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June 14, 2021Character Development Tips from Dungeons & Dragons
Full disclosure: I don't play Dungeons & Dragons, much as I'd like to. However, I've read a few D&D-based novels and enjoy watching others play the game, so I was pleased to stumble upon a fun ...
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January 25, 2023CBC Announces a Panelist Line Up Studded with TV & Social Media Stars for Canada Reads 2023
It's one of the first signs for book lovers in Canada that spring is around the corner – CBC Books has announced its line up of celebrity panelists and the books they've chosen to defend in the upcoming ...
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March 14, 20236 Social Media Tips for Authors
I get it. You’ve written, rewritten, and edited your book, and now you have to go out and promote it? Isn’t that someone else’s job? Marketing and publicity teams have all sorts of connections and ...
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September 02, 2015On the Sensory Pleasures of Putting Pen to Paper
A few months ago, I lost a pen. A beautiful fountain pen with one of those squeezy ink chambers that you fill from an old-school inkpot. The pen had been a university graduation gift from my parents and ...
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June 16, 2014Got Any Good Lit Jokes?
Several years ago, I spoke at a gala dinner at a writers’ festival in Thunder Bay. Picture a hotel ballroom filled with about a hundred people seated at tables for ten. I had tried to inject some humourous ...
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July 12, 2016Service Industry Hell (Part 2): Sinatra's Wake and a Cup of Vomit
A lot of the inspiration for my new book, Congratulations On Everything, came from the things I saw while working in bars, restaurants, and hotels, and from the experiences of friends who did the same. ...
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August 23, 2016The Lucky Seven Interview, with Amanda West Lewis
In The Pact (Red Deer Press), Amanda West Lewis tackles difficult historical subject matter in the context of a compelling story about a young boy.Peter Gruber is a War Child — a German child pulled ...
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September 04, 2014Resurrecting past Seasons
A note written for a Pedlar Press panel held last fall in St. John’s, NFLD, and in tardy response to a query from Robert Kroetsch:I have a crush on Robert Kroetsch. I’ve had this crush for a very ...
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October 11, 2021PECULIAR TIMES
Write at the edges of the day.― Toni MorrisonI was a thirty-four old woman with three children under the age of eight when I got the bright idea to write my first novel. I was also working outside the ...
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July 14, 2016How to Respond to a Bad Review
Recently, the creator and star of a one-man show playing as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival posted a long response to the online review of his work – a review that was definitely unenthusiastic, ...
