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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 ...
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November 25, 2019Call for Submissions: The Writers' Union of Canada 27th Annual Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers
Attention new and emerging short story writers!The Writers' Union of Canada is now inviting submissions for its annual Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers. Now in its 27th year, the Competition ...
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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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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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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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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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November 02, 2017
First up – domestic noir!
While domestic noir is a category that’s fairly new to the noir family, it’s a trending topic and the books are selling like hot cakes.Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Girl on the Train and Into the ...
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December 12, 2018Beyond the Possible: On World Building
Sometimes, I think about what would have happened to Frodo and Sam if, during their journey across the land to Mordor, Frodo had fallen down a jagged slope of rocks and broken his leg.Would Frodo, delirious ...
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June 18, 2019All Booked Up - Pivot Reading Series
The roots of Pivot Readings stretch back to 1998, when poet Paul Vermeersch started a fiction and poetry reading series in Toronto’s adorably dilapidated I.V. Lounge. When that venue closed in 2008, ...
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May 01, 2018
In Praise of … Routine
So my first column was all about generosity, and now I’m going to tell you about one of the least generous things I’ve ever thought in the presence of another human being. It happened maybe a dozen ...