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April 24, 2014
Poetic
Tell a classroom of wannabe writers to try their hands at a poem and the stilted, strangely wrought language that ensues can be alarming. It’s like they’re being told to write in some World War II ...
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June 12, 2023Research, Research, Research
I thought I had mended my ways. I thought I had discipline. The evidence is clear: I don’t put all my digital research materials into one folder on my desktop computer anymore. I actually have sub-folders! ...
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February 18, 2021Fired Up About Consent Author Sarah Ratchford on the Books That Brought Them Tears, Lessons, & Laughter
The rallying cry often heard in conversations about consent is the simple truth: consent isn't just sexy—it's mandatory.And it's a topic that we're finally discussing with young people, with the hope ...
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October 26, 2016
Favourite Literary Podcasts
I spent much of the day preparing to record a podcast, the third episode of On the Line: Conversations About Poetry (http://www.therustytoque.com/on-the-line). It’s a podcast designed to operate like ...
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October 03, 2017The Writer in the World: Introduction
The reader became the book; and summer night was like the conscious being of the book— Wallace StevensI became a book a long time ago. Or perhaps I am possessed by the memory of the experience of ...
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November 30, 2021Daniel 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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September 27, 2016
At the Desk: Nora Gould
Nora Gould's newest collection of poetry, Selah (Brick Books), is a long poem that engages with the titular term. Drawn from the Old Testament, 'selah' might mean to praise, to lift up, to pause, to ...
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February 02, 2021Michael Grant on His (Naked) New Play & Creating a Fictional Small Town Across His Works
Norm and Ruth were just trying to get their marriage back on track. A simple idea: to head back to a place they knew they'd been happy and see if they can re-capture the spark there. But the struggling ...
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May 14, 2009
Should Professors of Poetry at Oxford Be Without Sin?
A friend of mine, a Jamaican man, told me many years ago that he disliked going to bars in England, where he’d been a student. Why? Because if a man put his hand up under a woman’s skirt, he was likely ...
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October 14, 2017
The Writer in the World: Love, Write, Resist, Heal, Part Two with Alicia Elliot
A Conversation with Alicia Elliot, Part TwoCL: To continue from where we left off: Have you considered the book-length poem? This is not to suggest book-length poems are long-winded, though. Jokes aside, ...
