Search
-
March 08, 2022"As He Watched, Envy Stirred in His Heart" Read an Excerpt from A Bend in the Breeze by Valerie Sherrard
After decades of prophecy, the residents of a remote island have finally found what has been foretold: the Long Awaited, who will tell them their fate 17 days after appearing, has arrived in a boat drifting ...
-
March 29, 2022The challenges (and joys) of receiving feedback
I am not proud of it, but my initial response to feedback on my writing is an instant NOPE. No way! ABSOLUTELY NOT. “What if you switched the point of view to third person?”NOPE. No way! ABSOLUTELY ...
-
March 07, 2022Shannon Webb-Campbell on How Kathleen Hanna, Sylvia Plath, & Elizabeth Bishop Became Her Early Guides to Poetry
It's no secret that the moon has captivated humans forever. Mythologies, deities, and legends abound through history, and the scientific study of the moon, and the race to reach it, was one of the defining ...
-
March 07, 2022Writing From Life
These Are Not the Words is a semi-autobiographical novel.That means there are real people in it who do imaginary things, and imaginary people who do real things. I am not Miranda Billie Taylor, but we ...
-
March 04, 2022Late Bloomers
I come from a family of late bloomers.Or at least, that’s the story I tell myself when I try to deal with the disappointment of not having been an outrageous success in my 20s and 30s, when I was precocious ...
-
March 03, 2022Jen Lynn Bailey's New Picture Book Celebrates Both Northern Nature & The Cumulative Story Form
A cumulative tale is a story, song, or folktale that uses repetition, rhythm, and often humour to build to a story's conclusion. You may not have heard the term, but you know the form–think "There Was ...
-
March 02, 2022Carl Watts on Why Poetry's So-Called Shortcomings Might Be Its Greatest Strengths
It's easy to imagine the scene: at a poetry reading (pre-pandemic), an open mic-er ascends to the stage, taps the microphone, and announces with aplomb, "I just wrote this five minutes ago." Cue the ...
-
March 01, 2022Bill Richardson on Sharing Writing Space with Irving Layton and Robertson Davies
"In this last week, there are seven days."In Bill Richardson Last Week (Groundwood Books, illustrated by Emilie Leduc), a child knows they've got a week to spend with their grandmother. But unlike ...
-
March 01, 2022Happy St. David's Day
Happy St. David’s Day!St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and every March 1st I make Welsh cakes. A Welsh cake is like a pancake –– you cook it on a griddle. It’s also like a scone –– ...
-
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 ...
