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September 20, 2019When History and Fiction Collide: On the Necessity of Irreverence
A week before I attended my first writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity last month, a historian in Vancouver gave me an envelope containing a strip of negatives. I developed them ...
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December 02, 2025Ink & Imagination – Open Book Author & Illustrator Dialogues with Lisa Frenette & August Swinson
in the vibrant and wonderful debut picture book from Lisa Frenette and illustrator August Swinson, a feather sets off on an unexpected journey after a sudden gust sweeps it from the wings of a soaring ...
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June 03, 2019I Promise You, It's Fiction.
Full disclosure, I had another post planned to kick off my Writer in Residency here on Open Book but I decided to change topics after seeing a write-up/review of my forthcoming short story collection. ...
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March 04, 2022Late Bloomers
I come from a family of late bloomers.Or at least, that’s the story I tell myself when I try to deal with the disappointment of not having been an outrageous success in my 20s and 30s, when I was precocious ...
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July 20, 2022To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme
Nothing is as divisive as rhyme in children’s picture books. When it works, it sings, but when it doesn’t, it can turn readers (and editors) right off. Many people have fond memories of their favourite ...
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January 11, 2017Hearing the Muse
I was always fond of my teachers but one couldn’t help but love Mary di Michele. I realize that my impressions and recollections are fifteen years old but so what? Of all my professors at Concordia, ...
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April 03, 2019Read an Excerpt from Amanda Munday's Silence-Breaking Day Nine: A Postpatrum Depression Memoir
While awareness and understanding of postpatrum depression has been increasing in recent years, there is still a disturbing lack of support and solutions available to those who experience it. Amanda ...
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October 18, 2019Act Now to Keep Seasonal Creativity Disorder at Bay!
It’s not winter yet, but as we head into fall it’s starting to get darker earlier. It’s also getting colder. Maybe some days you’ve even wished you’d worn a light scarf or gloves as you walked ...
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October 14, 2020Natasha Ramoutar: On Full Circles and First Books
Less than a month ago, Natasha Ramoutar published Bittersweet, her first book of poems, with Mawenzi House. Less than a month ago, I celebrated the ten year publishing anniversary of my first book, Bleeding ...
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February 23, 2021Excerpt: Don't Miss this Powerful Glimpse into the Lives of Country Vets in Gillian Wigmore's Night Watch: The Vet Suite
In Nightwatch: The Vet Suite (Invisible Publishing), acclaimed poet and novelist Gillian Wigmore takes readers into the unique lives of rural veterinarians. Wigmore comes by the incredibly in-depth ...