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April 24, 2014
Poetic
Tell a classroom of wannabe writers to try their hands at a poem and the stilted, strangely wrought language that ensues can be alarming. It’s like they’re being told to write in some World War II ...
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January 15, 2018Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Randall Maggs' Award Winning Night Work, Honouring Goalie Terry Sawchuk
It's been ten years since the original publication of Randall Maggs' Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems (Brick Books). At the time, the collection swept up countless awards and honours, including the Winterset ...
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May 16, 2019Troy Wilson on Titles for Kids' Books, Exclamation Marks, & the 12-Year Journey to His New Picture Book
Troy Wilson, author of several beloved books for young readers including the award winning Perfect Man, returns with a charming, funny, and immediately lovable new picture book this spring: Dog vs Ultra ...
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January 15, 2019Read an Excerpt of Leon Rooke's The House on Major Street
Leon Rooke has been an important part of the Toronto literary scene for decades, so it is perfectly fitting that his newest novel, The House on Major Street (Porcupine's Quill) has an unapologetically ...
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October 22, 2018
Uncomfortable Questions
One of the most common questions any writer from a marginalized background gets is “who did you write this for?” A variation of that is “what audience did you have in mind when you wrote this?” ...
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June 28, 2021Necessary Residential School Reading
As more and more mass graves at former residential school sites are brought to light, many Canadians are finally realizing the extent of genocide in this country, while many Indigenous people are reliving ...
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June 20, 2023Frieda Wishinsky Uses the Hidden Secrets of Gardens to Explore Community in Her New Picture Book
Plenty of people enjoy the beauty of a flower in a garden, but when was the last time you asked yourself what a flower was actually doing? In Frieda Wishinsky's A Flower is a Friend (Pajama Press, illustrated ...
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July 06, 2015
“…Writing Was a Nasty Habit or Addiction That I Would Have to Support.”
This quote, which comes at 2:35 of the attached interview with Guy Vanderhaeghe, sums up a pragmatic approach to the early years of a writing life, years that for many of us can stretch for decades, or ...
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April 03, 2014
Voice
Maureen McLane’s book, “My Poets,” goes beyond poetics and criticism into a kind of channeling of the poets themselves: her versions of their work, her obsessions with their obsessions. She not ...
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November 25, 2021Writing + Joy = A Revelation
For years I believed I was only a writer if I wrote every day. I would wake up early and take my laptop to the coffee shop nearby and sit in the corner and write. Words and words and coffee and more ...
