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June 20, 2015
Bravery Through Bestsellers
In a recent cultural comment in The New Yorker, South African-born social anthropologist and writer Ceridwen Dovey investigates whether reading can make us happier. She describes a session with a bibliotherapist ...
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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 13, 2017The In Character interview, with Connie Guzzo-McParland
Connie Guzzo-McParland's The Women of Saturn (Inanna Publications) continues the story of Cathy (formerly Caterina) from Guzzo-McParland's novel The Girls of Piazza d’Amore. Now living in Montreal, ...
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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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November 07, 2025Sierra Marilyn Riley on Her Debut Novel and Writing Queer Theatre Magic for Teens
Tense, atmospheric, and irresistibly dramatic, The Dark Cove Theatre Society by Sierra Marilyn Riley pulls back the velvet curtain on ambition and the high price of artistic perfection. Set in an elite ...
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October 30, 2019"There's a Story Behind My Mom's Death That I Felt Had to Be Told" K.B. Thors on Digging Deep with Her New Memoir-In-Verse
In her new memoir-in-verse, Vulgar Mechanics (Coach House Books), poet K.B. Thors takes the reader on a dark, redemptive journey from heartbreaking loss to spiritual rebirth. Themes of grief, sex, and ...
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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 ...