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June 28, 2023The Benefits of Being an Imposter
Like most writers, I’ve had a lot of rent jobs. When I was lucky, I worked in my chosen fields of editing and education. When I wasn’t so lucky, I worked in an institutional kitchen, as an ad mail ...
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October 26, 2020You, Too, Can Be a Mediocre YouTube Star
A few fun facts about me: When I was about five-years-old, I starred as Dopey in a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at camp and killed it. Everyone was laughing. I also studied improv for ...
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April 01, 2020Keep It Short: Frances Boyle on Rewrites, Taking Chances, and the Authors That Inspired Her
A haunted mother is terrorized by spectral visions of twins. A young academic reminisces on the past, and a long-lost film, as she watches her apartment building burn. A carefree woman tears through Toronto ...
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March 11, 2019Writing and illustrating children’s books: All the surprises
The process of writing, illustrating and publishing a children’s book can be filled with surprises—good and bad! For example, I’m always surprised by how much my heart explodes when a friend sends ...
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October 26, 2016
Favourite Literary Podcasts
I spent much of the day preparing to record a podcast, the third episode of On the Line: Conversations About Poetry (http://www.therustytoque.com/on-the-line). It’s a podcast designed to operate like ...
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October 22, 2016
Beautiful Chapbooks
Chapbooks are versatile. They can take a multitude of forms and serve a multitude of functions. It’s generally a lengthy process for a regular book to make its way into print, but a chapbook can enter ...
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August 14, 2020Portrait of a Woman Flying
María was seven years old on her first day of work, the morning her father left her in Mexico City at a large house with tall ceilings and walls that were covered in tiles. Whenever she got homesick, ...
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June 28, 2021Necessary Residential School Reading
As more and more mass graves at former residential school sites are brought to light, many Canadians are finally realizing the extent of genocide in this country, while many Indigenous people are reliving ...
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April 02, 2014
Poetics of Place
I’ve been thinking about the poetics of place: Tim Lilburn’s Moosewood Sandhills; Don Domanski’s wilderness of a cosmos; Karen Solie’s truck stops and motels; Tim Bowling’s fishing boats. It’s ...
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April 24, 2014
Poetic
Tell a classroom of wannabe writers to try their hands at a poem and the stilted, strangely wrought language that ensues can be alarming. It’s like they’re being told to write in some World War II ...
