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May 26, 2022
The Soul of Story: Authenticity
My first car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel hatchback, payment for which I had earned working 60 hours a week at two jobs all summer. It was a gutless four-speed manual with a top speed of eighty km/hour. But ...
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August 04, 2022
"All the Good Stuff [is] Inevitable" Ray Robertson on First Sentences, Epigraphs, & Bookstore Love
There have been a lot of unexpected casualties of the pandemic. For Phil Cooper, the protagonist of acclaimed writer Ray Robertson's newest novel Estates Large and Small (Biblioasis), who has battled ...
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October 03, 2022
Excerpt: Gwynne Dyer's The Shortest History of War Details the Two Surprising Conditions that Predict a Species' Likelihood to Wage War
Historian and military expert Gwynne Dyer has written about the Iraq war, climate change, and the very invention of war as we now understand it. His acclaimed television series have won awards, and his ...
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March 13, 2023
“Guernica Stands With You" Anna Van Valkenburg on Guernica/PEN International's New Residency for Writers at Risk
In early 2023, Guernica Editions, together with PEN International, launched The Guernica/PEN International Writers' Residency, a unique virtual residency aimed at supporting writers in exile, refugee ...
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June 07, 2023
Shane Neilson & Roxanna Bennett's Collaborative Poetry Collection Explores Ableism in the Pandemic & CanLit
The pandemic lockdowns were an isolating, complex time that were difficult in myriad ways for everyone effected. But for people with disabilities, mental health challenges, and neurodivergence, there ...
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June 25, 2023
The Rule of Three
I read somewhere once that a writer will always write three versions of their book: one for themselves, one for the professional reader, and one for the public reader. Knowing this has changed my life ...
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June 28, 2023
Book Therapy: Big Shadow
“It suddenly felt pointless—no, more damning than that: it was embarrassing—to have devoted the day to him, travelling to the countrystead just to find his books, then imagining myself as the next ...
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November 30, 2023
7 Ways to Develop Secondary Characters
Many authors do a good job at developing their protagonist or POV characters. After all, readers will be in these characters’ heads throughout an entire book. But as many readers can attest to, sometimes ...
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January 11, 2024
"I Dedicated This Novel to Our Nonhuman Kin" Lydia Kwa on Her New Novel Blending Chinese Myth & a Chilling AI Future
Nearly two hundred years in the future, the half-human, half-fox spirit Yinhe finds herself in her newest incarnation, plunged into Luoyang, a city still reeling after the great cataclysm. The city ...
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January 24, 2024
Nicholas Ruddock & Ashley Barron Show Tenderness to Tiny Fragile Snakes, and Other Creatures
It's always fun and insightful to have picture book authors featured on Open Book, but we're doubly lucky today to share this conversation between author Nicholas Ruddock and illustrator Ashley Barron. ...