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April 29, 2009
Ten Questions with Pamela Mordecai
OBT:What was your first publication and where was it published?PM:It was either a poem in my high school paper, or an essay that won a competition and was published in the daily newspaper. I hope it was ...
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February 07, 2015
Re: (Whether It Is) Becoming (To Be) a Lady and the Use of the Word in Jamaican Creole (Jc)
News flash! Author copies of my novel, Red Jacket, arrived in the mail yesterday. https://www.dundurn.com/books/... About to post this exploration of the use of the word ‘lady’ in the land of my birth ...
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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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October 28, 2013
A Response to Ann Elizabeth Carson's We All Become Stories, Blue Denim Press, 2013
Ann Elizabeth Carson’s WE ALL BECOME STORIES is a generous book. This recounting of journeys the author has made with a baker’s dozen of elders (she makes the thirteenth) is an intimate exploration ...
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August 12, 2016Tokenism vs. Inclusion
Last month, I wrote a piece about my frustrations with the lack of diversity in Canada’s publishing industry. In the comments, it was mentioned that while some folks are trying to make improvements, ...
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May 23, 2013
A Tale of Two Marys
Colm Tóibin recently spoke to Eleanor Wachtel on CBC’s “Writers and Company” about his new novel, The Testament of Mary. I tuned a close ear since I have for a while been meaning to write something ...
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May 31, 2016Writing What’s Closest to Home
Last year, when I turned in the first draft of a memoir on rape trauma, my editor had a pretty reasonable observation. Despite divulging various details of violation, illness, and the path to getting ...
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May 30, 2009
Walk Good
If you had asked me I’dhave said that whenthe time had come for meto say au revoirofficially by thenit would be warmand we would be outsidein shorts and T’s.But it ain’t so.Of course each year there ...
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May 30, 2016The Burden of Positivity
As a writer, reader and reality TV watcher, Canada Reads masterfully combines some of my favourite practices and past-times in a nation-wide, televised battle of the books. And while I enjoyed the 2016 ...
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October 08, 2014Shifting Gears
Dear Open Bookers,It’s a pleasure to be this month’s Writer-in-Residence. I look forward to sharing thoughts and ideas with you over the coming weeks!Monday morning, I arrived at the Banff Centre ...