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October 18, 2019Novelist Brenda Brooks on Smoking Like Woolf, Setting Fire to Her Publisher's House, & the Inevitability of Mom Wisdom
In Brenda Brooks' new novel Honey (ECW Press), it's been six long years since the titular Honey disappeared from Nicole's life. When her vanished best friend returns unexpectedly, Nicole is forced to ...
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September 29, 2016Interview With Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya is one of the most inspiring writers I’ve ever met. I was lucky enough to share the stage with her last year. She read from her beautiful novel, She of the Mountains, and I was moved by ...
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September 28, 2016Interview With Owain Nicholson
Owain Nicholson is a poet whose debut collection, Digsite will be published by Nightwood Editions next month. We had a chance to talk about his writing process, inspirations and literary influences.DB: ...
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April 17, 2018Laurel Croza on Tasty Book Snacks, Finding the Romance, & the Book She Holds as a "Model of What a Kid’s Book Can Be"
Laurel Croza has become a beloved name in picture books through I Know Here (illustrated by Matt James), which won the prestigious Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award (amongst many other honours), and ...
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October 30, 2019Prize Season
Earlier this summer, I had the chance to do some writing at the Banff Centre. It was a wonderful experience. I wrote, I slept, I went for long walks through the mountains. I ate too many pieces of cake ...
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February 04, 2020"I Would Watch Icebergs Calf and Moan, Float by as If Apparitions" Read an Excerpt from Laisha Rosnau's Little Fortress
Based upon real events, award-winning author Laisha Rosnau's newest novel Little Fortress (Wolsak & Wynn) follows the journey of the Caetanis, an aristocratic Italian family who fled the rise of fascism ...
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November 14, 2018On 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, 2015On "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, ...