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June 02, 2022So I Nearly Died
So I almost died and in doing so discovered that dying has the strange effect of stealing my creativity and passion for art and writing, but not because they no longer move me, instead it was because ...
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August 20, 2019Writing Through Trauma Is Writing Through Forgetting
A few days ago, I finished writing a short story. A new short story. Because my fiction is drawn from my life, I journalled first, did a freewrite, and then outlined the first half of the story to nudge ...
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September 16, 2016Interview with Zoe Whittall: a Conversation About Writing, Characterization and Empathy with One of My Literary Heroes
Zoe Whittall is one of my literary heroes. I remember the day that I discovered her first book, the feeling of relief and excitement as I read each page. I was studying Creative Writing, and feeling depressed ...
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March 29, 2017
What I Wish Someone Had Told me About Being a Writer #8: Jen Sookfong Lee
Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in Vancouver’s East Side, where she now lives with her son. Her books include The Conjoined, a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, The Better Mother, a ...
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April 15, 2017
Kathryn Mockler on Poetry Exercises
Today in my series on poetry prompts and exercises, I'm featuring writer Kathryn Mockler. She teaches creative writing, poetry, and screenwriting at Western University, and runs private workshops through ...
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July 08, 2015
The Gift of Interacting with Readers
Many years ago I finished reading a book that resonated for me. The characters in it and their struggles felt real. I lived with them for a while, found pain in their sorrows, amusement in their foibles, ...
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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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July 06, 2015
“…Writing Was a Nasty Habit or Addiction That I Would Have to Support.”
This quote, which comes at 2:35 of the attached interview with Guy Vanderhaeghe, sums up a pragmatic approach to the early years of a writing life, years that for many of us can stretch for decades, or ...
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July 17, 2015
Storylines
“All kinds of storylines are playing out here.” Question: This quote is most likely to be heard from...(a) A TV journalist reporting on a political or legal case?(b) A football commentator?(c) A book ...
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October 19, 2014
On Writing, with Aisha Sasha John
Aisha Sasha John, our November 2014 writer-in-residence, has been called "a poet of centrifugal energy, of reverberant intimacy" (Michael Nardone).She's back this spring with her second book, the follow ...