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September 20, 2017Singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith on his debut novel, Dickens, and feeling awkward
Ron Sexsmith is a household name in Canada for his acclaimed, atmospheric, and beautifully moody music, which has earned him numerous awards including a Juno for Songwriter of the Year.Given Sexsmith's ...
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October 13, 2017Adam Bunch's Toronto isn't Boring - It's Deadly
We've all heard of a life story, but what about a death story? Just in time for the spookiest season, Adam Bunch's The Toronto Book of the Dead (Dundurn Press) offers a unique portal to the history of ...
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October 31, 2024Read an Excerpt from the New Anthology, Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction
The new and frighteningly good anthology, Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction (Kegedonce Press), derives its name from the Ojibwe term meaning "to tell a scary story." And, the author that have been ...
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September 12, 2018Notes on My Futile Attempts to Evade the Creeping Tendrils of Inescapable Progress
The other day, my six-year-old daughter told me that I’m on my phone too much.This was right after I’d grinned at a parking attendant and told him how thrilled I was to see a person at the gate instead ...
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May 26, 2020
Writing and the Body.
As I sit at my desk and stare at this screen, I’m reminded of the impact of writing on my body. I recognize being able-bodied carries a tremendous amount of privilege, and there are many others with ...
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April 17, 2019Creative Life
I was asked to give a keynote address at the launch of the student literary journal, Scarborough Fair at the University of Toronto Scarborough. The theme was “The Creative Life”. As their Writer in ...
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December 03, 2019"I’ve Been Determined to Open up the Adventure Narrative into Something Deeper" Ailsa Ross Shines a Light on History's Bravest Women in Her New Book
In her newest book, The Girl Who Rode a Shark: And Other Stories of Daring Women (Pajama Press), author Ailsa Ross shows kids and grown-ups alike that the great heroes of history are not always the men ...
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April 09, 2014
Madness
Catching up on the frippery of “Downton Abbey,” I enjoyed Maggie Smith’s trenchant Dowager Countess of Grantham listening to her son wax a mite lyrically about land and history and then exclaiming ...
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February 03, 2020Blogpost #1: Meet Nadia L. Hohn, or selected musings of a Black-Canadian djeli
Here ye! Here ye! My name is Nadia L. Hohn and I am proud to be the February 2020 Open Book writer-in-residence. Not only do you get to read my posts about writing, #kidlit, and Canadian publishing ...
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January 22, 2021Claiming Space for Indigenous Languages in English Literature
English is the language of the colonizer. It came with the arrival of settlers to what many people call Turtle Island, or North America. It is a relatively new language to this land, and has only been ...