Search
-
November 14, 2018On Fairy Tales
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…[w]e look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition ...
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
August 27, 2024Danesh Mohiuddin's Debut Picture Book is the Story of Playful Monsters With a Heartfelt Parent and Child Relationship
Many authors have interesting life stories of their own, and unique pathways to becoming an artist. Our featured book today, Mummy and Me: A Monster's Tale (Owlkids Books), is written and illustrated ...
-
December 15, 2021Robert Rotenberg on His Family's Lost Story of Heroism, A Memorable Opening Line, & Going Back to Chandler
Bestselling crime writer Robert Rotenberg, who is also a prominent criminal lawyer, knows how to craft a good story. But he got a serious surprise when two distant relatives wrote a story he'd never heard ...
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
June 26, 2025Read an Excerpt from The Midnight Project, a Riveting New Science-Fiction Novel by Christy Climenhage
The best science-fiction writers of our time have not only created imaginative and inventive worlds, but they've also managed to tap into the zeitgeist in terms of societal commentary. This leads to lasting ...
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
