clelia's blog

This spring, students from John Ouzas's Writer's Craft class at Malvern Collegiate Institute conducted interviews with Canadian poets as part of a class project, "The Great Canadian Writer's Craft." Throughout June, we're posting the interviews on Open Book's The Great Canadian Writer's Craft page. The students spend considerable time researching the poets' work and creating the interviews, and the effort put into the project is apparent. The interviews are smart, thoughtful and engaging.

This spring, Toronto high-school students from two Writer's Craft classes conducted interviews with some of Canada's finest poets. The interviews will be posted on The Great Canadian Writer's Craft page on Open Book in June and July 2011.

Jasmine Denike:

Hey Matt, don’t feel pressured to answer all of them. I had a lot I wanted to know! The last two questions are completely optional and pretty general. Just wanted to add that I really enjoyed reading your book A Doctor Pedaled Her Bicycle Over The River Arno. It was really interesting because of its diversity in writing styles as well as the mood difference between poems. I hope you like my questions, and thank you for taking your time to answer them! (:

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: WHY DID IT TAKE SHEREE-LEE OLSON MORE THAN TWO DECADES TO WRITE HER FIRST NOVEL?

In a piece for Zoomer magazine last fall, she examines the process of aging with the characters in her head, and how a very different book emerged at the end.

Like all binary thinkers, Aesop was only partly right. Slow, steady, single-minded tortoise wins the race. Sometimes. Overconfident bunny peaks too soon, falls into twenty-year nap. Or maybe the bunny just had to lose a few races. To grow up a little. To figure out where the finish line really is.

Heading out west next week? Linda Rogers, Open Book's November 2008 Writer in Residence and Victoria's Poet Laureate, will be celebrating Love, Poetry and Chocolate at Victoria City Hall on Saturday, February 7 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Linda, Janet Marie Rogers, Patricia Young, Terence Young and a surprise guest will be reading poetry. Guests are invited to bring a handmade valentine with a poem and to enter a haiku competition.

All ages welcome. Complimentary refreshment and chocolates served.

For more information, call 250.361.0538 or visit www.victoria.ca and click on "What's New."