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May 02, 2019Facing the Double-Headed Dragon: Perfectionism and Fear
Guys. My last few weeks have been bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I hope you will all bear with me this month. There may be some punctuation errors here and there. Even a typo ...
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April 24, 2019What a Poem Does, Not what it Means
In an earlier post, I wrote that both writer and reader should focus more on how a poem comes to be.We seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to understand what a poem means as opposed ...
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June 03, 2020
Hello From My Big Comfy Chair
I didn’t set out to be a kids’ writer. At first, I wrote parenting articles, travel pieces, government brochures, whatever I could get paid to write. It turned out my most successful efforts were ...
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October 14, 2021Canada Council Announces 2021 Governor General's Literary Award Finalists
This morning the Canada Council announced the English and French language finalists for the Governor General's Literary Awards. The seven categories cover multiple genres. The fiction list is often compared ...
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October 25, 2023Naben Ruthnum on His Delightfully Creepy YA Horror Debut, a Spooky Love Letter to the 90s
Behind the facade of small towns lurk many things – something high schooler Vish knows all too well in acclaimed author Naben Ruthnum's first foray into young adult fiction, The Grimmer (ECW Press).Vish's ...
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October 03, 2017Gillian Sze on the Meaning Behind her New Title
For the non-botanists among us, the title of Gillian Sze's bold new poetry collection Panicle (ECW Press) may initially be puzzling. But that challenge - to work a little harder, to look a little closer, ...
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February 02, 2016Poets in Profile: Majlinda Bashllari
Majlinda Bashllari published her first poetry collection in Albania in 2007. Less than ten years later the Toronto-based poet has released her first English language collection, Love is a very long word ...
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July 21, 2016Work Lit
Many of the reviews I’ve received for my books so far have made some reference to the idea that I tend to write about people who work for a living. I’m not complaining – honestly, I’m delighted ...
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March 28, 2017CBC Canada Reads Halfway Point: A Heated Debate Sees M.G. Vassanji's Nostalgia Voted Off
Two of the four days of the 2017 CBC Canada Reads competition have passed, with a surprise tie-breaker on the first day knocking out The Break by Katherena Vermette (House of Anansi), which had been ...
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June 03, 2019Carrianne Leung Captures $10,000 Danuta Gleed Literary Award for Her Beloved Story Collection
On Saturday night at the Writers' Union of Canada's OnWords Conference, the Union announced that Carrianne Leung is the winner of the $10,000 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. The award recognizes the best ...