writing tipsTag

Embracing Tropes

A lot of my summer reading list involved beachy romance novels like Leanne Toshiko Simpson’s Never Been Better and Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After, and, like many twenty-something women, (re)reading ...

Creating a Writing Space That Inspires Your Imagination

I’m not one for a set writing routine, but finding other ways to be consistent has helped me feel more connected to my practice and my creativity. My writing space is key to this. It’s not the biggest ...

Grant Writing 101: The New Canada Council Portal

The Canada Council for the Arts has a new portal and truth be told, it’s going to take us all a while to get used to it, but I’ve gathered up all the questions and frustrations I’ve been hearing ...

How to Receive Useful Writing Feedback

For many writers, giving and receiving feedback can feel like the most difficult part. It engages a part of our writerly brains that exists a bit outside the work, much like the editing process.  In ...

How to Give Useful Writing Feedback

Many writers have friends who are also writers, and sometimes those friends ask us to give feedback on their work. Yay! We get to help our friends succeed! However, there can also be anxiety behind it. ...

More Tips on Writing Book Reviews

One year ago, I wrote a column on getting into writing book reviews. The topic of book reviews remains ever-important, especially in a media climate where outlets to review grow smaller and smaller. In ...

The Pros and Cons of Beta Readers

I just finished an early draft of a new middle grade novel and realized as pressed “save” that even though it was nowhere near done, I’d taken it as far as I could.It was officially time for a beta ...

Why Does Your Story Matter?

It’s the start of a new year, and many of us are taking stock. We’re thinking about what we’ve been through and maybe looking forward with hope and interesting ideas. Whether you have a to-do list ...

Low-Stress Yearly Reading Challenge Ideas

If you’re a reader with internet access, you’ve likely encountered yearly reading challenges and goals. The most common type of reading challenge is the “Read X Number of Books This Year” type, ...

Preparing a Poetry Manuscript for Submission

In my last column, I wrote about preparing a cover letter for your poetry manuscript submission. Well, what about preparing the actual manuscript?As I mentioned in the last column, most poetry presses ...