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June 30, 2017Out-Takes from a Novel
Researching a novel means reading and travelling, amassing material and then cutting, cutting, cutting for focus and flow. This leaves outtakes, like the cloth left over after you’ve cut out the pieces ...
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May 16, 2016Ten Years of Type
In March 2006, across the street from the not-yet-hip Trinity Bellwoods Park, a storefront window on Queen Street West held a teaser display: a brown leather armchair piled with books. Behind the chair ...
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July 16, 2018Why It’s Okay If You Haven’t Finished Your First Book Yet
I thought I would finish my first novel by the time I turned 25.I laugh at the absurdity of that now. But in my early 20s, I believed it when people told me that anything was possible with hard work and ...
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August 04, 2017On Productivity
A few months ago I quit my safe, reliable customer service job at Starbucks to focus on writing. I’d just received a grant and I was ready to go full-throttle towards finally writing a book. Those last ...
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June 01, 2017How to Find Your Material -- and Mike Babcock
So there I was last Friday, landing in Phoenix with my hockey team, heading for a recreational hockey tournament. Ice hockey, I should specify, since we’re talking Phoenix, temperature 34 degrees C ...
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July 05, 2018Scarborough: A Setting
When I was growing up in Scarborough, I loved it and hated it. I don’t think it’s an uncommon feeling towards places where we grew up. But there are things about coming of age in a suburb as a racialized ...
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October 08, 2020On Querying into an Apocalypse
"I feel so cooped up in my house with this smoke and the moths that keep flying by my window. Is a weekend really a weekend in 2020 if it doesn't include plague, pestilence, and Hell fire?" - @a_h_reaumeI ...
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June 02, 2010Toronto the Good and Well Written
It’s been a while since I’ve had a huge crush on a book, but on May 18, along with the civic-minded masses at Lula Lounge, I was introduced to Stroll. A smart, adventurous, literate-yet-outdoorsy ...
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February 03, 2017A few minutes with ... Bassam
Throughout the month, I'll be sharing conversations between myself and authors. Our first author is Bassam. We discuss his current project, race and language. Help make "these pills don't come in my skin ...
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September 06, 2017
Unsung Heroes of Literature: Interview with a Semicolon
On Semicolon’s suggestion, we agreed to meet at Future Bakery, a coffee house at the corner of Bloor and Brunswick in downtown Toronto. The location was surprisingly humble, a place where third-year ...
