Ontario book news, interviews and more

Poetry Tours: Funding

Last time on the WIR blog, I talked about tips for planning a poetry tour, including tips on building a tour from existing events. In this post, I hope to share some resources on funding a poetry tour, ...

Read an Excerpt from Richard Sanger's Final Poetry Collection, Way to Go

Facing a terminal diagnosis, poet, playwright, and translator Richard Sanger had to decide how to use his final days – and how he felt about the end. In time, he decided to do what he'd been doing ...

Vera Constantineau on the Haibun Form & Finding Poetry in Buddhism's 108 Defilements

While Catholicism has its seven deadly sins, Buddhism gets a lot more specific, with a whopping 108 temptations that practitioners seek to avoid. Alternatively translated as impurities, vexations, or ...

Poetry Month Starts Strong with a Massive Increase for the Newly Renamed Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize

A surprise announcement from the Writers' Trust of Canada today contained some good news for Canadian poets, just in time for National Poetry Month: The former Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, awarded ...

Poetry Tours: Planning

Planning a book tour is a lot of work, and it’s the kind of work I dread the most. Events are unpredictable. You can plan and plan, but factors like weather, health, money, and so many others can come ...

Erum Shazia Hasan on Exploring the Complex Moral & Emotional Landscape of International Aid Work in Her Brilliant Debut

It may be a universal truth that phone calls that come in the middle of the night never bring good news, and for Maya, a mother, aid worker, and the main character in Erum Shazia Hasan's We Meant Well (ECW ...

Poetry as Joy: A Retrospective and Introduction

April in Ontario is unpredictable. There can be warmer days to soak up the sun by a river, or ice storms to coat everything with a perfect translucent film. In any case, April feels ideal for poetry—the ...

April Writer in Residence Manahil Bandukwala Explores the Woman Behind the Taj Mahal in Her Masterful Debut Poetry Collection

One of the most iconic landmarks in world history, the spectacular Taj Mahal, was famously built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favourite wife. A romantic story; a favourite tourist ...

Kate Beaton's Ducks Wins Canada Reads, Making it the First Graphic Narrative to Capture the Crown

CBC Canada Reads 2023 has officially wrapped, crowning one title as the book all Canadians should read "to shift their perspective" this year. It was a smart and tight series of debates this year, with ...

Painting a Story: Danila Botha on Writing and Painting

Since I was a kid, I’ve always painted. I’ve painted through every age of my life, through every possible emotion. I’ve painted when I was ecstatic and needed to share the feeling, I’ve painted ...