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August 11, 2020On Returning to Pen & Paper
The last time I wrote a story in a notebook must have been back in elementary school. I can remember handwriting in the thin cahiers we were given, double spacing my writing as instructed. Because I was ...
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September 03, 2020
My One Week on the Bestseller List
On Saturday, June 21, 2014 I opened the Globe and Mail to the books section (back in the time when newspapers had book sections) and after reading the reviews I began to idly scan the bestseller list. ...
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September 24, 2020Literary Ancestors
It’s said that every person has two families. There’s the one that you are born into and the one that you choose for yourself—your friends. But writers have a third family, the literary ancestors ...
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July 10, 2015On Sports and Writing
Years ago, when applying to MFA Programs, I was asked for a personal essay about my writing and writing influences. Without a shred of irony I stated that my earliest literary influences were televangelists ...
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July 26, 2022The Trouble With Memoirs
A recent development in academic creative writing programs is the rise of “Creative Non-Fiction,” a genre supposed to be fundamentally journalistic but using the techniques of fiction. At its best, ...
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May 17, 2017
Michael Winter's collages
I spent half of March writing a very long abstract (1,200 words) for an essay I was going to present at some conference but I just heard back today and they said no. Two weeks of work for nothing? (Not ...
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February 22, 2021
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 7 of 9
Love like anything that matters in this life is a risky business. To fall in love, one must take a big leap of faith. I wanted my characters who were dissatisfied with their isolation to jump both feet ...
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May 19, 2021"Otherness, Humour, Taboo, and the Surreal" Poet Billeh Nickerson on Unexpected Influences, His 20-Year Poem, and More
Duct-Taped Roses (Book*hug Press) is the newest collection from Vancouver poet Billeh Nickerson, and it firmly cements him as an unerringly insightful, witty, and poignant writer.Filled with moments ...
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February 21, 2014
Answers to Questions Brought up in the Profiles That I Conducted
As stated in the first profile that I wrote featuring Oni, my goal was to have a few questions about the place of Black/African-Canadian communities in the literary community answered. However, the answers ...
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July 11, 2023Keep Pride Month Going with an Excerpt from Jake Byrne's Witty & Fiery Collection, Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin
Bodies, sex, drugs, queer love, capitalism, war – there's pretty much nothing that Jake Byrne won't tackle in their poetry. With back-to-back collections coming out this year and next, CanLit lovers ...