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May 31, 2019The Mindful Writer and the Desire To Publish
This is my last post with Open Book. I tried to approach my residency by writing about things that writers might find useful, or at least semi-entertaining. And I find it amusing that just like being ...
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April 26, 2014
The Most Important Skill
Someone asks me what’s the most important skill a poet can have and I start to say the power of observation. The world awaits us with all sorts of small truths that can’t easily be seen. When I lose ...
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December 10, 2017The Moth
I do not nominate the moth, pallid creature of night, to be any sort of talisman or totem. Moths are vandals, eating your heirloom woolens. These Visigoths deserve summary execution. No last meal of tartan ...
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October 02, 2025The Music in SOUNDTRACK Chronicles the True Joys and Looming Dangers of an Important Cultural Era
Michael V. Smith has long been celebrated for his fearless and generous writing, and his newest work, Soundtrack (Book*hug Press), is no exception. This poetic memoir captures the spirit of an era when ...
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September 29, 2015
The musicality of language – an interview with David Arcus
We learn so much from each other, particularly from other artists.This month, I’ve been thinking a lot about rhythm, and what rhythm does to story. It’s so important, and it’s not a static thing ...
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September 03, 2025The Mysteries at the Biltmore Continue in Book 3 of the Popular Picturebook Series
The LaRue Detective Agency has a spotless track record, and they’re not about to let one flaky mystery ruin it. In Mystery at the Biltmore #3: A Recipe for Robbery, celebrated picture book author Colleen ...
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August 31, 2020The Nature of Truth in Art
For my final post as writer-in-residence, I’d like to devote a bit of space to one of the subjects I love to chew on: the nature of truth in art. (As a friend of mine recently noted: ‘You always go ...
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January 06, 2020The Need for More Non-Traditional Mentorship in Canadian Publishing
When I was in school, the act of reading books was just that, reading books. I wasn’t categorizing them. I wasn’t thinking about publishing, editors, marketability, or whether or not a book was considered ...
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December 02, 2024The New Novel from Priya Ramsingh is an Entertaining, Hopeful Look at Modern Love in the City
Author Priya Ramsingh has won critical acclaim for her previous work, and has seen her fiction shortlisted for best story of the year by The Caribbean Writer. With her latest novel, she returns with a ...
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November 20, 2017
The noir of Fury
No Fury Like That is the reason I started investigating noir. As I mentioned in my intro piece, I was a little taken aback by the fury in Fury! And I wondered, is it noir? And, if so, what kind of noir ...
