Ontario book news, interviews and more

Early Encounters with Poetry

A couple of interview questions recently posed to me got me thinking about my early encounters with poetry. For though my first book of poems has just been published a couple of decades after my first ...

Ampersands and

The symposium that I’m attending in Glasgow is part of a larger festival that has poetry popping up all over the city in various forms. Last night, I got to see some glorious visual manifestations in ...

How to keep a small chapbook press alive for twenty-three years (a primer)

By the time you read this, above/ground press will most likely be two or three items away from an accumulated eight hundred publications. How does that happen? Even I find it strange and remarkable that ...

How To Make a Great Book Cover

The most important lesson I learned when I self-published my first book was that readers do judge a book by its cover. This is often framed as negative but as author and illustrator Annie Mok recently ...

The WAR Interview Series: Writers as Readers, with Devon Code

Journey Prize winner Devon Code moves from the short story to the novel with his newest book, Involuntary Bliss (BookThug). The insight and deft prose that won Code accolades for his short story collection, ...

"What's Your Story?" Obpo Writing Contest Winners! Part Two: North York

We're excited to bring you the second instalment of the Ontario Book Publishers Organization's inaugural What's Your Story? writing contest winners. The competition asked authors across the city to ...

Reconciling a Double Life: Law and Literature

I’m very happy to be spending the month of October as Writer in Residence at Open Book. I’m also happy that it’s a virtual residency as I was able to skip town on the very first day to attend a ...

Governor General's Literary Award Nominees Announced with More Good News for Madeleine Thien!

2016 marks the staggering 80th anniversary of the Governor General's Literary Awards. The shortlists, announced today, are interesting ones this year, with the fiction list especially notable for its ...

Contest for Young Writers - Enter the Write Across Ontario Competition!

As book lovers, it's exciting to us to see the next generation of literary talent begin to flex their writerly muscles. To that end, Open Book is proud to partner with the International Festival of Authors’s ...

The Vine Awards Kick Off Revamped Prizes with an Inspiring Year

2016 Vine Award winners After a previous incarnation as the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards and a hiatus last year to re-focus and re-launch, the Vine Awards for Jewish Literature arrived ...