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May 27, 2022
Reminders on the Path - Sheniz Janmohamed in Conversation with Natasha Ramoutar
When my first poetry collection Bittersweet was released in 2020, my mentor Sheniz Janmohamed published our conversation about full circles and first books with Open Book.Sheniz has been so instrumental ...
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May 27, 2022
Nonfiction "Explores Things Much Larger than the Individual Self" Michael Trussler on His Memoir of a Neuro-Atypical Life
From modern parenting to living with anxiety and more, photographer and award winning author Michael Trussler's memoir-in-essays The Sunday Book (Palimpsest Press) is a relatable, poignant, and moving ...
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May 25, 2022
"My Life Happened and Then the Stories Followed" Dayle Furlong on Writing Her Gritty, Gripping New Story Collection
The yearning hope and baffled rage of those characters who haven't been lucky in life is a palpable presence in Dayle Furlong's gritty new linked story collection, Lake Effect (Cormorant Books). With ...
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May 24, 2022
"You Will Start Writing Again When You're Ready" Dan K. Woo Shares His Inspiring Writing Journey
If Amazon has changed modern life in the West, Taobao, China's massive online marketplace (which is owned by e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group), may have changed the Chinese experience even more. So ...
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May 26, 2022
The Soul of Story: Authenticity
My first car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel hatchback, payment for which I had earned working 60 hours a week at two jobs all summer. It was a gutless four-speed manual with a top speed of eighty km/hour. But ...
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May 22, 2022
The Reasons I Write
I can think of many reasons why I should not write. The pay is terrible. The hours, though flexible, are insufferably long (i.e., even when I stop doing writing, I am thinking about writing). It can be ...
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May 19, 2022
Frances Koncan on How Playwrighting Gets Her "Closest to the Truth"
Frances Koncan's play, Women of the Fur Trade (Playwrights Canada Press) is the antidote to dull historical renditions of early Canada. Set in "eighteen hundred and something something", it follows three ...
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May 19, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part II
In Part I of this blog post, I looked at the importance of physical books in my life, how the books represent more than just the stories within them, that they also hold the stories of their acquisition, ...
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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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May 17, 2022
Alex Pugsley on How the Title Story of His Striking New Collection Went from Multiple Rejections to Award-Nominated
Journey Prize winner and filmmaker Alex Pugsley's debut novel, Aubrey McKee was hailed as whip-smart and funny, with comparisons drawn to the likes of Robertson Davies, John Irving, and J. D. Salinger. ...