The War Series: Writers as Readers, with Evan Munday
Evan Munday is the Silver Birch Award-nominated author and illustrator of middle grade novel Dial M for Morna, The Dead Kid Detective Agency and the graphic novel Quarter Life Crisis: Only the Good Die ...
-
June 17, 2014
Kim’s Top Ten Writing Tips: How to Write like a Pro
Do you want your (fiction) writing to look polished and professional when you submit it to editors and agents for consideration? Of course you do. So make sure your words are correctly spelled and your ...
-
February 23, 2017
Poetry vs Prose part 2 of 2
“But what does this have to do with poetry and prose?”What is poetry? What is prose? If the medium is the message, and the primary medium for most written poetry and prose is the page, why don't we ...
-
May 15, 2017
Monopoly on memory
Recently on Instagram, I saw a picture of Warszawa Centralna railway station and I was overcome by the smell and the sound the picture evoked. It smelled of damp concrete, earth, dirt and engine oil, ...
-
April 19, 2017
Jacqueline Valencia on Poetry Exercises
The latest poet featured in this series on poetry prompts and writing exercises is Toronto-based writer Jacqueline Valencia. She is the author of two poetry collections: The Octopus Complex (Lyrical Myrical ...
-
December 21, 2016The Proust Questionnaire, with Jane Ozkowski
Jane Ozkowski was the winner of House of Anansi’s Broken Social Scene Story Contest, which invited writers to submit works inspired by the band's iconic You Forgot It In People album. The contest ...
-
February 18, 2014
If One Can Argue Against Traditional Non-Academic Literary Schools, Then One Can Reason Against a Purely Academic Model (part1)
Whoo! I'm exhausted writing that title. As stated in my first entry this month, all my posts are my opinion and are not necessarily shared by any members or staff of Open Book Toronto. Before we start, ...
