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October 31, 2018
We've always been here
My time here is drawing to a close and I’d like to express great thanks to the Open Book team for inviting me to this space for the past month. It’s been a real pleasure and an immense honour to have ...
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July 11, 2018Being Prime Minister author J.D.M. Stewart Takes Us Behind the Scenes
With just 23 members, it may be the country's most exclusive club. Canadian Prime Ministers, seven of whom are still alive in addition to our current PM Justin Trudeau, have shaped the course not only ...
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May 06, 2019Moving On and Holding On: Writing Picture Books as Therapy
Is it just me or is closure overrated and nearly impossible to achieve? It sometimes feels like the more you try to shut out painful experiences, the more they wave their hands around and yell, “Look ...
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October 01, 2019"Sometimes, the Story Isn't Finished Being Told" Drew Hayden Taylor on Spending 20 Years with the Story That Inspired His Newest Novel
In playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor's new book, Chasing Painted Horses (Cormorant Books), an innocent act of encouragement from a parent has far-reaching consequences. When ...
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October 05, 2018
Telling and Writing the End of the World
My grandmother, Aileen Rice, was the strongest connection I had to a pre-contact world. She used to tell me stories about how her great-grandparents’ generation used to migrate up and down the eastern ...
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June 20, 2019"The Downton Abbey of India" Sohan S. Koonar on His Powerful Historical Novel Paper Lions, Sikh Representation in Literature, & More
The years from 1939, the beginning of the Second World War, into the 1960s were a time of enormous change. And that change was by no means limited to the war and its aftermath in Europe. In his new novel Paper ...
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June 18, 2020Sue Macartney on Loving Yourself, Funny Birds, and Her Favourite Writing Partner
Benjamin, the central character in author and illustrator Sue Macartney's new picture book Benjamin's Blue Feet (Pajama Press), is a blue-footed booby — a seabird native to the South Pacific. While ...
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July 13, 2016The In Character Interview with Scott Gardiner
After AMC's Mad Men, the life of charismatic advertising types became a topic of fascination for many, with the glitzy — and at times, manipulative — backdrop of the ad world acting as a perfect backdrop ...
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May 04, 2014Guttersnipes: Elisha Lim
TCAF is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It is an annual week-long celebration of comics and graphic novels and their creators, featuring readings, interviews, panels, workshops, gallery shows, art installations, ...
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August 03, 2017
Improv Taught Me How to Craft a Story
I know a lot of people who want to write books who don’t actually do any writing. It’s a curious thing to want to do something you don’t do. I used to be one of those people, so I say that with ...