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February 22, 2017The Same Aspirations Persist: An Interview with Cameron Anstee, editor of Apt. 9 Press
In 2016, three of the five chapbooks nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award came from the same press, Ottawa’s Apt. 9 Press. One of those Apt. 9 Press nominees, Nelson Ball’s Small Waterways, ultimately ...
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May 26, 2022
The Soul of Story: Authenticity
My first car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel hatchback, payment for which I had earned working 60 hours a week at two jobs all summer. It was a gutless four-speed manual with a top speed of eighty km/hour. But ...
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May 15, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part I
With the advent of the Kindle, the refrain among publishing analysts was that the book’s days were numbered; the e-book would change accessibility for stories as the printing press had all those centuries ...
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May 19, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part II
In Part I of this blog post, I looked at the importance of physical books in my life, how the books represent more than just the stories within them, that they also hold the stories of their acquisition, ...
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October 02, 2018The Story of My Face Author Leanne Baugh on Teenaged Self-Consciousness & Crafting Memorable Characters
Every teen feels awkward and self-conscious sometimes, but 17-year old Abby Hughes, the resilient young protagonist in Leanne Baugh's The Story of My Face (Second Story Press), has a serious reason ...
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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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October 23, 2019The Surgical Evolution of a Poem
Last spring one of my students confessed that she wasn’t sure what she was writing was real poetry because she didn’t know a lot about technique and form, and she was concerned that her poetic toolbox ...
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October 31, 2015
The Thing That Terrifies Me the Most About Writing
It came out of me the in a journal entry the other day, a fear I know has been swimming around inside for years now, but one that I never fully articulated, or maybe even fully acknowledged, until it ...
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November 27, 2016
The Toronto Heliconian Club: Literature Section readings
By Bianca Lakoseljac: OB Writer in Residence Since I was a child, reading has been an escape for me. A leap into the world of imagination. As a writer, when I guest as a reader or a presenter, it’s ...
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June 28, 2017The Toronto Public Library Shares Tips on How to Raise a Reader
While some kids are natural bookworms, others are more reluctant readers. Wherever your little ones fall in the spectrum, reading is one of the greatest gifts we can give to the young people in our lives. ...
