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November 18, 2024Writing Lessons from Joni Mitchell
I often look to books for inspiration, but I just got back from seeing Joni Mitchell play in L.A., and as I was sitting at the Hollywood Bowl, with the moon rising over the hills, I realized how much ...
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February 19, 2025Writing Lessons Learned From Zines
In my early twenties, my friend Teri Vlassopoulos introduced me to zines and it changed my life. If you’re not familiar with the term, ZineWiki defines a zine as “an independently- or self-published ...
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September 05, 2023Writing on the Clock
A common question from the published writer is: will I ever earn out my advance? Recently I wondered: what about my stolen time? If I only ever wrote when I was “supposed to” (in periods of grant ...
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March 18, 2014
Writing Sex
"And Panhuyzen really gives good sex.” ~National Post, August 1999 Sex! Did you hear that, sex! We’re talking about sex today. Oh, what’s that, you don’t want to talk about sex? Well, too bad, ...
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April 18, 2023Writing the same poem as everyone else, over and over
If you’re in Southern Ontario you might have spent last week soaking in the sun, switching from sweatpants to shorts, and strolling along a river, lake, stream, etc. I walked along my usual path around ...
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October 12, 2018Writing the Truth: the 2018 Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature
The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature are a unique set of book prizes; not only do they reward excellence in writing by Jewish authors, they also reward non-Jewish writers who cover Jewish themes ...
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September 30, 2015
Writing Through Life Change
I used to think that writing was an all-alone endeavor: I thought that all you need is a laptop and some time. I don’t know why I thought that. It’s not true, it turns out. I’ve had help. This help ...
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January 06, 2017Writing Through Pain
Carlyn Zwarenstein, in Opium Eater: The New Confessions, fuses memoir, reflective inquiry, cultural journalism, and literary investigation to look at opiates and what they have done for her. She is a ...
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March 05, 2021
Writing Time
When it comes to writing, I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of the basics—namely space and time. I find it easy to imagine myself into a character’s head—to project myself into a character’s ...
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March 24, 2016Writing Tips (Tips Also Appreciated)
1. It’s now or never or you’ll have to wait for the sublime to hit you, which might take centuries, or seconds, so might as well start now.2. Write for no other place than heart—and not only out ...
