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February 10, 2017
The absurdity of literary prizes part 2 of 2
“ I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it.”For my most recent book, I had a reviewer who skewered me for quoting Shakespeare, and then citing it in my end notes. Because, everyone who reads ...
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February 10, 2017At the Desk: Ed O'Loughlin
The doomed Franklin Expedition, which lost its entire crew during an exploration of the Northwest Passage, has long fascinated writers in Canada and around the world, but journalist and Man Booker Prize-nominated ...
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February 09, 2017
The absurdity of literary prizes part 1 of 2
It's 2016, Stockholm, and Patti Smith is dressed in a black suit, nervously performing Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. A hushed crowd listens in celebration of her rendition of a song written by the ...
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February 08, 2017The Dirty Dozen, with Leanne Dunic
Artist and musician Leanne Dunic has proved she's got literary chops on top of her other artistic talents, with honours including first prize in the Alice Munro Short Story competition. So it's no surprise ...
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February 08, 2017A few minutes with ... Michael Fraser
Throughout the month I'll be interviewing various authors. Today I share my conversation with Michael Fraser. Michael has been published in numerous national and international anthologies and journals. ...
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February 07, 2017
Kid Lit Can: Spotlight on Middle Grade Fiction - Part 1
Happy 2017! This month and next, I’m spotlighting middle-grade (MG) novels -- stories written for readers who are generally within the 7 to 12-year-old age range. I’ve written one MG novel (Island ...
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February 06, 2017
My Plastic Bag of Words Part 1 of 2
As stated in my interview, in my closet I have a plastic bag that has poems that I've rejected. That plastic bag is slightly more than a bag of failed poetry, and it represents my writing process in ...
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February 06, 2017Featured Video: Max Eisen on his Taylor Prize Nominated Book By Chance Alone
Max Eisen is the author of By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz (HarperCollins Canada), nominated for the 2017 RBC Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction. The harrowing ...
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February 02, 2017The Proust Questionnaire, with Paul Benedetti
To paraphrase Tolstoy, it seems fair to say that each funny family is funny in its own way. The Hamilton Spectator's Paul Benedetti runs with that idea in his hilarious portrait of modern family life, You ...
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February 02, 2017
My issue with social justice poetry
We need to have this discussion. As the world becomes a more unstable place, with more incompetent leaders, more writers will be driven to write and perform politically-driven poetry. But, most social ...