Search
-
January 05, 2024An Ode to Writing Research
I have realized that second only to holding a bound book in my hands, my favourite part of writing a book is the research. I love choosing worlds that I don’t know much about—rare books libraries, ...
-
October 23, 2019
An Open Letter To Vickery Bowles
To Vickery Bowles, the chief Librarian at Toronto Public LibraryMy name is Hasan Namir. I moved to Canada in 1998 and during the first week that I arrived here, my parents took me to the Coquitlam Public ...
-
September 06, 2018Anatomy of a Short Story, or Where I Get (Some of) My Ideas
I’m not one of those writers who makes everything up completely from scratch. And seriously, do those writers even exist? (If they do, I am jealous of them.)In my fiction, almost everything comes from ...
-
November 29, 2017
And finally, nouveau noir...
My exploration of noir is coming to an end, with this last post. Thank you very much, Open Book Toronto, for having me as WIR, and a big thanks to all the writers who gave so generously of their time ...
-
November 28, 2017
And now it's time for comedic noir!
Lisa: Tonight, in the penultimate post as my lovely stint as WIR here at Open Book, we are chatting with fellow Inanna author, Sky Curtis. Thank you very much for joining us, Sky! I am categorizing Sky's ...
-
June 03, 2015And Then They Were upon Her...
If you’ve never heard of Shirley Jackson or read her sensational short story "The Lottery," you should stop doing whatever you’re doing and read it at once.When “The Lottery” was published on ...
-
March 30, 2017André Alexis adds CBC Canada Reads Win to the Accolades for Fifteen Dogs
Canada Reads has wrapped for another year, with a tense final day coming to a close this morning at the CBC studios in Toronto. In a 4-1 vote, André Alexis' novel Fifteen Dogs (Coach House Books) ...
-
December 09, 2019André Alexis, Megan Gail Coles, Stéphane Larue Included in CBC Books' Best Canadian Fiction of 2019
December is a time for many things: eating and drinking too much, catching up with family and friends, and of course...year-end lists!Among all the 'best of' rundowns that pop up online at the end of ...
-
June 14, 2024Andrew Battershill is Ready for Round Two in His New Pugilist-Mystery Novel, Pet, Pet, Slap
Back for Round 2 in novel form, boxer ‘Pillow Fist’ Pete Wilson returns to the page for a big comeback fight in Pet, Pet, Slap (Coach House Books). But has he lost his edge? Will he find the motivation ...
-
May 29, 2019Andrew Forbes on Titles Shaping Stories, Finding Ideas in Government Jargon, & His Musical Inspirations
Andrew Forbes' Lands and Forests (Invisible Publishing) is a gift to short fiction lovers - a spare, smart, thoughtful collection that feels like a gritty Alice Munro descendant peeling back the ordinary ...
