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February 28, 2017The Lucky Seven, with Molly Peacock
Molly Peacock, a Torontonian by way of New York City, is an acclaimed poet and the series editor for The Best Canadian Poetry in English. Her newest collection, The Analyst (Biblioasis), begins with ...
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July 08, 2024The Magic of Letter Writing
Summer challenge: Write a letter to your favourite authorWhen I was in Grade 3, I loved Jean Little’s books. So I did what I always do: I wrote her a letter. I told her all of my favourite things about ...
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June 23, 2020
The Male Default in Children's Literature - What It Is and Why It Matters
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Bechdel Test for movies. A film that passes the Bechdel Test must have at least one scene in which two female characters are talking to each other – and not about a man. ...
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June 30, 2016The Many Colours of Kamal Al-Solaylee
Kamal Al-Solaylee wrote an amazing book called Brown. It's essential reading and its subtitle, What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone), says why you need to read it much more concisely ...
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May 25, 2021
The Many Faces of Writer's Block
Despite the fact that I don’t really believe in it, the words Writers’ Block always conjure up a dark, amorphous cloud in my mind. Which is ironic, because the part I don’t believe is that there’s ...
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November 12, 2022
The Marketing Salsa
You’ve finished a book. Congrats! Now, you’ve got a book deal, decided to self-publish or signed with a hybrid publisher (the ‘pay to play’ option, which provides some editorial and marketing ...
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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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July 15, 2020The Most Important Books in the World
If you pick up Octavia Butler’s 1998 novel Parable of the Talents for the first time right now, you’ll share a moment with everyone else who’s only read it recently. It happens early in the book. ...
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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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November 24, 2021The Munk School's Dan Breznitz Captures First Ever, $60,000 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy
We've got more literary prize news for you as this morning The Writers’ Trust of Canada today announced the winner for the inaugural Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.The brand new $60,000 literary ...
