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April 20, 2016
Kid Lit Can, with Susan Hughes: the Magic, the Wonder - Chatting with Ya Fantasy Authors (Part 1)
In my capacity as freelance story coach and manuscript critiquer, I receive many inquiries and, interestingly, I’ve realized that a disproportionately high number of them are from writers working on ...
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April 12, 2016
Why Don’t We Take Sports Writing Seriously?
In February of last year, Canadian Notes and Queries publisher Dan Wells kindly approached me with a question. “Brainstorming a games issue of CNQ,” he wrote in an email. “Wondered if you might ...
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April 08, 2016
Food for Thought: Hungry for #Diversecanlit
There was a homeless man standing on the side of the road the other day with a sign that read “Lost my job. Spare a bit of change.” I didn’t have change – I rarely do – but I had a banana, so ...
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April 02, 2016
The Proust Questionnaire, with Andrew Forbes - Open Book's May 2016 Writer-in-Residence!
We are thrilled to announce that Andrew Forbes is our May 2016 writer-in-residence here at Open Book. Andrew is the author of The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays and the short story collection What ...
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February 26, 2016
Writing Hangovers Are Denim on Denim: Part 2 of Four New Writers to Watch
I posted the first half of my interview with four exciting writers-to-watch, Noor Naga, Sofia Mostaghimi, Kristel Jax, and Faith Arkorful, earlier today. We talked about writing into dark places, what ...
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February 25, 2016
Tiny Rooms of One's Own: Part 1 of Four New Writers to Watch - Faith Arkorful, Sofia Mostaghimi, Noor Naga, and Kristel Jax.
As I developed my writing over the years, I had many teachers and people in the community support my work and offer me encouragement. It’s always been important for me to give back and encourage talent ...
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February 23, 2016
Awful People Still Exist: Part One of Andrew F. Sullivan In Conversation
Andrew F. Sullivan already gained attention for his 2013 short story collection, All We Want Is Everything (ARP Books), and just three years later, he’s releasing his first novel WASTE (Dzanc Books), ...
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February 14, 2016
Something Totally New: Part One of Stephen Thomas in Conversation
I first came across Stephen Thomas on Twitter. It was 2012 and I’d started doing this embarrassing YouTube show no one watched called A Chat With Jess. Steve was doing something similar while doing ...
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February 09, 2016
The Lucky Seven Interview, with Shawn Selway
It's difficult to imagine the feeling of being taken from the people you know and love and isolated in a strange and unknown place. Such was the case with the evacuation of over 1,000 Cree and Inuit tuberculosis ...
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February 08, 2016
Kid Lit Can, with Susan Hughes: Sex, and Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Writing Edgy YA (Part 1)
Drugs, gambling, sexual harassment, suicide, sexual abuse, physical abuse, cutting, death, sex, drugs, body image issues, bullying, STDs, abduction...between them, YA authors C.K. Kelly Martin, Don Aker ...