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August 02, 2022
"The Best Part is Having Someone By Your Side" KidLit Dream Team Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault on Life as Co-Creators
The powerhouse team of writer Fanny Britt and illustrator Isabelle Arsenault, highly decorated for their work both together and individually, is the kind of thing literary dreams are made of. Their newest ...
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March 13, 2017
My final two columns: Part One
After nearly a decade, my time as a columnist for Open Book comes to a close. According to my email folder, it was May 2009 when Amy Logan Holmes first approached me with the idea of submitting pieces ...
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December 12, 2018
Beyond 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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October 24, 2013
Writing Fatherhood
What do we know about pregnancy1.I shall begin, by speaking. Incubate, introduce a glossary. Just on the tongue. Unpaginated.2.Something is growing, inside. Occupant. Connects whole milk to healthy industry. ...
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July 17, 2019
"We Need to Celebrate the Efforts of Our Students" Author & Educator Larry Swartz on Teaching Creative Writing
As an instructor at U of T's prestigious teaching education program, OISE, Larry Swartz knows a thing or two about inspiring students. He's also written several teaching guides and textbooks, which focus ...
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April 06, 2021
"I Feel the Most Fulfilled When I Write About Love" Patricia Storms on Her Uplifting New Picture Book & Writing for Kids
Every morning, Dutch is excited to hear the Gardener wake up. He knows that once she's done her mysterious morning things, he'll get to go outside with her. The Dog's Gardener (Groundwood Books, illustrated ...
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November 09, 2020
Saumiya Balasubramaniam's Beautiful New Picture Book is a Pathway to "Appreciate the Magic in the New"
In a sea of endless Canadian snow, Ma misses the colours and warmth of home — so far away now it's hard to explain to her little girl as they walk home from school. But her daughter's joy in the cold ...
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November 10, 2023
Excerpt: Joe Pete, the Final Book from Ian McCulloch, a Staple of the Northern Writing Community
The star of Ian McCulloch's final novel, Joe Pete (Latitude 46 Publishing) is Alison, an eleven-year-old girl better known as the titular Joe Pete. Devastated by the death of her father Sandy, a descendant ...
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November 14, 2018
On Fairy Tales
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…[w]e look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition ...
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February 26, 2019
When All Your Faves Are Problematic
Recently, at a dinner with several writer friends, I learned that a writer I’ve long admired has been known to behave rather smarmily around young women. This writer is now on the list of names that ...