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July 25, 2023
Read an Excerpt from Denise Da Costa's And the Walls Came Down, an Absorbing Portrait of East Toronto in the 90s
A diary can be a powerful portal. In Denise Da Costa's And The Walls Came Down (Dundurn Press), Delia Ellis returns to her childhood home in east Toronto, years after making her ways through the trials ...
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November 14, 2018
On Fairy Tales
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…[w]e look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition ...
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March 14, 2014
The Reading Rulebook
I used to go to a lot of public readings of poetry and fiction. Then I had kids, and rarely went, but recently, due to changing circumstances, I've been out to a few more, and what hasn't changed are ...
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November 27, 2015
On "Fiction" - Writing from Real Life
Over the past while I’ve noticed a number of situations where an author is asked about the autobiographical or non-fiction elements in their books. It has always been something that people are interested ...
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July 30, 2018
The Part of It You Don't See
If you’ve been reading my dispatches over the last month, you might have inferred that making a go of it as a writer is hard. Bending reality, memory, knowledge and experience into believable fiction, ...
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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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August 21, 2017
Interview with John Martz
Today we’re talking to author-illustrator, cartoonist and designer John Martz!John has written and illustrated several children’s books including Burt’s Way Home and A Cat Named Tim and Other Stories, ...
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August 22, 2021
"The Pull of Words Had Become Urgent" Read an Excerpt from Music, Late and Soon, Robyn Sarah's Memoir of Her Two Artistic Passions
An out-of-the-blue phone call changed the artistic landscape of Robyn Sarah's life. A decorated poet with 11 collections released over more than four decades, Sarah is an integral part of the poetry ...
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September 22, 2017
Award-winning author Méira Cook on Swimming in Shark-Infested Waters, Feeling Canadian, & More
A long and happy marriage is no easy feat, but Max and Maggie Binder are amongst the lucky few. Twenty years after they met, Max is still madly in love with his feisty wife, and wants to give her a 40th ...
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July 21, 2018
You Just Need to Write a Bestseller
If you’re a writer and you’re not rich and famous—so what I mean is, if you’re a writer—you’ve heard this one, often enough from someone who doesn’t write fiction or maybe even read it.Have ...