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October 20, 2025Writing Protagonists Who Don’t Care If You Like Them
As writers, we want our readers to connect with our protagonists, to root for them and relate to them. It makes sense – human connection is at the heart of storytelling. If a reader just utterly hates ...
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April 22, 2017
Gary Barwin on Poetry Exercises
My latest installment in this series on poets' relationships to writing exercises features Gary Barwin. Gary is a writer, musician, and multimedia artist and the author of 21 books of poetry and fiction. ...
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October 05, 2016How To Make a Great Book Cover
The most important lesson I learned when I self-published my first book was that readers do judge a book by its cover. This is often framed as negative but as author and illustrator Annie Mok recently ...
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May 14, 2014Acknowledgements: Athmika Punja, Operations
Book publishing, as an industry, is not unlike a Jenga tower held together by sheer force of will. If the industry works at all, it's only because many dedicated and diligent people work or little reward ...
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October 15, 2024Jason Heroux Explores the Joy and Bafflement of Our MIxed-Up World with Like a Trophy From the Sun
Jason Heroux is a prolific poet with a number of works published, and a collection of short fiction and various new chapbooks forthcoming. So, it's no surprise that the author believes that the writing ...
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May 27, 2022Reminders on the Path - Sheniz Janmohamed in Conversation with Natasha Ramoutar
When my first poetry collection Bittersweet was released in 2020, my mentor Sheniz Janmohamed published our conversation about full circles and first books with Open Book.Sheniz has been so instrumental ...
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December 13, 2016CanLit's Next Generation: The 2016 Winners of IFOA's Write Across Ontario Student Writing Competition!
Every year, IFOA Ontario's Write Across Ontario student writing competition invites young authors across the province to submit their best work and show us what CanLit has to look forward to. We at Open ...
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October 19, 2023Glimpse into the Wealth of Filipino-Canadian Writing Talent in this Excerpt from Magdaragat
Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing (Cormorant Books) opens with the line "Magdaragat is Filipino for 'seafarer' or 'mariner'". It's a first line that heralds the expansiveness of the ...
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November 06, 2017Black Tie Books: Talking Spanx, YouTube Bow-Ties, & Glamour with Guest Authors from the 2017 Writers' Trust Gala
The Writers' Trust Gala is a sparkling black tie evening that brings writers from their natural environments of coffeeshops and tiny attic offices to Toronto's Ritz Carlton Hotel. It's all for a good ...
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October 26, 2017Wolsak & Wynn Editorial Board: Jen Sookfong Lee & Canisia Lubrin Discuss Strengthening CanLit with Diverse Voices
Wolsak & Wynn is one of Canada's most dynamic independent publishers, with a stable of authors including Gary Barwin, Michelle Berry, Erín Moure, and Ian Williams, to name just a few. Since 1983, ...
