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October 24, 2016
A Poetry Bookshop in Toronto
An exciting thing happened in Toronto while I was away. Jeff Kirby opened a poetry bookshop, knife|fork|book, in Rick’s Café in Kensington Market. Having missed the October 6th grand opening, I raced ...
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October 22, 2015Finding Inspiration in Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol is arguably one of the most quotable artists to have lived.And although much mystery and controversy surrounds his powerful legacy, there is so much inspiration that can be drawn from his ...
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February 26, 2014
Multimedium Publishing and the Future of the Literary Press (Part 3)
Part 3: The past + The future = The presentIf I may elaborate please. You've made it this far into my diatribe (Yay!). I promise that if what I'm saying does not make sense yet, it will soon. First, let's ...
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May 20, 2016The Long Odds
I used to keep a Word document detailing where I'd sent what. Now it's a Google spreadsheet, colour coded, sortable. It lists the titles of completed stories and their word counts, tells me where I sent ...
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January 31, 2022Meet Our February Writer in Residence, Sifton Tracey Anipare, Author of Yume, Her Knockout Debut Fantasy Novel
Yume (Rare Machines/Dundurn Press), the debut novel from Sifton Tracey Anipare, follows Cybelle, a young woman teaching in a Japanese city. Her love for her adopted culture is apparent, motivating her ...
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April 08, 2022"One Long Confession" Nancy Jo Cullen on Auden, Endings, & Midsomer Murders
Nancy Jo Cullen is know for wild creativity, irreverent wit, and her ability to work in multiple genres with ease, including poetry, short fiction, and novels. Indeed, Cullen is undeniably one of Canada's ...
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October 13, 2015
Getting Press: the Questions to Ask About Publicity Before Your Book Is Published
“My last book did not get a single review,” a friend told me last year after the release of his third title. “The publisher didn’t do anything to promote it, and I didn’t have time.”This is, ...
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November 29, 2019
Fiction, Memory, and Family
I reread books, often because a story or scene moved me and I want to know how the writer engineered it. It’s exciting to flip back to the first page and say, “of course! Of course the story ends ...
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November 12, 2019
Keeping Momentum
After the initial idea for a story is grounded, but before there’s enough material for real revisions and edits, writers are somehow expected to get words on the page. This is intimidating! Here a couple ...
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November 07, 2019
Where Ideas Begin
Questions every writer is familiar with: “Where did you get the idea?” or “How did you decide what to write about?”How did Denis Johnson decide to make a character obsessed with Elvis Presley’s ...