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March 02, 2022Carl Watts on Why Poetry's So-Called Shortcomings Might Be Its Greatest Strengths
It's easy to imagine the scene: at a poetry reading (pre-pandemic), an open mic-er ascends to the stage, taps the microphone, and announces with aplomb, "I just wrote this five minutes ago." Cue the ...
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May 12, 2023
Class, History, Fiction, and Form Part 5: The Speak o the Mearns
My parents are renters, so we moved houses a lot growing up. How can you expect continuity under those conditions, the steady passage of an uncomplicatedly teleological time? We can’t point to the place ...
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December 03, 2020Travel Back to Toronto in 1949 with an Excerpt from Caro Soles' Dancing with Chairs in the Music House
In Caro Soles's Dancing with Chairs in the Music House (Inanna Publications), a family's life in late 1940s Toronto takes a tragic turn. Ten-year-old Vanessa lives in a rooming house on Jarvis Street ...
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February 23, 2021Excerpt: Don't Miss this Powerful Glimpse into the Lives of Country Vets in Gillian Wigmore's Night Watch: The Vet Suite
In Nightwatch: The Vet Suite (Invisible Publishing), acclaimed poet and novelist Gillian Wigmore takes readers into the unique lives of rural veterinarians. Wigmore comes by the incredibly in-depth ...
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May 18, 2023D.M. Bradford on Translating Nicholas Dawson's Stunning Poetry Collection, House Within a House
Nicholas Dawson's Désormais, ma demeure (Triptyque, 2020) was received as a powerful and authentic exploration of depression when it was published, and it became one of the most decorated French-language ...
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October 01, 2018
Binaakwe Giizis - Moon of Falling Leaves
Happy October! In Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language), October is commonly known in many places as "Binaakwe Giizis", or the Moon of Falling Leaves. Anishinaabemowin is a very poetic and descriptive ...
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October 05, 2020Between the pages
“When I'm really into a novel, I'm seeing the world differently during that time — not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I'm actually walking around in a haze, spellbound by the ...
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March 28, 2023Painting a Story: Danila Botha on Writing and Painting
Since I was a kid, I’ve always painted. I’ve painted through every age of my life, through every possible emotion. I’ve painted when I was ecstatic and needed to share the feeling, I’ve painted ...
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October 28, 2020In good company
So, you finished your novel and sent it off anticipating it’s publication. Bravo! If you get a “No thanks, this isn’t for us” note, then consider yourself in good company. Many an author’s ...
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October 18, 2018
My friend Richard
In my last post I talked about some of the influential writers and books that inspired me to seriously pursue my own creative writing. My list is much longer than that, and there are many more storytellers ...