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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 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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May 21, 2018
In Praise of … Performing Your Work
A passion for public speaking, for public performance, has been with me even longer than the passion for writing. I trace it back to when I won a public speaking competition as an elementary school student ...
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September 19, 2016
The In Character Interview With Leon Rooke
Leon Rooke has been called "a national treasure" by the Globe and Mail with good reason — his contributions to CanLit over an astounding 50 years of work have been hugely influential. And he's not slowing ...
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December 12, 2017Susan Elmslie on the Poetic Power of Kindness and Vulnerability
The title of Susan Elmslie's Museum of Kindness (Brick Books) is instantly intriguing - especially when you know that part of the collection is inspired by the traumatic aftermath of the shooting that ...
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May 15, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part I
With the advent of the Kindle, the refrain among publishing analysts was that the book’s days were numbered; the e-book would change accessibility for stories as the printing press had all those centuries ...
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June 12, 2018Tara Atluri on Writing from "the Interstices of Belonging" in Bangalore's Kaval Bairasandra Neighbourhood
Tara Atluri's Uncommitted Crimes: The Defiance of the Artistic Imagi/nation (Inanna Publications) takes it title from a quote by Theodor Adorno, who said "every work is art is an uncommitted crime". ...
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April 29, 2022May Writer in Residence Mark David Smith on His Macbeth Inspired Witch-Detective Series for Kids
If you read Macbeth and thought (like us) "less political scheming and more of those fabulous witches, please", you're in luck because teacher and writer Mark David Smith's The Weird Sisters: A Note, ...
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May 12, 2022
Writing Within the Cracks
May is always a busy month for me. We have several May birthdays, summer to prepare for, and the usual sort of unexpected situations to deal with. Why, in this month alone, I have had to submit a first ...
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May 29, 2022
Weird is the New Normal
“People are strange,” Jim Morrison of The Doors famously sang, “when you’re a stranger.” He would know. This is the man who, despite his reputation for wild antics on stage, sang some of his ...
