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August 02, 2016
THE Incredible Shrinking Writer
It’s almost six years now since, after nearly half a century in Toronto, I moved to Cobourg, pop. 18,500. My adopted home — "Ontario’s Feel Good Town" — is just a ninety-minute commute east by ...
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July 30, 2016
The Problem with First Books
In an interview with New York magazine’s Vulture blog, comic book creator Brian K. Vaughan makes clear his feelings about his early work:Do you go back and read many of your older books?Oh, God, no. ...
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February 23, 2016
Recognizing Something Human: Part Two of Andrew F. Sullivan in Conversation
Yesterday I posted the beginnings of my G-Chat conversation with Andrew F. Sullivan. We focused the discussion on the characters and worldview of his first novel, WASTE. Our conversation continues below. JT: ...
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May 29, 2015
What’s Your Vision: Publish or Perish?
Note to self: forget the zeitgeist. Trends are for dolts. What I mean is that when it comes to some writers and their embrace of social media, e-book culture and new audience development there seems to ...
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October 28, 2013
A Response to Ann Elizabeth Carson's We All Become Stories, Blue Denim Press, 2013
Ann Elizabeth Carson’s WE ALL BECOME STORIES is a generous book. This recounting of journeys the author has made with a baker’s dozen of elders (she makes the thirteenth) is an intimate exploration ...
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April 26, 2013
Remixing My Book Consumption Habits
While many book industry pundits have tended to focus their attention on the future of the book, bookstores and even book review sections, and justifiably so, I’ve been zoning in on the debates surrounding ...
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March 03, 2014
The Dirty Dozen, with Brian Panhuyzen
By Open Book and Brian PanhuyzenBrian Panhuyzen is a short story writer and novelist and is Open Book: Toronto's March 2014 Writer-in-Residence.Stay tuned throughout the month to hear from Brian on subject ...
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March 06, 2014
Novels vs. Serial Television
Novels are big. It’s something you recognize when you’ve got a draft and you need feedback – what a big favour it is to ask someone, a friend or acquaintance or agent, to spend a dozen or more hours ...
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March 14, 2014
The Reading Rulebook
I used to go to a lot of public readings of poetry and fiction. Then I had kids, and rarely went, but recently, due to changing circumstances, I've been out to a few more, and what hasn't changed are ...
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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 ...