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February 11, 2021"I Like Inhabiting One Character": Philipp Schott on Telling Family Stories, Building Character, & "Invisible Scaffolding"
Philipp Schott's The Willow Wren (ECW Press) follows the complex and harrowing story of Ludwig, a child growing up in Hilter's Germany. Sent against his will to a Hitler Youth Camp, shy and gentle Ludwig ...
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December 23, 2020Indigenous Identity and the Responsibilities of Telling Stories
Writing the stories of your people is the ultimate honour. It is also a privilege, and carries immense responsibilities. This is especially true of Indigenous communities in Canada, who continue to recover ...
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August 17, 2022Read an Excerpt from Grace Vanderzande's Story of Life and Love as an Ontario Farmer
Grace Vanderzande didn't set out to be a farmer or a writer, but falling in love led her to become both. When she met her husband and he shared his dream of owning and farming land in eastern Ontario, ...
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November 08, 2017"What's Your Story?" 2017 Obpo Writing Contest Winners! Part Three: North York
For the third edition of the 2017 Ontario Book Publishers Organization's and North York Arts’ What's Your Story? writing contest, we are presenting brand new, original work in three genres, exclusively ...
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October 30, 2020Erin Ruddy on Setting a Dark & Mysterious Thriller in the Bliss of Cottage Country
Cottage country — just the phrase conjures up enviably peaceful images of long sunny days and warm nights, a quaint retreat. But in Erin Ruddy's Tell Me My Name (Dundurn Press), a rustic cottage ...
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October 01, 2024A Young Woman in Pre-WWII Northern Ontario is Torn Between Her Hometown, Her Family, and Her Desire for More in The Donoghue Girl
Great historical fiction is a pillar of the literary world, with so many characters and places made present again on the page with a bearing on the world we live in right at this moment. But, there are ...
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June 13, 2019"What Does a Family Do When it Becomes Lost to Itself?" Caitlin Galway on Exploring Loss in her Compelling, Gothic Debut Novel
The French Quarter of New Orleans has captured the literary imagination in a way few neighbours can claim to have done. Packed with history and just a whiff of the Gothic, it's an atmospheric wonder that ...
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May 14, 2019"Like a Marilynne Robinson Book in a Spangly Jumpsuit" Missy Marston on Her Fabulous New Daredevil Novel, Bad Ideas
Ottawa-based author Missy Marston's second novel Bad Ideas (ECW Presss), is all heart, packed with humour, vivid and memorable writing, and unforgettable characters. Not to mention it has a rocket ...
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July 13, 2018
Writing What You "Know"
I’m one of countless writers who found his way thanks to this old standby, and having just published a book of stories set in small Southwestern Ontario towns a lot like the ones where I grew up, it’s ...
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July 10, 2018
Did You Really Go Through All That?
I stole the title of this post from a scene late in the film Sideways, but I could’ve taken a similar line from nearly anywhere—for instance, the second of Orhan Pamuk’s Norton Lectures (collected ...
