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August 22, 2023Marie-Louise Gay on Getting Personal about Tough Childhood Moments in Her Magical New Picture Book
For a kid, moving to a new house and finding friends in a new school can be extremely tough. In iconic KidLit creator Marie-Louise Gay's new picture book, Hopscotch (Groundwood Books), Ophelia uses ...
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October 23, 2016
Poetic Inspiration III
This is the third in a series of posts highlighting inventive poems that have broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. (The previous instalments ...
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September 10, 2020"Great Books Will Find a Way In" Jon-Erik Lappano on His New Picture Book & the Magic of Writing for Kids
Remember the collection you had as a kid? Maybe it was seashells or marbles, Barbies or bandanas, but nearly every kid went through a phase of excitedly collecting something - and every new acquisition ...
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August 10, 2023Co-Creators Kirsten Pendreigh & Crystal Smith Help Young Readers Find "Comfort and Connection in Natural Spaces"
Finding ways to connect to the people we've loved and lost can be a complex process. In author Kirsten Pendreigh and artist Crystal Smith's gentle and beautiful new picture book, Maybe a Whale (Groundwood ...
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September 15, 2023"Part of This is a Reclamation" Poet D. A. Lockhart on Crafting New Myths to Explore Land & Identity
Just south of Pelee Island is Middle Island, a small island that is part of Point Pelee National Park. It is home to no permanent settlements, with a ruined 19th century lighthouse as one of the only ...
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May 24, 2024A Discussion of Blasphemy and Other Ancestors: 4 Novellas by Padgett Powell, Darius James, Lee Henderson, & Jean Marc Ah-Sen
"It's the fate that awaits us all," says Jean Marc Ah-Sen of the four novellas in Blasphemy and Other Ancestors (Gordon Hill Press), written by him, Padgett Powell, Darius James, and Lee Henderson, explaining ...
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March 02, 2023"Anyone Who Writes Fiction is a Kind of Magician" Barry Jonsberg on His Writing Process & New Climate Disaster Novel
For twins Ashleigh and Aiden, the world is good. They've always been completely in sync and to them, life seems sunny and happy. But everything changes when Aiden starts behaving strangely after an accident ...
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June 27, 2018
Mentors & Allies 5: David Chariandy
When I think about writers whose words have influenced me, those powerful words are usually nothing more than a short line, phrase or fragment that embeds itself in my mind. Writers who have lodged their ...
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May 24, 2018
In Praise of … Reading Widely
I wonder if other writers feel a particular dread I sometimes get when I’m working on a new story or poem. It happens when an idea, or an approach, or a certain trope comes into my mind, one that suddenly ...
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November 16, 2017
Noir at the Bar!
We're moving from poetic noir to an evening of Noir at the Bar! Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Glasgow, St Louis, New Hope, Albany, New Jersey, Portland, Baltimore, Vancouver – and Toronto! And ...