Writing LifeTag

Writing a Cover Letter for Your Poetry Manuscript

In the world of Canadian publishing, poets rarely have agents. Poetry collections are often published through small presses, and these presses have open submission periods where anyone can submit a manuscript. In ...

Promoting Your Book Online: Literary Citizenship

In my last column, I shared tips for promoting your book online without burnout. I covered making a marketing plan ahead of your book launch, defining boundaries around what you share online, and cultivating ...

Building a Writing Routine When You’re Bad at Routines

I’ve written before about my bad luck in developing a structured writing routine. I’m happy to report that in the time since I wrote that, I still haven’t developed a structured writing routine—but ...

On Finding Inspiration Through Deconstruction

In my last column, I talked about the unexpected rewards of returning to the same themes and subject matter in your work. But there’s a related facet to this that I feel deserves its own examination—the ...

7 Writing Lessons I Learned from Gardening

I am by no means a capital G Gardener, but planning and tending to my little patio garden brings me a lot of comfort and satisfaction. While getting my garden ready for winter, I found my mind wandering ...

Interdisciplinary collaboration: The highlight of my writing year

Writing can be lonely—we hear that all the time. And though I generally love working alone, this year, I’ve been working with a dancer friend on a collaborative process and it’s been one of the ...

7 Ways to Develop Secondary Characters

Many authors do a good job at developing their protagonist or POV characters. After all, readers will be in these characters’ heads throughout an entire book. But as many readers can attest to, sometimes ...

I think I have a manuscript

This is what I said to myself about four years into publishing my poems in journals, magazines, and through chapbooks. Sifting through folders to put poems into a single Word document, I saw the page ...

The Pull of Two Needles

My first version of this essay was about how my two obsessions, knitting and writing, don’t compete with each other. I wrote at length about how they spin together in my brain in complicated steps, ...

Grant Writing 101: How to write an artist CV

I know the pools are still open, and we’re still subsisting on popsicles and ice cream truck soft serve, but grant season is coming, and no matter what grant you’re applying for, you’ll need an ...