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December 22, 2021Wrap Up 2021 with an Excerpt from Tim Bowling's Meditative Book of Essays, The Call of the Red-Winged Blackbird
For our final post of 2021, we're sharing an excerpt from a truly special book. Tim Bowling, the award winning author of more than twenty books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, draws on sixty years ...
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March 08, 2018
Write well, write better, write often.
In my introductory Q&A I gave an abbreviated account of how I write, and in particular how I wrote my first novel. I always find other writers’ processes interesting, so I thought I’d talk about ...
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March 28, 2019Writer at Work: “Identity is a pain in the arse” (On Zadie Smith)
Last month, Zadie Smith said: "identity is a pain in the arse." She said this at a festival in the context of a discussion about identity politics and her (white) partner, Nick Laird. Here's a snippet ...
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March 21, 2019Writer at Work: A Book Is A Community
Yesterday, my first book of poems, Port of Being, was shortlisted for the 2019 BC and Yukon Book Prizes (BCBP), for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. I expected to feel happy but I feel disbelief. The ...
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March 31, 2019Writer at Work: Criticism is Care
When I began the “Writer at Work” series for Open Book, I wanted to explore what it means for me, a poet and a writer, to be at “work.” As a woman of colour and an emerging writer, I have many ...
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March 05, 2019Writer at Work: Reading Tarot for Story
You do not have to believe there is a divine order to read the Tarot. You do not have to believe that your future can be read to read the Tarot. You do not have to be spiritual to read the Tarot. You ...
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March 24, 2019Writer at Work: Speaking with the Dead
A couple of weeks ago, I had the honour of speaking on panels at Room Magazine’s Growing Room Festival. During a Q&A session with the audience after the intersectionality, diaspora, and Asian-Canadian ...
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March 30, 2019Writer at Work: The Steadfastness of Beauty
Last fall, a few days after my book, Port of Being, was sent to the printer, I met with Juliane Okot Bitek, whom I had asked for a blurb. During that rainy day at a pub, Juliane and I shared our parallel ...
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April 26, 2012Writers and Retreats: Pros and Cons
Banff, Yaddo, Sage Hill, Mom's basement... there are endless options for writing retreats all over the world, from the fabulous to the humble, and from the sanctioned to the DIY.Some writers swear by ...
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May 05, 2020Writers As Readers: May 2020 Writer-in-Residence Derek Mascarenhas on His Favourite Books
Told through seventeen linked short stories, Toronto author Derek Mascarenhas' debut Coconut Dreams (Book*hug) traces the lives of a South Asian family through a series of shifting voices and timelines, ...
