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January 29, 2019Zelda Abramson on Exploring the Concept of Home for Holocaust Survivors
The question "What is home?" is always a poignant one for a writer to explore. In Zelda Abramson's The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After the Holocaust (Between the Lines Books), published in January ...
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May 23, 2019Daniel Bryant on Writing Short Fiction, Research as Procrastination & Sharing a Day Job with Bukowski
In Daniel Bryant's debut short fiction collection, Rerouted (forthcoming from Porcupine's Quill), nothing is quite as it seems. A new route for a postal worker turns out to be cursed, musicians on a ...
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April 13, 2018"I Write to Make Sense of Worries" David James Brock on Finding the Calm in Poetry
Poet, librettist, and playwright David James Brock's second collection Ten-Headed Alien (Wolsak & Wynn), is making an impact as big and bold as its title. Poet Linda Besner called it "a sophisticated ...
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June 15, 2023Marcus McCann on Writing the Ethics and History of Park Cruising (Plus Some Helpful Advice from Dionne Brand)
Many Torontonians will know lawyer and writer Marcus McCann from his 2016 defence of several people charged in Project Marie, an undercover sting operation where Toronto police targeted people—mostly ...
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October 09, 2018Aparna Kaji Shah on Writing Strong Women, the Importance of Writer Friends, & the Timeless Value of Middlemarch
The title of Aparna Kaji Shah's The Scent of Mogra (Inanna Publications) refers to species of flowering jasmine, a beautiful and fragrant plant cultivated in South and Southeast Asia. It gives a nod ...
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March 17, 2022A Great Kids' Book is "a Kind of Graffiti": Sara Cassidy on Why Wonder, Not Instruction, is at the Centre of Her Writing
A little girl tosses a snack to some birds at a bus stop. It's a small gesture, but in Sara Cassidy's Flock (Groundwood Books, illustrated by Geraldo Valério), it becomes the jumping off point for a ...
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October 16, 2017"What's Your Story?" 2017 Obpo Writing Contest Winners! Part Two: East York
We've got brand new original fiction and poetry today on Open Book as we present the second set of winners of the 2017 Ontario Book Publishers Organization's and East End Arts’ What's Your Story? writing ...
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October 15, 2016
Literary Tourism
Every time I visit London, I stay in a different area. This time, I’m just a few blocks from Chancery Lane, in the heart of Dickens’ London. I suppose all of London is Dickens’ London given the ...
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October 17, 2022
My Abuser Died
Trigger Warning – Sexual Violence, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Trauma.I have pondered the title of this thread for weeks now, wondering if I should lead with a softer opening. Something like, ‘the ...
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August 18, 2023Read an Excerpt from Lawrencia's Last Parang, a Memoir of Grief & Racism Alongside Family, Love, & Success
Writer and cross-cultural expert Dr. Anita Jack-Davies was raised by her grandmother Lawrencia, a charismatic, wise, and loving woman who influenced Jack-Davies' open-hearted and curious approach to ...
