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February 23, 2023"Capturing Lightning in a Bottle" Naseem Hrab on the Magic of Kids Can Press Turning 50
Naseem Hrab is one of the definitive "how does she do it?" people in Canadian publishing: a Governor General's Literary Award-winning writer for young people and former librarian, she also serves as Kids ...
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September 14, 2023The Pull of Two Needles
My first version of this essay was about how my two obsessions, knitting and writing, don’t compete with each other. I wrote at length about how they spin together in my brain in complicated steps, ...
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September 14, 2014On the Idea of a Secret (Part 1)
“The idea of a secret that will be revealed always results in one of two scenarios: death and destruction, or self-discovery and recovery beyond our wildest dreams of unification. And in the greatest ...
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March 28, 2019Writer at Work: “Identity is a pain in the arse” (On Zadie Smith)
Last month, Zadie Smith said: "identity is a pain in the arse." She said this at a festival in the context of a discussion about identity politics and her (white) partner, Nick Laird. Here's a snippet ...
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July 08, 2015
The Gift of Interacting with Readers
Many years ago I finished reading a book that resonated for me. The characters in it and their struggles felt real. I lived with them for a while, found pain in their sorrows, amusement in their foibles, ...
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June 13, 2016#WritingTips Mondays: Jonathan Franzen - "The Reader is Not a Spectator"
In 2010, England's The Guardian newspaper asked some of the most acclaimed writers in the world to offer their top ten writing tips, inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing (William Morrow).To ...
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March 03, 2016The Writers' Trust of Canada Reveals Shortlist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
The Writers' Trust of Canada has named the five finalists for the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. The prize, now in its sixteenth year, is awarded annually to a work of literary ...
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June 06, 2017Hockey Stalking
I’m a big advocate of writers carrying notebooks. You can jot down thoughts, overheard conversations—I’m a terrible eavesdropper—sights you want to call up later.Yesterday, a father was trying ...
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September 11, 2024Writers' Trust Announces the 2024 Finalists for Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers
The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers is unique in the landscape of Canadian literary prizes: It is presented annually to an emerging writer who identifies as (but is not limited to) ...
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October 06, 2019
Daddy Writer To be – Love at First Tarn
The older I got, especially when I started going to Simon Fraser University, the less I was interested in writing horror stories. As I was contemplating my own sexuality and identity, my stories shifted ...
