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September 02, 2014Hello, My Name Is Diane! (Part 2)
Some say that exposure helps dissipate the stress for people with performance anxiety—that old adage which claims the more you do the one thing that provokes fear in you, the easier it gets to manage ...
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December 13, 1901
Thinking the Future through the Present
To begin with: many thanks if you made it through yesterday’s post; you have my gratitude for sitting with uncertainty and/or dwelling in possibility.To continue: I’ll now try to offer an account ...
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June 05, 2015On Making Sausages
June is the month of graduation. On campus, SFU students seem happier, despite impending midterms. Relatives in high heels are carrying peonies. All parking lots are full.As I pass by the Convocation ...
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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, 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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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, 2016Where 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, 2016Mother'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, 2020Why 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, 2016The 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 ...