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September 12, 2023The Infinite Library
A few years ago I led a writing workshop and introduced a prompt I called “The Infinite Library.” I had students imagine they had entered a library containing every possible unwritten novel, and could ...
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February 05, 2020"There Is Some Witting and Unwitting Mythologizing Involved" Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker Get Experimental in Their New Travel Memoir
When authors Christine Brubaker and Erin Brubacher departed on a 700km walking journey from Ontario to Pennsylvania, they weren't sure what they were going to find. Intending to trace the migration path ...
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December 01, 2022Read an Excerpt from Patterson House, Jane Cawthorne's Captivating Novel of Early 20th Century Toronto
Jane Cawthorne's Patterson House (Inanna Publications) takes readers back to a Toronto of the early 20th century, a place of rapid change and brutal inequality still reeling from the effects of the First ...
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September 05, 2017Writers and Money
I’ve been a professional writer for about eight years now, that is, writing has been my full-time occupation. That wasn’t always the case of course, and I’ve tried to be forthright with people about ...
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March 02, 2020Acknowledging Fear in Writing
“Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” – Toni Morrison Fear.Fear of the first draft, fear of spiders, fear of ...
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November 19, 2014With Evan: The Great Unpacking (Part II)
With Evan Munday: The Great Unpacking (Part II)In the second part of my chat with Evan Munday, we consider the politics of niceness The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held ...
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September 18, 2020How writing rituals saved me from quitting as a writer
I define my writing ritual as a series of unique actions taken that tells my brain it’s writing and creation time. This is part preparation, part boundary-setting, part protective aura. I know that ...
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September 05, 2023Writing on the Clock
A common question from the published writer is: will I ever earn out my advance? Recently I wondered: what about my stolen time? If I only ever wrote when I was “supposed to” (in periods of grant ...
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September 23, 2023The Strangest Places I've Sold Books
As a niche (I use the word niche here as a stand-in for what others have described as feminist or bad) Canadian novelist, I try not to have high (or any) expectations for the success of my books. Sales ...
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February 19, 2025Writing Lessons Learned From Zines
In my early twenties, my friend Teri Vlassopoulos introduced me to zines and it changed my life. If you’re not familiar with the term, ZineWiki defines a zine as “an independently- or self-published ...
