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July 16, 2018Why It’s Okay If You Haven’t Finished Your First Book Yet
I thought I would finish my first novel by the time I turned 25.I laugh at the absurdity of that now. But in my early 20s, I believed it when people told me that anything was possible with hard work and ...
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January 15, 2019On Re-Fusing CanLit--Or Why We Need Integrity, Community, and Roses
In a lot of the trauma memoirs I’ve been reading lately, I see the same metaphor used to describe the process of healing. You’ve likely heard it too. It compares healing from trauma to the Japanese ...
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April 26, 2019"Inclusion Means More Than Just Checking a Box" FOLD Authors Ferguson, Foster & Rice on CanLit, How They Write & What They're Reading
It's hard to think of a literary event that has grown and expanded as quickly and with as much excitement around it as the The Festival of Literary Diversity (aka the FOLD). In just a few short years, ...
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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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February 17, 2020Blogpost #5: I READ CANADIAN x BLACK HISTORY MONTH = #BlackCanadianAuthor Celebration
On February 19, 2020, thousands of schools and libraries across Canada will be reading books by Canadian authors. I Read Canadian Day started off as an idea by author Eric Walters in response ...
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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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May 06, 2014Acknowledgements: Gillian Fizet & Jolise Beaton, Rights
Book publishing, as an industry, is not unlike a Jenga tower held together by sheer force of will. If the industry works at all, it's only because many dedicated and diligent people work or little reward ...
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May 02, 2014Words & Curds: Jonas T. Bengtsson, Author of a Fairy Tale
On April 16, I met with Danish author Jonas T. Bengtsson, whose newest English translation, A Fairy Tale, has just been published by House of Anansi. He was in town for the IFOA Weekly readings. We visited ...
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August 08, 2017Read an Excerpt from Oisín Curran's forthcoming Blood Fable!
Today we have a sneak peek at an exciting Fall 2017 book from BookThug: Oisín Curran's Blood Fable will be released in October, but you can read an excerpt now, exclusively on Open Book. In Blood ...
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August 22, 2021"The Pull of Words Had Become Urgent" Read an Excerpt from Music, Late and Soon, Robyn Sarah's Memoir of Her Two Artistic Passions
An out-of-the-blue phone call changed the artistic landscape of Robyn Sarah's life. A decorated poet with 11 collections released over more than four decades, Sarah is an integral part of the poetry ...