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August 26, 2021The Writing Moment with SHORT FILMS
As writers, we draw inspiration and learn from other arts, whether painting, music, comics, or videogames. By offering inspiration beyond the written word, these arts can provide new experiences for us ...
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November 07, 2019Book Therapy: Jessica Westhead’s Worry
"Her brain and her body were still so wobbly then. Nothing about her was behaving the way it was supposed to. The birth had been a traumatic one, and she thought she would never heal.” - Jessica Westhead, ...
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October 20, 2015How Tarot Can Help You with Your Writing
I was 13 the first time I tried to see the future in a playing card.I’d been at the grocery store with my parents, and in the checkout line was a small rack of books. I was immediately drawn to one ...
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October 18, 2015
The Importance of Creative Rituals
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”- Chuck CloseFor years now I’ve used a very simple way to mark the moment when it’s time to write: I light a stick of ...
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March 13, 2021
Permission to dream
When I started writing, I didn’t understand the invisible work. The models of labour I was most familiar with—whether in a coffee shop, at a hotel, in a firehall, or at a construction site—were, ...
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March 16, 2021
A love letter (to libraries)
(—and other public places I once wrote to escape violence.)My life is very different from what it was when I began writing. While working on my latest novel, Girl Minus X, I often wrote in public ...
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May 24, 2016Bobcaygeon
This is a damned weird country. Culturally and geographically, it has some peculiarities which rest not off to the side but squarely in the middle of our shared national consciousness. There is a rib ...
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July 27, 2020The Erotic and the Prophetic: A Lesson Across Centuries
I’m loathe to admit that I only became intimately familiar with the works of celebrated Black feminist theorist and poet Audre Lorde a little over a year ago, when my partner gave me a copy of Sister ...
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April 16, 2020Poets in Profile: Conyer Clayton on John Berryman, Seeing the Big Picture, and Finding Acceptance
Originally from Kentucky, poet, multi-disciplinary artist, and gymnastics coach Conyer Clayton is a freshly-minted Canadian citizen who now calls Ottawa home. Her debut full-length collection, We Shed ...
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March 08, 2017The Lucky Seven, with Barbara Sibbald
Barbara Sibbald's The Museum of Possibilities (Porcupine's Quill) was a long time coming, and it was worth the wait. After a career in novels, Sibbald returned to her first love, short fiction, and ...
