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October 27, 2017How My Version of the Canlit Community Sustains Me
Two months ago, one of my best friends was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. She is a mother. She is a prolific, brilliant writer. And she was my very first writer friend.We first met working ...
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October 31, 2017
The Writer in the World: Coda
When I became that book all those years ago, the effects of art in my life were not definable. I only knew that I enjoyed storytelling and later I would appreciate that my relationship to story has everything ...
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October 21, 2017
The Writer in the World: On Beauty and Poetry
A Conversation with an anonymous poet.For this part of The Writer in the World, I am honouring the request of a poet to keep their identity undisclosed. Canisia Lubrin: I've been asked whether the tension ...
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February 16, 2018On reading politically, or why the good old days are a flat out lie
It’s a funny time in the world of words. Every morning, when I log into Twitter, people are debating freedom of expression and the politics of how we read. Some of this is just nonsense, really just ...
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November 29, 2017So You Want to Write About Race
Somehow I have become on expert on writing race.This was not something I planned for. When I started publishing, I was writing fiction about Chinese Canadian characters, about families who had been invisible ...
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March 24, 2016Writing Tips (Tips Also Appreciated)
1. It’s now or never or you’ll have to wait for the sublime to hit you, which might take centuries, or seconds, so might as well start now.2. Write for no other place than heart—and not only out ...
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March 20, 2016Should I Write a Novel?
I can’t even count the times when folks have asked me what I'm writing about—or more precisely, what novel I'm writing. And when I indicate that I am putting together a poetry collection, suddenly ...
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March 19, 2016Accepting Rejection
“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” ― Ray BradburyI've been thinking a lot about the experience of being "rejected" and getting "accepted" and the strange similitude ...
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March 17, 2016A Note on the Imagination
To thrive off the imagination, even if it affords only a dull light at the end of the day, is worth it; or not to thrive, even, but to loosely depend upon, keep the fires of imagining alive, in order ...
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March 16, 2016Writing "Well"
Illness spoils any story that desires a certain romanticism of adventure or self-discovery, the solitary act of Manifest Destiny. Many of history's beloved novels have entertained (and sometimes genuinely ...