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May 10, 2018
In Praise of … Celebrating Success
Ours is a household that celebrates everything. Each year my wife and I mark the following occasions: the anniversary of our first date (March 19 – she gets roses, and we go back to the restaurant where ...
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May 14, 2018
In Praise of … Rewriting. No, Actual Rewriting
Everybody says to do it. No matter where my writing life has taken me, the message, the orthodoxy, the shibboleth, has always been the same. Journalism profs have said it. Writing manuals spell it out ...
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May 07, 2018
In Praise of … Book Reviewing
I still remember where and when I got into the book-reviewing racket. It was the late 1990s in Halifax, about a year after I graduated with my journalism degree from the University of King’s College. ...
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May 17, 2018
In Praise of … Writing Manuals
Writing cannot be taught. It’s a phrase I hear a lot, and I totally get the sentiment. Writers sometimes want to believe that what they do on the page is pure magic, and some people have the gift and ...
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July 10, 2018
Did You Really Go Through All That?
I stole the title of this post from a scene late in the film Sideways, but I could’ve taken a similar line from nearly anywhere—for instance, the second of Orhan Pamuk’s Norton Lectures (collected ...
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September 25, 2018YOSS in 2018—and Beyond
It amazes and annoys me that short stories don’t get more respect.There is a certain face that too many literary agents and publishing people make when you mention short-story collections.<iframe ...
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October 21, 2020"It’s So Much Fuel to Write Forward" the Journey Prize Finalists on Story Origins, Joining the JP Ranks, & Writing Advice
Today is the day! At 2:00pm ET, the Writers' Trust of Canada will announce the winners of their emerging writers' prizes, including the Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. The prize ...
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April 19, 2021Play to your strengths: a short guide to arts admin for emerging artists
And we're back! As promised, these last two weeks of Careful Inventory are a bit lighter, more directly applicable in the pandemic—thanks for sticking with me so far! We’ve covered online safety, ...
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November 21, 2023Excerpt from Nights Too Short to Dance by the Late French Canadian Literary Icon Marie-Claire Blais
Marie-Claire Blais was known for her fiery writing, her passionate representation of the French Canadian experience, and her fearless literary voice. Over 70 years, she became an icon of Quebec, Canadian, ...
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January 23, 2018"What Keeps Me Going is the Element of Discovery": Debut Author Djamila Ibrahim on Building Unforgettable Characters
Djamila Ibrahim's Things are Good Now (House of Anansi) is the kind of debut that can't be ignored. A vibrant, gutsy, thoughtful short fiction collection, it was called "an insightful and imaginative ...