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July 30, 2018
The Part of It You Don't See
If you’ve been reading my dispatches over the last month, you might have inferred that making a go of it as a writer is hard. Bending reality, memory, knowledge and experience into believable fiction, ...
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May 05, 2025The Pros and Cons of Beta Readers
I just finished an early draft of a new middle grade novel and realized as pressed “save” that even though it was nowhere near done, I’d taken it as far as I could.It was officially time for a beta ...
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February 22, 2017The Same Aspirations Persist: An Interview with Cameron Anstee, editor of Apt. 9 Press
In 2016, three of the five chapbooks nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award came from the same press, Ottawa’s Apt. 9 Press. One of those Apt. 9 Press nominees, Nelson Ball’s Small Waterways, ultimately ...
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May 15, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part I
With the advent of the Kindle, the refrain among publishing analysts was that the book’s days were numbered; the e-book would change accessibility for stories as the printing press had all those centuries ...
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May 19, 2022
The Stories I Shelve, Part II
In Part I of this blog post, I looked at the importance of physical books in my life, how the books represent more than just the stories within them, that they also hold the stories of their acquisition, ...
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November 27, 2016
The Toronto Heliconian Club: Literature Section readings
By Bianca Lakoseljac: OB Writer in Residence Since I was a child, reading has been an escape for me. A leap into the world of imagination. As a writer, when I guest as a reader or a presenter, it’s ...
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December 20, 2023The Transition to Short Stories (as a poet)
I’ve spent years now honing my craft as a poet. I know how to edit individual poems, as well as to approach and rewrite entire manuscripts. Why did the need to do the same in fiction seem so daunting ...
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July 31, 2019The Ultimate Writing Tips Post: We Asked Talented Canadian Writers for Their Best Piece of Literary Advice
There is no shortage of advice for writers out there. You can find endless lists about the importance (or irrelevance) of outlines, writing everyday, having a writing group, and myriad other strategies ...
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September 13, 2019The Unbearable Lightness of Being Between Writing Projects
Lately, I’ve felt a bit unmoored. For the last 6 years, I’ve organized my spare time around working on my novel. I’ve either been working on it or worrying about not having time to work on it, or ...
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April 08, 2021The void gazes back: online safety for poets
Welcome back, emerging poets and friends! It’s time to talk about that place where we spend approximately 39 hours a day. This first official post of Careful Inventory is about online safety because ...