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July 28, 2021Claudine Crangle's Fantastic, Wes Anderson-esque Artwork is a Perfect Backdrop to Her Story of How to Welcome Change
The more closely you look at the artwork Claudine Crangle creates for her children's books, the more amazed you will be. Her newest offering is The House Next Door (Groundwood Books), a gentle, witty ...
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February 10, 2023Co-writers & Couple of 38 Years Richard Adam and France Desmarais Help Kids Love & Explore Urban Spaces
How many times have you read a book set against a city backdrop and felt, by the end, that the city itself served as a character? A city can be a living and breathing thing – or as kids' books co-creators ...
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April 26, 2024Colleen Coco Collins Explores the Unique Pathway That Led to Their Debut Collection, Sorry About the Fire
The origin of a person's poetic nature can be elusive, but there are often moments that a poet might look back to that clearly signify this draw toward the spinning of words and ideas in carefully laid ...
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October 14, 2020Colleen Nelson on Bringing Playfulness to Picture Books, Her Favourite Canadian Kids' Books, & More
Whether you're a parent or just remembering your own school days, everyone can relate to the jangling nerves that come with starting a new school or new stage as a student. In Colleen Nelson's loveable ...
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July 06, 2023Colleen Nelson on Setting Her New Kids' Novel in One of New York's Most Unique Historical Properties
Umbrella House in New York City is a unique urban phenomenon. Abandoned in the late 70s, it was sealed up with cinderblocks and cement until several years later when a group of squatters moved in. Over ...
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September 02, 2020Combat Populism with an Excerpt from Jonathan Manthorpe's Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence
It's been hard to miss the rising tide of populism that has crept into democratic discourse in North American and Europe in the past decade. What to do about it and what it means are trickier challenges, ...
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June 15, 2017Combatting Oppression With Community
Two months ago, I attended Fuel for Fire, a professional development conference for writers of colour, organized by the Ontario Arts Council. The event provided a venue for discussions about writing and ...
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June 27, 2016Comic: What Did Ben McNally Do When He Wasn't Selling Books?
I must have met Ben McNally weeks after moving to Canada. The details are a little fuzzy on when that was. It might have been at Harbourfront for IFOA, or maybe at Nicholas Hoare, where he was selling ...
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September 27, 2018Coming to Voice
I worked on this piece while at a residency for BIPOC writers in the fall of 2017. I did not pick it up again when I returned. While workshopping it there, I was not convinced it captured what I was trying ...
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November 23, 2020
Comparing Myself with May from My Day With Gong Gong
Writing May, the main character in my kids book My Day With Gong Gong, was a joy! It was my first time writing from the perspective of a kid as an adult, and for kids as a main audience. A lot of her ...