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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, ...
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April 03, 2025How to Avoid Blank Page Syndrome: The Jar Method
When I’m editing, there are specific problems to tackle, and I find I have a clear to-do list. Even if there’s a lot to do, I have a road map, but at the beginning of a project, I get so easily daunted ...
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September 06, 2017Contest! Win a Huge Fiction Prize Pack from The Word on the Street PLUS Author Cruise Tickets!
Who wouldn't love the chance to fill their bookshelf with tons of amazing fiction?We're kicking off a month-long series of contests with The Word on the Street with a HUGE and varied fiction prize pack. ...
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August 31, 2017
Characters. Emotions. Relationships. Action.
In junior high, my grade seven English teacher taught us about conflict in narrative: man against man; man against nature; man against self; and man against society. To be honest, I never really found ...
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May 11, 2016On Doubt
It'll be your constant companion. You won't know a day without it. It will defy cold logic and your efforts to cultivate confidence. It will be haughtily contemptuous of your desire to focus on positives, ...
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June 27, 2016“These Two Things Are One,” an Interview With Kilby Smith-McGregor
Kilby Smith-McGregor’s debut poetry collection, Kids in Triage, explores the in-betweens that exist just out of sight. Psychology/biology, art/philosophy, literature/legend all expose their connective ...
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April 09, 2014
Madness
Catching up on the frippery of “Downton Abbey,” I enjoyed Maggie Smith’s trenchant Dowager Countess of Grantham listening to her son wax a mite lyrically about land and history and then exclaiming ...
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January 02, 2017Happy New Year Everybody!
Hello wayfarers of the Word!Thanks so much to the OpenBook team for having me as the writer-in-residence for this month. I'm looking forward to it!I've taken the prompt to get creative with my blogs during ...
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December 05, 201617 for 2017: Vivek Shraya recommends The Mothers
3. The Mothers by Brit Bennett recommended by Vivek Shraya.Throughout my tenure as the December Writer-In-Residence, I will be assembling a list of 17 must-read-books for 2017. To accomplish this numerically ...
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September 12, 2018Notes on My Futile Attempts to Evade the Creeping Tendrils of Inescapable Progress
The other day, my six-year-old daughter told me that I’m on my phone too much.This was right after I’d grinned at a parking attendant and told him how thrilled I was to see a person at the gate instead ...