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February 26, 2019When All Your Faves Are Problematic
Recently, at a dinner with several writer friends, I learned that a writer I’ve long admired has been known to behave rather smarmily around young women. This writer is now on the list of names that ...
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October 30, 2019Prize Season
Earlier this summer, I had the chance to do some writing at the Banff Centre. It was a wonderful experience. I wrote, I slept, I went for long walks through the mountains. I ate too many pieces of cake ...
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August 02, 2023Read an Excerpt from Lump, the New Novel from One of CanLit's Best Wordsmiths, Nathan Whitlock
A lump can have anything inside it, or nothing at all. This idea of what is contained, concealed, and hidden is central to Nathan Whitlock's searing, smart, satirical new novel, Lump (Rare Machines/Dundurn ...
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August 23, 2019Go Back to School with CanLit: 10 "School Books" to Take You into September
There's nothing like back to school season - warm days, cool nights, crisp new school supplies ready to get dog-eared with use. Even long after we're past school age, the start of September can still ...
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January 31, 2010The CN Tower
On September 21, 2009, as others may have celebrated Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday, there was a ceremony at the CN Tower’s Horizons Restaurant, coinciding with the release of Guinness World Records ...
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April 26, 2010Canadians in New York: The Chelsea Hotel
Despite parboiling myself in the shower a few times I began to like the hotel, or at least some of the residents, or denizens as some liked to call themselves. You could get high in the elevators on the ...
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July 02, 2020The Dirty Dozen with July Writer-in-Residence Irfan Ali
Meet our July 2020 writer-in-residence, Irfan Ali!A Toronto-born poet, essayist, and educator, Ali's previous book of short poetry Who I Think About When I Think About You found him shortlisted for the ...
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April 09, 2017My final two columns: Part Two
As rob has mentioned, this is the second part of his final column for Open Book. The staff at Open Book would like to share our appreciation for a decade of columns, and for rob's contributions to the ...
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June 13, 2016Dismantling Jane Jordan’s Library
Throughout the process of distributing ten bins of books, chapbooks and other literary materials once owned by Ottawa poet Jane Jordan (1926-2007), there’s a slight guilt attached to dismantling her ...
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October 30, 2018
Journalism and Fiction
While I am very fortunate to have established a career as a published author, it’s not my primary gig. I’ve been working as a journalist in a professional capacity for more than two decades, first ...