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October 21, 2015Festival like a Pro at Toronto’s Great Big Literary Party
It’s October, the month when pumpkin fills our bellies, ghouls parade our streets and writers from around the globe flock like moths to the literary-festival flame. In Toronto (and many Ontario locations ...
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May 23, 2017The In Character interview, with Terri Favro
Debbie Reynolds Biondi, the protagonist of Terri Favro's Sputnik's Children (ECW Press), is the author of a beloved comic series. But lately, with her fanbase and her own inspiration waning, things ...
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June 09, 2021It Takes As Long As It Takes
Like many writers, I'd been writing for many years before I decided to pursue it professionally. It might sound like a cliché, but I've been creating stories for as long as I can remember. So when I ...
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February 20, 2022
Dorkus Malorkus Alert 2: The Search for More Nerdiness
Hey there, Open Book reader. Good to see you again. Can you believe February is over 70% done? (I can’t, and it’s keeping me up at night.) I know my previous post went pretty heavy on the nerd factor ...
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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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October 20, 2016The In Character Interview, with Nora Gold
If you've ever known someone who couldn't get over that one old flame, you'll recognize the obsessive protagonist of Nora Gold's The Dead Man. Eve is still fixated on her brief relationship with music ...
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June 02, 2021Anne Laurel Carter's Moving Picture Book What the Kite Saw was Inspired by Children She Met in the West Bank
In the darkest moments, sometimes it is the smallest and simplest things that bring comfort. When a young boy in Anne Laurel Carter's moving picture book What the Kite Saw (Groundwood Books, illustrations ...
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June 16, 2014Got Any Good Lit Jokes?
Several years ago, I spoke at a gala dinner at a writers’ festival in Thunder Bay. Picture a hotel ballroom filled with about a hundred people seated at tables for ten. I had tried to inject some humourous ...
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September 29, 2019
Bookstore Love
This is my final post as September Writer-in-Residence for Open Book. It’s been such a pleasure to spend the month thinking about my writing life and what I’d like to say about it. I’m grateful ...
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July 30, 2016The Problem with First Books
In an interview with New York magazine’s Vulture blog, comic book creator Brian K. Vaughan makes clear his feelings about his early work:Do you go back and read many of your older books?Oh, God, no. ...
