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October 23, 2019The Surgical Evolution of a Poem
Last spring one of my students confessed that she wasn’t sure what she was writing was real poetry because she didn’t know a lot about technique and form, and she was concerned that her poetic toolbox ...
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April 16, 2020KiPoWriMo
Remember February? It was a whole lifetime ago in this pandemic moment. In retrospect, it seems innocent to have hated on winter so hard, to have been holding out for March and the advent of spring when ...
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December 01, 2015Eighty Feet Without a Net - Conversations with John Irving
About a year ago I got an email that I had to read about twelve times over before it really settled in. That email was from Janet Turnbull Irving, the wife and agent of one of the most famous literary ...
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August 17, 2018Form as Home
Every time I sit down to write, I find myself exasperated by the considerations. The considerations of who will be reading it, how it’ll be interpreted, if it’ll hurt someone within or outside my ...
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December 17, 2024Acclaimed Artist David Gagnon Walker Guides the Audience Through Fear and Anxiety in an Immersive, Interactive Stage Play
It has been said that, if David Gagnon Walker's name appears on a theatre playbill, the audience should prepare themselves for the unexpected. The playwright has created some of the most interesting ...
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April 10, 2021Raise your shields: performance boundaries for poets
Thanks so much to everyone who reached out to say that Thursday’s post resonated with you. Today we’re building on our poet boundaries by extending them from the Internet to the stage—before, during, ...
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November 03, 2016The Art of Giving Feedback
In 2009, after I had finished an early draft of my first book, God Loves Hair, I gave some of my closest friends a copy of the manuscript for their feedback. It was a vulnerable experience, especially ...
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May 30, 2024Allyson McOuat's Essays Conjure Haunts and Ward Them Off in The Call is Coming From Inside the House
Allyson McOuat turned heads back in 2020 when her fabulous essay, The Ghost Was the Least of Our Problems, was published in The New York Times. With a signature mix of intimacy, humour, and haunting ...
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April 16, 2021No one is coming & it's not your fault: on money
As promised, folks, today we're moving on from my previous three posts on boundaries and talking about money. I'm going to share a few horror stories with you, strongly advise you to not quit your day ...
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December 05, 2019The Unselfish Act of Being Alone
I want to talk about the power and necessity of being alone.It’s 4:30 am and I should be asleep, but jet lag is real. And I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be thinking about exhaustion ...
