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April 30, 2014
Timelessness
Over the course of the WIR experience, I’ve often used my morning writing time to work on that day’s blog. This is sacred time when I shut the door on all distractions, from phone calls to my cat ...
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October 22, 2015
Finding 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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October 18, 2015
The Importance of Creative Rituals
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”- Chuck CloseFor years now I’ve used a very simple way to mark the moment when it’s time to write: I light a stick of ...
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May 09, 2016
Where We Do What We Do
The first stories of any quality that I produced were written at an old white melamine desk in the windowless furnace room of my future in-laws' house in suburban Ottawa. The hot water tank clicked and ...
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May 06, 2016
Mother's Day
As people, as writers, we are often formed or directed by crystallizing moments in our lives, brief happenings which nonetheless persist in our minds, or which port some lesson, or confirm for us a suspicion ...
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August 21, 2020
Why Bother Writing?
A few nights ago, I woke up to the sound of a wolf howling into the bowl of the sky. We all know the sound, I’d heard versions of it my whole life, but I’d never actually heard one in the flesh like ...
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May 05, 2016
The Unscripted Idle
I spent this past Saturday at Books & Company in Picton, under the auspices of Authors for Indies, and I came away feeling happy, but with a top note of frustration, because I passed the afternoon ...
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May 30, 2016
Lat & Long
It's a rare thing for me to find myself somewhere new – or even somewhere I know but haven't been in a while – and not be visited by an urge to set a story there. I'm not exactly sure why this is, ...
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July 13, 2014
Modest Portraits of My Mother
So perhaps my mother doesn’t need to be my queen; simply being my mother is already a lot, even if the rare kisses I place on her cheeks aren’t so majestic. —Kim Thúy, Ru**As a statue:Bootprints ...
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September 22, 2014
Under Surveillance at the Word on the Street, Toronto
Yesterday I participated in a panel called Under Surveillance at the New Narratives Tent, alongside Emily Horne, co-author of The Inspection House: An Impertinent Field Guide to Modern Surveillance (with ...