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April 15, 2023Seven Tips For Making a Great Audiobook
My first novel, At Last Count (Invisible Publishing, 2022) was recently turned into an audiobook. This is what you hope for as a writer, because it offers a great second way to reach readers—third, ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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, ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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July 04, 2014Our Lives of No Interest: the Compulsion to Confess
In middle age there is a mystery, there is mystification. The most I can make out of this hour is a kind of loneliness. Even the beauty of the visible world seems to crumble, yes even love. I feel that ...
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March 07, 2022Shannon Webb-Campbell on How Kathleen Hanna, Sylvia Plath, & Elizabeth Bishop Became Her Early Guides to Poetry
It's no secret that the moon has captivated humans forever. Mythologies, deities, and legends abound through history, and the scientific study of the moon, and the race to reach it, was one of the defining ...
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September 24, 2020Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wins Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
Last night, The Writers' Trust of Canada announced Beverley McLachlin as the winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (sponsored by CN) for her memoir Truth Be Told: My Journey Through ...