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December 18, 2017The Swarm
My father would fill up our triple-seater truck with six bench seats worth of brats—his own and the neighbour’s--on any given Saturday. One Saturday, he told us that we were heading up Nanaimo Lakes ...
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December 01, 2015Eighty Feet Without a Net - Conversations with John Irving
About a year ago I got an email that I had to read about twelve times over before it really settled in. That email was from Janet Turnbull Irving, the wife and agent of one of the most famous literary ...
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August 01, 2023For the Love of Dog – Hadley Dyer Creates a Smart, Moving Picture Book to Help Kids Grieve Animal Friends
Veteran children's book editor and writer Hadley Dyer has teamed up with beloved kids book creator Paul Covello (known for his Toronto ABC and Canada ABC, amongst other titles) to create a book ...
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October 03, 2023Bradley Peters' Debut Poetry Collection Takes Readers into the Prison Experience & the Systemic Problems Within
One of the poems in Bradley Peters' Sonnets from a Cell (Brick Books) closes with the musing "A sonnet is not memory. More so/ It is a room the shape of my own face." This lyrical creativity and exploration ...
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October 13, 2020Cookin' the books
“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” – Jack KerouacThe desire to write had followed me from my teen years. And many decades later I could ignore it no longer; I had stories ...
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September 19, 2018Talk to Me
My little sunroom office at home (which is also our dining room) faces a fairly busy street, so when the weather’s good and our windows are open, bits and pieces of random conversations drift up to ...
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February 11, 2014
Writer's Block Does Not Exist (Part 2)
The internet is awesome. How many arguments have I won simply by using a Google search? Seriously, use the internet properly! Apparently this is a lost art. If you are a more serious writer, or you are ...
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February 12, 2014
Writer's Block Does Not Exist (Part 3)
Step three: writing your draftsFirst draft (punctuation optional)."Have you ever rolled down your windows to smell the aroma of an organic orange plantation on a summer night? Dreaming the ecstasy of ...
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April 21, 2020Read an Excerpt from Patti M. Hall's Touching Memoir 'Loving Large'
When her son was diagnosed with gigantism after the discovery of a tumour, author Patti M. Hall's life flipped upside down. Career and relationship goals were pushed to the sidelines, with every ounce ...
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September 02, 2014Hello, My Name Is Diane! (Part 2)
Some say that exposure helps dissipate the stress for people with performance anxiety—that old adage which claims the more you do the one thing that provokes fear in you, the easier it gets to manage ...