Writer-in-Residence BlogTag

Things I Love About Readings: In-Person vs. Virtual

In-Person ReadingsPutting on my lipstick (burgundy), earrings (fake gold), and favourite clothes (burgundy again).Listening to music on public transit on the way over.Seeing familiar faces and hearing ...

Screenwriting Lessons

Sometimes I forget that I majored in screenwriting during my undergrad, even though it ended up playing a key part in what and how I write now. I had chosen this major because I wasn’t sure what to ...

25 Writing Rules & Routines

I'm trying my best not to write about the moon, but it’s hard, isn’t it?Sometimes a poem just needs to be a diary entry. Sometimes a diary entry just needs to be a poem. Same goes for tweets.Try keeping ...

Written and On-Screen Selves: On Diaries and Social Media

Do you remember your first diary?Mine was a baby blue hardcover with a cute little rhyme on it that I still remember to this day:People, places, faces. My life in words and phrases. All I've thought ...

The Nature of Truth in Art

For my final post as writer-in-residence, I’d like to devote a bit of space to one of the subjects I love to chew on: the nature of truth in art. (As a friend of mine recently noted: ‘You always go ...

Should Memoir be Considered Non-Fiction?

One of the things that makes this question so interesting is that the answer isn’t as obvious or cut-and-dried as it first appears. It varies from country to country, for one thing, changes from culture ...

Memoir is Not the Story of Your Life

The funny thing about memoir is that it is not the story of your life.It is true that memoir deals with and includes stories from the author’s life, but therein lies the distinction. For while autobiography ...

Why 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 ...

Portrait of a Woman Flying

María was seven years old on her first day of work, the morning her father left her in Mexico City at a large house with tall ceilings and walls that were covered in tiles. Whenever she got homesick, ...

The lost art of rereading

There was a trail I used to walk when I was broken, decades ago, after I'd scooped my heart from my chest and passed it to a man, who'd winced, shrugged, and said, ummmm, no thanks.We’ve all been there.It ...