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May 20, 2019Stay Healthy, My (Writer) Friends...
Writing can be an actual pain in the butt. I suffer from random attacks of spasming glutes and when they flare, it’s downright debilitating. Like, my husband has to carry me up and down the stairs, ...
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June 27, 2014Forget Cottage Country: 8 Reasons to Summer in the City of Toronto
School’s out and the Canada Day weekend is nigh, but that’s no reason to get out of town. Stay here, and enjoy these only-in-Toronto good things instead:1. Toronto IslandBike down to the ferry docks ...
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June 30, 2014
A Month in the Life of the Launching Author
Today marks one month since May 31, the official publication date of my new novel The Oakdale Dinner Club, and one month since I started my residency here at Open Book Toronto.Within the month of June, ...
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June 08, 2014Comfort Food, Comfort Reading, Comfort Movie
My new novel The Oakdale Dinner Club is very food-centric – it’s about a group of suburbanites who get together once a month to eat good food, drink good wine, and do other wicked things.One of the ...
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June 02, 2014A Day in the Life of a Launching Author: Then I Spot the Audience
Yesterday, I celebrated the first day of June and the first official day of my Open Book residency – hi y’all! – by appearing on the slate of a Globe and Mail/Ben McNally Books Authors' Brunch event ...
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June 23, 2014
To Blog or Not to Blog, That Is the Question
I think of Julie Powell’s 2002 blog The Julie/Julia Project as the original food blog, or at least the first blog I heard of that paired good writing with food. But Powell’s blog, about trying every ...
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June 28, 2014What to Eat While Reading: Savoury Stilton Pecan Shortbread
My novel The Oakdale Dinner Club is about two women who become friends in their senior year of high school after they hand in identical answer sheets for a math test and are accused of cheating. They ...
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January 30, 2019My Reading Year: What I Learned from Reading 275 Books in 365 Days
The other day I told a friend that I'd read 275 books in 2018 and he responded by laughing and declaring emphatically, "That's a reading year!"I think that's an excellent way to describe my past year. ...
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June 17, 2020On Reclaiming Brokenness and Refusing the Violence of ‘Recovery Narratives’
I’m working on this essay when a friend texts me. His therapist suggested he write a list of things that he likes about himself but the picture that shows up on my phone is just a blank page.“Having ...
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October 10, 2018A Tribute to Literary Friendships
“Are you a writer?” I asked the girl standing on the other side of the table.I was manning a booth for a writing program at an outdoor literary festival. It was cold and attendance was down. Most ...