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May 08, 2018"What's Your Story?" Read the Winning Texts of the 2018 OBPO Writing Contest Winners! Part One: Etobicoke
It's that time of year again: when the weather gets warm and we get to celebrate brand new Toronto stories. Start your spring off right with the What's Your Story? literary contest: We've got four never-before-seen, ...
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May 18, 2022"There’s What You See and What You Don’t" Read an Excerpt from Didier Leclair's Trillium-Winning Novel, Toronto, I Love You
In Toronto, I Love You by Didier Leclair (Mawenzi House, translated by Elaine Kennedy) Raymond Dossougbé thinks, at first, that he's found a sanctuary in Toronto.After fleeing corruption and violence ...
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November 13, 2017On Being an Ill Writer
Every day for a few years now, I’ve had to navigate my fatigue. Sometimes it’s only subtle, tugging at my consciousness as a toddler might. Sometimes it’s pervasive and insistent: clouding my thoughts, ...
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April 18, 2017The In Character Interview, with Leslie Shimotakahara
Leslie Shimotakahara's After the Bloom (Dundurn Press) has been praised as "personal and entrancing, unflinchingly shining a light on [a] difficult part of history" and "a sweeping page turner". The ...
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November 08, 2018
The Persistence Needed to Publish
In my first post I talked about finding the motivation to write. The second post was about having the patience needed to get through the writing process. If you managed all of that and are now thinking ...
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May 31, 2016Writing What’s Closest to Home
Last year, when I turned in the first draft of a memoir on rape trauma, my editor had a pretty reasonable observation. Despite divulging various details of violation, illness, and the path to getting ...
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June 27, 2017Jennifer Lanthier on the Magic of Reading for the First Time
Breaking up with a friend is never easy. But it's especially tough when there is an entire world on the line. Such is the dilemma young Oscar finds himself in as he pens a fiery goodbye to his best friend ...
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September 09, 2020"Your Past Inhabits Your Present" Emily Urquhart on Why Creativity Has No Age Limit
There's no age limit on creativity, and yet there's often an assumption that the most innovative and vital work comes from the young. Bestselling author and journalist Emily Urquhart doesn't buy that ...
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February 02, 2021Michael Grant on His (Naked) New Play & Creating a Fictional Small Town Across His Works
Norm and Ruth were just trying to get their marriage back on track. A simple idea: to head back to a place they knew they'd been happy and see if they can re-capture the spark there. But the struggling ...
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October 25, 2024Celebrated Novelist Robert McGill Turns to Short Fiction to Examine Our Complicated World
Long celebrated as a novelist and non-fiction author, Robert McGill has turned his keen literary eye to complex personal stories that explore loss, displacement, identity and events that affect characters ...
