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August 09, 2022Jodi Carmichael on Crafting Lou, a Girl with ADHD & Dyslexia Who is the Irresistible Hero of a New Middle Grade Novel
The irresistible protagonist of Jodi Carmichael's The U-nique Lou Fox (Pajama Press), Louisa Elizabeth Fitzhenry-O’Shaughnessy, is going to be a playwright, and nothing can stop her. Not her overlong ...
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December 20, 2022Cary Fagan on Learning to Write Freely as His Atmospheric New Novel Unleashes Wild Animals in Unexpected Places
In Cary Fagan's The Animals (Book*hug Press), the facade of Dorn's village is peaceful and perfect, making it a popular, quaint tourist destination. But for Dorn, the cheerful exterior hides torment. ...
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April 26, 2023Book Therapy: The Remembering Stone
“But Alice didn’t want the perfect stone to sink to the bottom like all the others, so she put it in her pocket.”-Carey Sookocheff, The Remembering StoneFor my family, last year was defined by loss. ...
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October 11, 2023Vulnerability is a Writing Tool
My most reflexive apology is, “I went to theatre school.” Usually delivered with a shrug or a knowing smirk as if to say I can’t help it, it gets a laugh from the creative set about 82 percent of ...
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November 07, 2023Read an Excerpt from The Bliss House, Jim Bartley's Atmospheric Dive into a Strange 1960s Family
Far from town, on a run-down farm, the Bliss family has kept to themselves for nearly 100 years. But something has changed and people are whispering about the strange happenings out at the Bliss place, ...
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February 27, 2024Johanna Skibsrud shares the lives and perspectives of women who biologically, physically, or spiritually shaped the course of history, in Medium
How do we truly transmit experience, while remaining open to transmissions from others; physically, biologically, intellectually, spirituallly, or culturally? This is one of the central questions in the ...
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March 15, 2024In Conversation with Author Yewande Daniel-Ayoade and Illustrator Ken Daley
Author Yewande Daniel-Ayoade crafts a unique and uplifting fable in her latest picturebook. It's the story of an eight-year-old girl in a West African village who loses her father, who was the king, ...
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June 09, 2016A Poet, a Novelist and a Toddler Enter a Room
Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be one of those literary power couples, talent just oozing from their pores, words pouring from their pens, seemingly effortlessly? Meaghan Strimas & Nathan ...
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November 28, 2016
The Art of the Novel: Interview with Daniel Marchildon
By Bianca Lakoseljac: OB Writer in Residence At Read Local in Midland, back in September, Daniel Marchildon, the winner of the Trillium Award for children’s literature, and I were among the local authors ...
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March 01, 2020
Blogpost #8: TRENDING CURRENTLY: Top 8 Diverse Middle Grade and Young Adult Themes I’ve Observed
Dear Reader:This is my final post as the February 2020 Open Book Writer In Residence. (And, did you catch that this is the 8th blogpost and I am listing 8 middle grade and young adult themes? Didn’t ...
