When Dani Couture was 10 years old, she wrote a fan letter to the novelist Sidney Sheldon. Couture, a self–described “military brat,” was the child of parents in the Canadian Forces; she used to buy paperbacks at yard sales and flea markets on and off whatever base they were seconded to.
Ben Clanton on the Narwhal that swims inside his head
Ben Clanton’s Narwhal and Jelly books appeal to parents, kids, and reluctant readers
Former Maclean’s editor Kenneth Whyte launches new publishing venture, acquires The Porcupine’s Quill
“I wanted to be a book publisher. It wasn’t much more complicated than that.”
Terese Marie Mailhot: how speaking her own story provided a means of transcending negative experiences
In a public interview recently, a journalist asked me what I meant in the final pages of my memoir, Heart Berries, when I proclaimed myself “untouchable.” A room full of authors gasped audibly at my boldness.
How the movie adaptation of Indian Horse stayed true to Richard Wagamese’s voice
It was his voice that caught her attention. On a Friday in early 2012, Christine Haebler, a producer at Screen Siren Pictures, was driving to work when she heard Richard Wagamese on CBC Radio talking to host Shelagh Rogers about Indian Horse, his novel about an Ojibwe boy named Saul who is traumatized at a residential school and finds possible salvation through hockey.
Kidlit Spotlight: Nancy Vo stakes her claim with an Old West picture-book trilogy
While browsing her local independent bookstore in 2011, Nancy Vo had an “aha” moment. She had just discovered Jon Klassen’s bestseller I Want My Hat Back: “I was floored and thought, ‘How did a picture book just do that to me?’ It sealed the deal – I was on a path to making kids’ books.”
Seraphina author Rachel Hartman on how her quasi-evangelical upbringing led to her new heroine
In 2012, readers went wild for Rachel Hartman’s YA fantasy Seraphina – which was a Quill & Quire book of the year – shooting the debut author up the New York Times bestseller list.
Alanna Mitchell: “We do not live in a post-truth world, but one that needs science more than ever”
About a year ago, while I was passionately immersed in getting the manuscript of my latest book, The Spinning Magnet: The Force That Created the Modern World and Could Destroy It, to my publisher, I found myself with a brief moment to surface and take the temperature of the times.
Suzannah Showler: People who denigrate the performative aspects of The Bachelor are missing the point
Last May, I published Thing is, my second collection of poems. The project, at least as I thought of it, was to re-imagine the alienated nature of consciousness as a universal condition.
Nadia Hohn: Remembering diverse-kidlit hero and Groundwood publisher Sheila Barry
It was July 9, 2011, and I was attending a workshop on writing for children hosted in the backyard of A Different Booklist bookstore in Toronto.
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