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June 27, 2018
Mentors & Allies 5: David Chariandy
When I think about writers whose words have influenced me, those powerful words are usually nothing more than a short line, phrase or fragment that embeds itself in my mind. Writers who have lodged their ...
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June 21, 2017Meritocracy in a Pale World
Inevitably, I find myself having this conversation:“Why does there always have to be preference or segregation? We should all be judged together and that the best literature will naturally rise to the ...
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February 02, 2021Michael Grant on His (Naked) New Play & Creating a Fictional Small Town Across His Works
Norm and Ruth were just trying to get their marriage back on track. A simple idea: to head back to a place they knew they'd been happy and see if they can re-capture the spark there. But the struggling ...
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September 08, 2023Michael Healey on Exploring Toronto's Quashed "Smart City" Google Collaboration in His Hilarious New Play
The year was 2017 and Toronto was poised on the precipice of one of the biggest municipal partnerships in history – a project to create a "smart city", coordinated between Waterfront Toronto and Google's ...
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August 30, 2023Michael Melgaard Delves into the Dark Side of True Crime in His Debut Novel
In many true crime tales, the focus shifts to the intrepid reporter, detective, or armchair expert who is intent on solving a mystery. Or, even more problematically, the story centres—sometimes with ...
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November 16, 2023Michael V. Smith on the Unexpected Journey of His Spectacular Seventh Book, Queers Like Me
Michael V. Smith's seventh book, the poetry collection Queers Like Me (Book*hug Press) was a surprise to him – it wasn't a book he expected to or even set out to write, but it's a gift to readers: ...
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March 07, 2025Michaela Jeffery's The Extractionist is a Razor-Sharp, Neon-Noir Thriller
Calgary-based playwright Michaela Jeffery has been winning accolades and awards for her work for some time now, and has been exciting audiences with her stunning works that lean into themes of feminist ...
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November 20, 2018Mike Barnes on Choosing a Deceptively Simple Title for His Book of Letters to Caregivers
Sometimes deft simplicity is where we find the greatest impact when it comes to writing. That proves true in the title of Mike Barnes' Be With: Letters to a Caregiver (Biblioasis). The title Be With ...
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May 20, 2009
More About Knowing Where We’re Coming from
Funny. In the last post, talking about the need to preserve our cultural creations, I said that we have to know where we’re coming from or we won’t know where we’re going. Today, by accident, I ...
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September 27, 2016Most Anticipated Books of 2017, Part 1
Some of my favourite writers have new books coming out next year, and I’m so incredibly excited to read them. I had a chance this week to interview Rebecca Rosenblum, about her new novel, So Much Love, ...