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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 ...
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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 ...
