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September 24, 2020Literary Ancestors
It’s said that every person has two families. There’s the one that you are born into and the one that you choose for yourself—your friends. But writers have a third family, the literary ancestors ...
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February 12, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 4 of 9
The creation of tension and suspense and mood shifts to me are just as important as creating characters and the plot themselves. Tension and suspense is what makes the story come alive. For the short ...
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September 10, 2020A Wolf at the Dog Show
If you’re reading this article you are no doubt familiar with the names of major publishers and their imprints—Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Knopf, Mcclelland and Stewart, etc. You might ...
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June 28, 2023The Benefits of Being an Imposter
Like most writers, I’ve had a lot of rent jobs. When I was lucky, I worked in my chosen fields of editing and education. When I wasn’t so lucky, I worked in an institutional kitchen, as an ad mail ...
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April 07, 2020Poets in Profile: Irfan Ali on Vulnerability, Strong Endings, and His New Collection
12th century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi created an iconic, seemingly indestructible work when he birthed the tale of Layla and Manjun. Over the years, the re-telling of the classic story has become ...
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October 27, 2021The 2021 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Finalists Each Share Their Favourite Part of the Writing Process
It's book prize season in Canada and for fiction lovers, one of the most exciting prizes has just gotten a fresh reboot. The Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize has gotten a new lease on its venerable ...
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February 01, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 1 of 9
When I was first approached by Open Book about doing the author residency for the month of February, my first thought was that I would do a serialized short story and write a piece of fiction in the same ...
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August 11, 2020The lost art of rereading
There was a trail I used to walk when I was broken, decades ago, after I'd scooped my heart from my chest and passed it to a man, who'd winced, shrugged, and said, ummmm, no thanks.We’ve all been there.It ...
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January 17, 2018Jaime Lee Mann's Writing Nook: "Writing is More About Mental Space than Physical Space"
The Legend of Rhyme series by Jaime Lee Mann Blood and Stars (Blue Moon Publishing) is exactly the kind of children's fantasy series we all longed for as kids. Packed with fairies, witches, ogres, and ...
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December 11, 2018December Spotlight on Excerpts: Read About the Maple Leaf from Symbols of Canada
Symbols of Canada, edited by Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney and Donald Wright (Between the Lines Books), delves into the titular symbols, whether they're as storied as Indigenous carvings or as ...
