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February 18, 2021Small gifts from writers: The power of writerly connections
On one especially sunny day when I was a young girl sitting at my kitchen table scribbling stories on the backs of old receipts my mother left on the table, I closed my eyes, looked into the future, and ...
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May 19, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part II
In Part I of this blog post, I looked at the importance of physical books in my life, how the books represent more than just the stories within them, that they also hold the stories of their acquisition, ...
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May 26, 2022
The Soul of Story: Authenticity
My first car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel hatchback, payment for which I had earned working 60 hours a week at two jobs all summer. It was a gutless four-speed manual with a top speed of eighty km/hour. But ...
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September 01, 2020When Your Father is Your Biggest Fan
I don’t believe that any father was more proud of having a son for a writer than my own dad. Whenever I met somebody who knew him—it might be a waiter in a restaurant—the person would say, “Oh, ...
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February 19, 2020Women, Politics, and Power: Read an Excerpt from Stephanie MacKendrick's Inspiring New Book 'In Good Hands'
Author, community leader, and former journalist Stephanie MacKendrick wants young women to get excited about politics. Her new book, In Good Hands: Remarkable Female Politicians From Around the World ...
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April 26, 2019Poet Ayaz Pirani on Oral Tradition, Literary Gatekeepers, and Writing Faithful Lines
Ayaz Pirani's work has been praised as "wise... surprising [and] sly" and his newest collection, Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets (Mawenzi House), builds on his characteristic insightful, elegant ...
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September 16, 2019
My Teenaged Reading Secret
When I was six my mom started to take me with her on her weekly visits to the public library. Mom was a fan of Dorothy L. Sayers; I was a fan of Raggedy Ann and Andy books. Around the age of thirteen ...
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July 31, 2019Why you should re-read books
I am a big reader, but I am an even bigger re-reader. Yes, I have a mountainous stack of to be read books, but I believe that it’s important to my writing practice—and to my basic existence—to dive ...
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September 26, 2019
Once I was a Maenad
When I was twenty-six a motley group of women and I took my first play to the Edmonton Fringe Festival. We called ourselves Maenad Theatre and we took two plays from Calgary to Edmonton, Tango Noir, a ...
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September 29, 2019
Bookstore Love
This is my final post as September Writer-in-Residence for Open Book. It’s been such a pleasure to spend the month thinking about my writing life and what I’d like to say about it. I’m grateful ...
