Search
-
October 14, 2021
Beating the Burnout
For those who were lucky enough to know someone in the book publishing industry before entering themselves, they might’ve heard the warnings: Don’t expect to be rich. In fact, don’t expect much ...
-
October 15, 2021
MUSE ON THE LAM
Today’s post is about what to do when your muse goes AWOL. When your muse is a contrarian like mine is, getting them to show up for work often requires lengthy debates. Who has that extra time?The ...
-
November 26, 2022
Ask Jane (Agony Aunt)
Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m the protagonist of Helen’s novel, Pull Focus. I’m taking over the blog today to answer questions readers may about me, or the book, or anything else. What’s an Agony ...
-
January 25, 2023
CBC Announces a Panelist Line Up Studded with TV & Social Media Stars for Canada Reads 2023
It's one of the first signs for book lovers in Canada that spring is around the corner – CBC Books has announced its line up of celebrity panelists and the books they've chosen to defend in the upcoming ...
-
February 18, 2023
show and tell – a catalogue of the small animals that live in my house
**This is the result of an exercise I did this week. The exercise was to find objects around the house and write about them. It's a good one for when my brain is moving slow, which it has been. In looking ...
-
June 09, 2023
Affirmations for Writers
Pursuing a career as a writer can be hard on your self-esteem. It requires incredible stamina, faith, and unbelievable amounts of patience. Here are some things I like to remind myself of when the urge ...
-
April 09, 2024
Read an Excerpt from Summer in Furnished Rooms by Marc Plourde
People and places may come and go in our lives, but their imprint lasts long, and can sometimes linger and evolve in peculiar and interesting ways. In the new collection Summer in Furnished Rooms (Cormorant ...
-
September 02, 2018
Show Me the (Writing-Grant) Money!
Hello, and Happy September! Thanks to the excellent folks at Open Book for inviting me here, and thanks to you for tuning in, lovely readers-who-I’m-guessing-are-mostly-also-writers.All right, let’s ...
-
August 20, 2020
Read an Excerpt from John Bentley Mays' The Occidental Hotel
In the late John Bentley Mays' final book, The Occidental Hotel (Guernica Editions), a grizzled, racist criminal evades capture by holing up in a long-abandoned hotel, once a dazzling building that hosted ...