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October 15, 2018
Early Influences
Writing has always been my creative outlet. As soon as I learned how to physically draw out words and sentences, I began to put down stories in pencil and crayon for fun. I had an active imagination, ...
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December 01, 2015Eighty Feet Without a Net - Conversations with John Irving
About a year ago I got an email that I had to read about twelve times over before it really settled in. That email was from Janet Turnbull Irving, the wife and agent of one of the most famous literary ...
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July 05, 2018Scarborough: A Setting
When I was growing up in Scarborough, I loved it and hated it. I don’t think it’s an uncommon feeling towards places where we grew up. But there are things about coming of age in a suburb as a racialized ...
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November 13, 2015On Navigating the Literary Landscape - Part 1
Over the past few years, in order to buy peanut butter and bread and pay rent, I’ve taken on a number of manuscript assessments for various readers. I was first put on to them by my friend Michelle ...
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September 29, 2016Interview With Martha Sharpe and Michelle Berry
Hi Open Book Readers,I’ve always had a fantasy about opening a bookstore. Aside from writing, it seems like the most perfect job in the world. Two amazing new bookstores have opened recently, Flying ...
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July 21, 2018
You Just Need to Write a Bestseller
If you’re a writer and you’re not rich and famous—so what I mean is, if you’re a writer—you’ve heard this one, often enough from someone who doesn’t write fiction or maybe even read it.Have ...
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July 03, 2019What We Owe To One Another
In the immediate few weeks and months after the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) takes place in Brampton each May, I’m always struck by a strange feeling, something that’s equal parts euphoria, ...
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January 22, 2021Claiming Space for Indigenous Languages in English Literature
English is the language of the colonizer. It came with the arrival of settlers to what many people call Turtle Island, or North America. It is a relatively new language to this land, and has only been ...
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March 03, 2014
Standing in the Light
Well hi. This is me standing nervously in the spotlight, governing my nerves. The light is blinding, I cannot see you out there, but in this bath of white energy I see dust motes floating, falling slowly, ...
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February 22, 2019Excerpt! Get Hooked on the Mystery in Ann Lambert's Dark Quebec Tale, The Birds That Stay
In the opening of Ann Lambert's The Birds that Stay (Second Story Press), Louis Lachance sneaks away while his wife is sleeping - not for an affair, but to take one more job as a handyman. Instead of ...
