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May 05, 2021
"Female Fighters Have Always Embodied the Struggle for Equality" Alison Dean on Combat Sports, Violence, & Memoir
Picture a boxer: Sweating, bruised, determined. Maybe eying an opponent with gritty concentration.Any chance you're picturing a woman? When "you hit like a girl" is still a common criticism, and when ...
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April 14, 2021
Ross Breithaupt on Weaving Together Music, Mourning, and the Gritty Reality of Tree Planting in His Moving First Novel
Anyone who's ever tried their hand at tree-planting in Canada knows it's an intense undertaking. For 20-year old Rory Fleck, the intensity is just what he's looking for—a place to forget himself and ...
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April 06, 2021
"I Feel the Most Fulfilled When I Write About Love" Patricia Storms on Her Uplifting New Picture Book & Writing for Kids
Every morning, Dutch is excited to hear the Gardener wake up. He knows that once she's done her mysterious morning things, he'll get to go outside with her. The Dog's Gardener (Groundwood Books, illustrated ...
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March 18, 2021
The Chaos of Creation and Why I Chase the Rupture Point
When I write, it feels like I am on the inside of a spinning wheel that never stops. The wheel lets itself loose from the chassis and throws itself, willingly, down the hillside. The after effects of ...
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March 13, 2021
Permission to dream
When I started writing, I didn’t understand the invisible work. The models of labour I was most familiar with—whether in a coffee shop, at a hotel, in a firehall, or at a construction site—were, ...
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March 12, 2021
Zoom Class: Omar El Akkad and the Challenges of Writing Resistance
Sometimes there are Zoom meetings that can break you. Last week it took me five days to recover from the nausea, headaches, and light sensitivity caused by one single day of back-to-back virtual meetings. ...
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March 10, 2021
A "Book Behind Which No Part of Me Could Hide": Andrea Actis' Poetic Memoir of Grief & Loss is Stunning
Content warning: death in the family, grief. It's an unimaginable scene: returning home one night in 2007, Andrea Actis entered her Vancouver apartment to discover her father, lying dead. The aftermath ...
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January 20, 2021
Denise Davy's Her Name Was Margaret is a Heartbreaking and Unflinching Examination of Mental Health & Homelessness
Award-winning journalist Denise Davy was no stranger to investigating tough stories. But when she met Margaret Jacobson, the girl's heartbreaking story stood out to Davy. Once a happy and healthy young ...
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December 09, 2020
Book Therapy: The books that helped us through 2020
“I wanted to start making things that made me and others feel hopeful—even when it felt like there isn’t much to hold onto, and even when we just didn’t feel good.”—Hana Shafi, Small, Broke, ...
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November 27, 2020
Some Ways To Deal With Writer's Block
I used to think that writer’s block just meant not having any inspiration or ideas. If only it was just that! Now I know it’s many things - and for me, it’s mostly anxiety caused by both lack of ...