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February 07, 2020
Blogpost #2: My Top 5 Picture Book Trends (that are Here to Stay)
Five years ago, I became an author. My first two books, Music and Media, were published as part of the Sankofa: Black Heritage Collection series by Rubicon Publishing (2015). I was ecstatic ...
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February 02, 2022
Hajimemashite
Hello, Open Book reader. Welcome to my first post! I had big, overachieving plans to create a perfect post, then realized how weird it will sound without any context about myself and who I am as a writer. ...
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June 10, 2021
GG Winning Poet Arleen Paré's New Collection Examines the Impact and Legacy of Early Friendships
Arleen Paré's First (Brick Books) appropriately takes us back to the beginning: both the beginning of identity and connection in the search for a friend from long ago (the first one she ever made), and ...
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February 14, 2022
Valentine's Day! (and one or two other things I don't really like)
Hello, Open Book reader. Glad to have you back. So…remember that promise I made early on to curb the sass mouth? Well, apologies in advance because I’m breaking that promise today. Originally, I wasn’t ...
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February 28, 2022
七転び八起き ("Fall down seven, get up eight")
Hey there, Open Book reader! Let me start off by saying how honoured I am that you stopped by at any or all points in time this month. It’s been a blast delving into all my weirdness, and I’m so grateful ...
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May 25, 2021
"I Felt Like I Had Found a Place" Poet Vanessa Shields on the High Highs and Low Lows of a Life Spent Writing & Publishing
Every family story contains at least one unforgettable character. A person who inspires those who come after with his or her strength, struggles, and legacy. For poet Vanessa Shields, it was her grandmother, ...
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August 16, 2022
"What it Means to Be a Palestinian in Diaspora" Saeed Teebi on His Vivid & Wise Short Fiction Debut
Writer and lawyer Saeed Teebi's short story, "Her First Palestinian", an evocative, uncomfortable, brilliant gem of a character study, was shortlisted for the prestigious CBC Short Story Prize in 2021. ...
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November 09, 2020
Screenwriting Lessons
Sometimes I forget that I majored in screenwriting during my undergrad, even though it ended up playing a key part in what and how I write now. I had chosen this major because I wasn’t sure what to ...
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January 25, 2017
A Passage to Academia
I cannot separate Anupama Mohan from the context of school. I met her in university while she was completing her PhD. A fan of film, Shakespeare, and critical theory, she impressed our professors, took ...
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March 12, 2021
Zoom Class: Omar El Akkad and the Challenges of Writing Resistance
Sometimes there are Zoom meetings that can break you. Last week it took me five days to recover from the nausea, headaches, and light sensitivity caused by one single day of back-to-back virtual meetings. ...