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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 ...
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July 24, 2020The Power of a Great Title
We all know about the power of a good cover, but what about the power of a great title?I’ve worked in publishing for nearly fifteen years now and attended upwards of seventy-five tradeshows across ...
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May 01, 2009
Have a Great Time, Michael Rubenfeld!
Enjoy New York, Michael Rubenfeld! It’s a city that I’ve known from my youth, and that I love mightily. And take good care of Blog, who appears to know you well and to be very supportive. How are ...
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May 05, 2021Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
I have felt like an imposter. There have been times throughout my writing career when I’ve asked myself do I belong in this space? Do I deserve this opportunity? Am I skilled enough to call myself an ...
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October 08, 2016
Early Encounters with Poetry
A couple of interview questions recently posed to me got me thinking about my early encounters with poetry. For though my first book of poems has just been published a couple of decades after my first ...
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May 14, 2009
More Duppy Business?
Many years ago I read a book called HEALING THE FAMILY TREE by a psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth McAll. I won’t go into the theories he presents in the book (it’s still available, for anyone who’s interested) ...
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October 29, 2023Reading the Veil
When it’s going well, writing feels like magic. You sit in front of a blank page, and against all expectation, open a portal to new people, scenarios, settings, and ideas. Through some synthesis of ...
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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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October 29, 2016
L.M. Montgomery, Ontario, and Poetry
Today I gave a reading from How to Draw a Rhinoceros from the pulpit of the Historic Leaskdale Church, a somewhat unlikely location for my first public reading from this book. The occasion was LMM Day, ...
