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September 10, 2020"Great Books Will Find a Way In" Jon-Erik Lappano on His New Picture Book & the Magic of Writing for Kids
Remember the collection you had as a kid? Maybe it was seashells or marbles, Barbies or bandanas, but nearly every kid went through a phase of excitedly collecting something - and every new acquisition ...
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February 23, 2018"True Stories are Always the Best Stories & They Can Be the Toughest to Write": The 2018 RBC Taylor Prize Finalists on Non-Fiction
On Monday, the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction will be presented to one of five shortlisted authors. This year's list is an eclectic one, making it tough to predict a winner in this strong crop ...
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November 07, 2022"I Had Never Heard His Voice, and Yet I Knew it Right Away" Read an Excerpt from Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the Sixties Scoop
For any parent, the idea of having a child removed from you without your consent is the stuff of nightmares. But for many Indigenous families, that nightmare became a reality in communities across Canada. ...
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August 30, 2022Carolyn Huizinga Mills on Spark Sentences, Creating Vibrant Settings, & Why a Writing Process Requires Chocolate
In Carolyn Huizinga Mills' new novel, Sins of the Daughter (Cormorant Books), Danah Calsely is doing just fine. She's working diligently towards her PhD and her life is calm. The fact that her mother ...
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July 27, 2022"This Incredible Period of Chaos and Change" Alexandra Mae Jones on Why She Loves Writing Young Adult Literature
In Alexandra Mae Jones' debut young adult novel, The Queen of Junk Island (Annick Press), 16-year old Dell is dealing with adult-sized challenges, both internal and external.In shock from the trauma ...
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February 20, 2022
Dorkus Malorkus Alert 2: The Search for More Nerdiness
Hey there, Open Book reader. Good to see you again. Can you believe February is over 70% done? (I can’t, and it’s keeping me up at night.) I know my previous post went pretty heavy on the nerd factor ...
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June 21, 2021Playwright Makambe K Simamba on Fearlessly Exploring "How Far Characters are Willing to Go in Order to Live Their Truths"
CW: discussion of anti-Black violenceIt's a gutting image: a seventeen-year old Black boy, a child in a hoodie, dead far too soon because of hateful and unchecked anti-Black racism. Makambe K Simamba's Our ...
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March 11, 2019Writing and illustrating children’s books: All the surprises
The process of writing, illustrating and publishing a children’s book can be filled with surprises—good and bad! For example, I’m always surprised by how much my heart explodes when a friend sends ...
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February 08, 2016Kid Lit Can, with Susan Hughes: Sex, and Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Writing Edgy YA (Part 1)
Drugs, gambling, sexual harassment, suicide, sexual abuse, physical abuse, cutting, death, sex, drugs, body image issues, bullying, STDs, abduction...between them, YA authors C.K. Kelly Martin, Don Aker ...
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June 27, 2018"How Do We Transform?" Susannah M. Smith on Her Unique, Imaginative Novel The Fairy Tale Museum
Susannah M. Smith's The Fairy Tale Museum (Invisible Publishing) is populated with a cyborg cyclops, fortune tellers and vampires, lovers with the heads of birds, and countless other characters who live ...
