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June 26, 2017
The Pram in the Hall
There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. – Cyril ConnollyMy son Gabe and his wonderful partner Anna got married on the weekend. It was a joyous wedding, a moving ceremony ...
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June 23, 2017
Jane Kirby on Why Reproductive Rights are Still at Risk in 2017
Reproductive rights -- including safe, legal, accessible birth control and abortion services -- are human rights, and Jane Kirby's Fired Up About Reproductive Rights (Between the Lines Books) is a fascinating, ...
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June 22, 2017
Flaneuse-ing
Walking out yesterday afternoon, being a flaneuse on the Danforth. A flanny on the Danny.At Pape, a pigeon flies down from a store awning into the path of people heading for the subway. Turning, it flies ...
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June 15, 2017
The Entitled Interview, with Eamon McGrath
In his literary debut, Berlin-Warszawa Express (ECW Press), musician and songwriter Eamon McGrath tackles a question that plagues artists in every medium: does art necessitate suffering? He wonders ...
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June 04, 2017
Finding Your Material -- and This Time, Billie Holiday
The question is, how does a writer recognize what is uniquely her material? Save herself from wrong turns, dead ends, dead writing?The subject has always been central to me—an obsession—and years ...
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June 01, 2017
How to Find Your Material -- and Mike Babcock
So there I was last Friday, landing in Phoenix with my hockey team, heading for a recreational hockey tournament. Ice hockey, I should specify, since we’re talking Phoenix, temperature 34 degrees C ...
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May 25, 2017
The In Character interview, with Suzette Mayr
Suzette Mayr's Giller-nominated Monoceros charmed and moved readers across the country upon its publication, so it's no surprise that readers are excited about her new novel, Dr. Edith Vane and the ...
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May 25, 2017
Talking about Poetry with the 2017 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award Nominees
The RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers (administered by the Writers' Trust of Canada) has an all-star list of past winners and nominees, including names like Madeleine Thien, Jeramy Dodds, ...
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May 24, 2017
Happy Birthday, Marian Engel!
Today is the eighty-fourth birthday of Marian Engel, or it would be, had the novelist not died of cancer in 1985. Now, instead of a person, she is a name, survived like all people by her family and friends, ...
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May 10, 2017
The In Character Interview, with Margaret Gracie
Margaret Gracie's Plastic (Porcupine's Quill) dives into the dark side of the American dream. Following a former Miss America whose quest to "have it all" becomes a twisted obsession, the connected stories ...