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September 14, 2018
"I Could Only Find the Answer as I Wrote" Mina Athanassious on His Collection of Coptic Egyptian Coming of Age Stories
Mina Athanassious's A Face Like the Moon (Mosaic Press) gathers eight deeply personal stories of Coptic children growing up in Egypt, including a story set in the largely-Coptic neighbourhood where the ...
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November 20, 2023
Getting to Know Marion Agnew, Author of the Witty & Poignant New Novel Making Up the Gods
Simone, a widow, lives a quiet life in her cottage by a lake – until one day, when a man named Martin shows up on her doorstep, claiming to be a cousin. He is potentially Simone's only living relative, ...
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January 14, 2016
The Entitled Interview with Phil Hall
Drawing on the wilds of rural Ontario and his own family and artistic mythology as inspiration, Phil Hall's four decades of poetic invention have influenced countless other Canadian poets. Often called ...
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May 15, 2017
The Dirty Dozen, with Catherine Hernandez
Catherine Hernandez's Scarborough (Arsenal Pulp Press) is a force to be reckoned with. Filled with the vibrant voices of a struggling but tight-knit community in the titular city, the story immerses ...
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November 30, 2021
Daniel Scott Tysdal Examines the Darkness, Strangeness, & Flickering Hope of Life in the 21st Century in His Spectacular Debut Story Collection
Daniel Scott Tysdal is a beloved creative writing professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough and a decorated poet. And of course, Tysdal is also an Open Book columnist and the subject of one ...
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February 03, 2022
Robert Earl Stewart on the Power of Nonfiction to Turn Our Most Broken Parts into Connection and Comfort
Blaise Pascal once wrote that humans were born with an "infinite abyss" that can only be filled by "God himself", originating a theory that spawned the idea of "a God-shaped hole" in the human psyche. With ...
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October 04, 2023
Tips for Writing in a Hybrid Genre
Hybrid genres are on the rise, but many writers feel unsure about how to manage expectations of the different genres while writing, and how to market their finished product. As a reader and a writer, ...
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June 11, 2019
Confessions of an Uncertain Booklover
All my life, I’ve considered myself to be a booklover. Even my twitter handle has the word ‘literati’ in it (don’t judge me. I was a pretentious undergrad when I came up with it). English was ...
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December 20, 2022
Cary 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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March 08, 2022
"As He Watched, Envy Stirred in His Heart" Read an Excerpt from A Bend in the Breeze by Valerie Sherrard
After decades of prophecy, the residents of a remote island have finally found what has been foretold: the Long Awaited, who will tell them their fate 17 days after appearing, has arrived in a boat drifting ...