Search
-
July 13, 2020Shortlists Revealed for 2020 Sunburst Awards
The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic have now announced their 2020 shortlists.Among the final-round authors this year are Scott R. Jones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Aviaq ...
-
August 28, 2020Should Memoir be Considered Non-Fiction?
One of the things that makes this question so interesting is that the answer isn’t as obvious or cut-and-dried as it first appears. It varies from country to country, for one thing, changes from culture ...
-
May 14, 2009
Should Professors of Poetry at Oxford Be Without Sin?
A friend of mine, a Jamaican man, told me many years ago that he disliked going to bars in England, where he’d been a student. Why? Because if a man put his hand up under a woman’s skirt, he was likely ...
-
February 18, 2023show and tell – a catalogue of the small animals that live in my house
**This is the result of an exercise I did this week. The exercise was to find objects around the house and write about them. It's a good one for when my brain is moving slow, which it has been. In looking ...
-
September 02, 2018Show Me the (Writing-Grant) Money!
Hello, and Happy September! Thanks to the excellent folks at Open Book for inviting me here, and thanks to you for tuning in, lovely readers-who-I’m-guessing-are-mostly-also-writers.All right, let’s ...
-
October 19, 2022Sid Sharp's Graphic Novel The Wolf Suit is a Gloriously Dark Modern Fairytale about Deceptive Appearances & Community Connection
We've all heard the term "wolf in sheep's clothing", but what about the opposite? Award winning Toronto artist and writer Sid Sharp's funny, deliciously dark, and gently thoughtful graphic novel The ...
-
November 07, 2025Sierra Marilyn Riley on Her Debut Novel and Writing Queer Theatre Magic for Teens
Tense, atmospheric, and irresistibly dramatic, The Dark Cove Theatre Society by Sierra Marilyn Riley pulls back the velvet curtain on ambition and the high price of artistic perfection. Set in an elite ...
-
May 31, 2020Signing off.
Horrific day to be posting this last entry. The violence and harm inflicted on Black people is enraging. Seeing the failure of some to recognize this terror—or worse be complacent and perpetuate it—can ...
-
June 30, 2021Simon Rolston Examines the Complex History and "Fraught Literary Territory" of Prison Life Writing
Prison life writing—personal nonfiction written by imprisoned people—can be considered a unique genre under the larger umbrella of memoir. Complex, politically and emotionally charged, and at times ...
-
September 20, 2017Singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith on his debut novel, Dickens, and feeling awkward
Ron Sexsmith is a household name in Canada for his acclaimed, atmospheric, and beautifully moody music, which has earned him numerous awards including a Juno for Songwriter of the Year.Given Sexsmith's ...