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December 04, 2017A New National Emblem Revisited
I was too hasty the other day. For nice, polite Canadians, the spider icon is just too darn ornery. In true Northern fashion, I apologize. We need something more civil yet found from coast to coast ...
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December 06, 2017The Striped Scrapper
When I was fifteen, Dad moved my sibs and I from the chilly West Coast to the hurricane belt—Grand Cayman Island. We spent six months living by the Caribbean Sea where Dad, bewigged and robed, practiced ...
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December 10, 2017The Moth
I do not nominate the moth, pallid creature of night, to be any sort of talisman or totem. Moths are vandals, eating your heirloom woolens. These Visigoths deserve summary execution. No last meal of tartan ...
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May 07, 2018Celebrating Sarah Selecky's Triumphant Return to CanLit
Sarah Selecky's first book, the stylish, wise, and subtly funny story collection This Cake is for the Party, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2010. Since then, Selecky has been busy founding ...
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September 03, 2019
On Beginning and Emerging
This is the first of my posts as September’s Writer-in-Residence for Open Book, and I’m thrilled to have been given this opportunity to share some of my thoughts on writing and the writing life. I ...
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December 19, 2019The Great Kingston Bake Off
December! The end of the year! The end of a doozy of a decade! Bring on the next few weeks of excess, acid reflux and the superhuman effort to not compare my own work and efforts to anyone else’s as ...
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April 23, 2025Danny Jacob's Debut Novel is a Genre-Bending Gothic Fairy Tale
Poet and essayist Danny Jacobs is featured on Open Book today, and this time for his exciting debut novel, The Ignis Psalter (Gordon Hill Press/The Porcupine's Quill). In a multigenerational tale about ...
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September 20, 2019
Humour and Coping
We’re living in a discombobulating era to put it mildly. Recently my son sent me a text that read, we didn’t eat the rich soon enough. My children regularly make flip comments about the end of the ...
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September 24, 2019
A Writer's Best Friend
I think I could be accurately described as an outgoing introvert. I can make small talk, and I even enjoy it, but I find it exhausting. Most of the time I’m happier just hanging out by myself or with ...
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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 ...