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October 20, 2015How Tarot Can Help You with Your Writing
I was 13 the first time I tried to see the future in a playing card.I’d been at the grocery store with my parents, and in the checkout line was a small rack of books. I was immediately drawn to one ...
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March 23, 2014Cormac Mccarthy: "the Ugly Fact Is Books Are Made out of Books"
Before the publication and Oprahfication of The Road, and the Oscar success of No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy was a critically-loved but relatively obscure novelist, unknown outside hardcore ...
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October 18, 2015
The Importance of Creative Rituals
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”- Chuck CloseFor years now I’ve used a very simple way to mark the moment when it’s time to write: I light a stick of ...
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March 18, 2014
Writing Sex
"And Panhuyzen really gives good sex.” ~National Post, August 1999 Sex! Did you hear that, sex! We’re talking about sex today. Oh, what’s that, you don’t want to talk about sex? Well, too bad, ...
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October 15, 2015
Why Writers Need to Talk About Work
Like a lot of people out there, I used to think that anyone who had a book published must be “making it” as a full-time writer. I didn’t wonder how much they might actually be making, just assumed ...
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October 14, 2015
Should You Hire a Book Publicist?
In my last post, I wrote about some of the questions authors might want to get clear on when it comes to publicising their books, especially when it comes to understand a publisher’s commitment to promoting ...
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March 10, 2014Travelling for Research
Travelling for writing research is an exciting way to make your work genuine and also justify a vacation, but the timing of such travel can be difficult to determine: when in the writing process should ...
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March 06, 2014
Novels vs. Serial Television
Novels are big. It’s something you recognize when you’ve got a draft and you need feedback – what a big favour it is to ask someone, a friend or acquaintance or agent, to spend a dozen or more hours ...
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March 03, 2014
Standing in the Light
Well hi. This is me standing nervously in the spotlight, governing my nerves. The light is blinding, I cannot see you out there, but in this bath of white energy I see dust motes floating, falling slowly, ...
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August 26, 2014
The Dirty Dozen, with Sandra Ridley
August 25, 2014 - Poet Sandra Ridley is Open Book: Toronto's September 2014 writer-in-residence. Get to know her by checking out her edition of our Dirty Dozen interview series!Sandra's most recent book ...