ReadingTag

Writing Goals for 2023

I love the clean slate of a new year—the new, unsullied notebooks, the expanse of the year stretching out full of potential, and how everything feels possible. As I was thinking about what I wanted ...

"Suddenly All the Stories in My Head Made Sense" Heather Camlot on the Books that Guide Her Life and Her Writing

What would you risk to go to school? In Secret Schools: True Stories of the Determination to Learn (Owlkids, illustrated by Erin Taniguchi), Heather Camlot shares the amazing, and at times astonishing, ...

A Thousand More Lives: On Reading

I recently stumbled across an article written by Umberto Eco in Rome in 1991, translated into Spanish by Jorge Cruz and published in the Argentinean newspaper La Nación, explaining why he believed that ...

Hannah McGregor on the Books That Shaped Her Writing and the One That Helped Her Break Genre Barriers

You can tell a lot about Hannah McGregor from the titles of her acclaimed podcasts, including Witch, Please and Secret Feminist Agenda. A writer and creator unafraid of a bit of cheeky fun with a serious ...

Cut Road Author Brent van Staalduinen on the Books That Became His "Masterclasses" in Writing

Hamilton author and writing coach Brent van Staalduinen has a long list of honours for his writing, with three novels under his belt and more than a decade of publishing short fiction in some of the ...

"I’ve Read What I’ve Wanted... No Regrets" Ayaz Pirani on the Books That Shaped Him, from S.E. Hinton to Kabir

Ayaz Pirani's third poetry collection, How Beautiful People Are (Gordon Hill Press) builds on his reputation as a meditative, skillful, and wise writer rooted in the Indian ginan poetic tradition. Capturing ...

The Books on My Desk, Time, Habits, Children, and Orderliness

I feel like I need to mention that I just found out this morning that Glorious Frazzled Beings has been long listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize because it has taken up most of my morning with a hullaballoo ...

To Pre-read, or Not to Pre-read?

Should you be vetting your kids’ reading material? For many, the answer seems so obvious, you don’t even need to ask the question.  To make sure kids are choosing books that meet their approval, ...

Bring Back the Good ‘Ol Days of Getting Lost in Fiction

“The anonymous woman in bed beside me adamantly shakes my shoulder.”—Amber Dawn, Sodom Road Exit“Sometimes we would hide in the closet when the drunks came home from the bar.”—Tanya Tagaq, ...

When My Mind is Frenzied, I Don’t Read—I Listen

Being read to is a luxury.Growing up, there were no bedtime stories in my household, at least none that I can remember. There were true stories traded around dinner tables of course, but there was none ...