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December 02, 2017The Colour Purple
I am very, very short-sighted. Way off the normal sight spectrum. Like a career politician. The spawn of two myopic parents, I am a mole, midget-sighted. My natural focal point is my own nose. No, I have ...
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October 30, 2019
Daddy Writer to Be – Umbilical Cord
As writers, we are always inspired by the life experiences that we go through; the traumas, the fears, and the excitement of it all. As a follow up poetry book to War/Torn, I have started working on a ...
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August 21, 2020Why Bother Writing?
A few nights ago, I woke up to the sound of a wolf howling into the bowl of the sky. We all know the sound, I’d heard versions of it my whole life, but I’d never actually heard one in the flesh like ...
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May 16, 2020Readings...that feeling never goes away.
I always get that feeling right before reading my work in public. You may know it: the urge to simultaneously faint, throw up, and run out of the room. My first few readings were terrifying. I was fortunate ...
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September 19, 2016
The In Character Interview With Leon Rooke
Leon Rooke has been called "a national treasure" by the Globe and Mail with good reason — his contributions to CanLit over an astounding 50 years of work have been hugely influential. And he's not slowing ...
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September 26, 2019
Once I was a Maenad
When I was twenty-six a motley group of women and I took my first play to the Edmonton Fringe Festival. We called ourselves Maenad Theatre and we took two plays from Calgary to Edmonton, Tango Noir, a ...
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April 16, 2014
Puzzle
At the suggestion of a friend, I gave my students a Seamus Heaney poem, “A Personal Helicon,” cut up into a puzzle of words, running the gamut from eight “a’s” to one “you” and “your” ...
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September 01, 2022Debut Author Anouk Mahiout on the Importance of Talking, with Humour and Heart, About Tough Feelings in Kids' Books
Pretty much every kid has felt at some point that they don't quite fit in. For Pauline, the lovable protagonist of Anouk Mahiout's debut graphic novel, A Place for Pauline (Groundwood Books, illustrated ...
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November 13, 2019Home
This October I travelled to Calgary from my home in Kingston to do some book promotion and to catch up with my family and cherished friends. It had been a little over a year since I’d returned home, ...
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October 22, 2023Writing For Ghouls
It’s spooky season, and here in Atlantic Canada the ambiance is that of a flooded crypt. The smell of wet fallen leaves, rainy days that feel heavy and dark as night, smoke on the air indicating warmth ...
