Search
-
April 17, 2019
Creative 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 ...
-
October 05, 2020
Between the pages
“When I'm really into a novel, I'm seeing the world differently during that time — not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I'm actually walking around in a haze, spellbound by the ...
-
August 31, 2017
September 2017 writer-in-residence Andrew Kaufman on His Favourite Books
Andrew Kaufman's writing is utterly unique. Incorporating humour, magic realism, and his own brand of tight, brainy prose, his books (including acclaimed novels like The Waterproof Bible and All My ...
-
June 20, 2023
Frieda Wishinsky Uses the Hidden Secrets of Gardens to Explore Community in Her New Picture Book
Plenty of people enjoy the beauty of a flower in a garden, but when was the last time you asked yourself what a flower was actually doing? In Frieda Wishinsky's A Flower is a Friend (Pajama Press, illustrated ...
-
April 02, 2014
Poetics of Place
I’ve been thinking about the poetics of place: Tim Lilburn’s Moosewood Sandhills; Don Domanski’s wilderness of a cosmos; Karen Solie’s truck stops and motels; Tim Bowling’s fishing boats. It’s ...
-
April 24, 2014
Poetic
Tell a classroom of wannabe writers to try their hands at a poem and the stilted, strangely wrought language that ensues can be alarming. It’s like they’re being told to write in some World War II ...
-
July 06, 2015
“…Writing Was a Nasty Habit or Addiction That I Would Have to Support.”
This quote, which comes at 2:35 of the attached interview with Guy Vanderhaeghe, sums up a pragmatic approach to the early years of a writing life, years that for many of us can stretch for decades, or ...
-
October 22, 2018
Uncomfortable Questions
One of the most common questions any writer from a marginalized background gets is “who did you write this for?” A variation of that is “what audience did you have in mind when you wrote this?” ...
-
June 26, 2018
Read an Excerpt from David Goudreault's Raw, Powerful, Darkly Funny Mama's Boy
Content warning: suicide, self-harmIn its original French edition, Mama's Boy (Book*hug) by David Goudreault (translated by JC Sutcliffe) was a smash hit - a bestseller, winner of the 2016 Grand Prix ...
-
June 28, 2021
Necessary Residential School Reading
As more and more mass graves at former residential school sites are brought to light, many Canadians are finally realizing the extent of genocide in this country, while many Indigenous people are reliving ...