The Sacred Heart Motel
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
4d ago
The cover of The Sacred Heart Motel by Niki Hoi (Metonymy Press, 2024) is delightful. The drawings of domestic scenes appear to be done in oil pastel so have a softened effect with rounded edges. The poems inside Grace Kwan’s (they/them) debut collection are edgier – whether in the kitchen or the areas particular to a motel – rodents die on sticky traps and kitchen knives are dangerous. In “Room 209,” “what’s a love / story without its ghosts – more than a few bullet / wounds in the floor.” The contents page is a “directory” that includes “The Moonlight Suite,” “Kitchen: Back Exit,” “Next Doo ..read more
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The Notebook
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
1M ago
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen (Biblioasis, 2024) is a fascinating chronology from the zibaldoni kept by the people of Florence in the mid-fourteenth century to record poems in Tuscan, prayers, excerpts from books, songs recipes, lists to the many ways people have kept notebooks of their travels, recipes, and of ..read more
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The Widow’s Crayon Box
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
2M ago
After her husband Michael Groden (1947 – 2021) died, Molly Peacock cried for twenty-eight days straight she says in Best Canadian Poetry 2025 in which one of her poems, “Honey Crisp” from her new collection, The Widow’s Crayon Box (W. W. Norton, 2024) appears. “On the twenty-ninth day, I woke without tears, picked up a blue mechanical pencil, and began to write the poems that would become The Widow’s Crayon Box. ‘Honey Crisp’ literally began when I walked to the refrigerator. There was my husband’s last apple – I couldn’t throw it out.” Author Photo: Candice Ferreira  “A mourning widow i ..read more
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A Life in Pieces
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
6M ago
In her one of her essays, “Virginia Woolf’s Commas” in the “Late” section of A Life in Pieces (Thistledown Press, 2024), Jo-Ann Wallace writes of typing Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway “from beginning to end.” “There is something surprisingly intimate about entering text in this way,” Wallace says of her approach to preparing a scholarly edition of the 1925 novel for Broadview Press. While typing, Wallace learned “something about the minutiae of Woolf’s style, and in particular, her often eccentric use of commas, semi-colons, and other punctuation marks.” She calls herself a “fast and pretty accurate ty ..read more
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Little Fortified Stories
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
6M ago
Barbara Black’s new book, Little Fortified Stories (Caitlin Press, 2024) has won a 2024 Firebird Book Award in the “Short Story” category as well as in the new “Weird Book Genre” category. How cool is that! In fact, Barbara’s short fiction included in Little Fortified Stories has won numerous awards. Here’s to Barbara’s experiments in brevity that feature convention-defying characters and curious, magical mini-worlds! Following a visit to a “dimly lit Port Wine House in an eighteenth-century palace in the Bairro Alto district of Lisbon,“ Barbara sampled Portugal’s most famous spirit: port. Eac ..read more
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Inside the Treasure House II
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
7M ago
I offered a summer pop-up women’s Writing Life women’s writing circle recently on the theme of “Inside the Treasure House.” It’s a theme I’ve used before, and thought it a good time to revisit and acknowledge our gifts. In the circle, we are honoured for who we are and in the midst of busy lives, have a chance to slow down and be with what is. Especially in the chaos of summer, the circle is a welcome place for grounding and centring. (What chaos, you may ask, isn’t everyone at the beach?!) It was the subject of museums that led me to the theme of “treasure house.” While our own provenance hol ..read more
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What It Is
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
7M ago
Lynda Barry’s What It Is published in hard cover in 2008 is now out in soft cover (Drawn & Quarterly, 2024). The first edition won the comic industry’s 2009 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. What It Is is a wonderful combination of a graphic novel, memoir, lots of collage, drawings, and questions to ponder as if a writing workbook with many tips to spark creativity. To many, the pages may appear chaotic but there is much to glean in this scrapbook of a life. Comics, music and art saved her, Barry said in an interview with Tom Power on CBC Radio’s Q. Barry is an American cartoonist ..read more
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Writing That Gets Noticed
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
9M ago
Many years ago when my children were young (they are now 50 and 46), I began writing for the local newspaper in the small Ontario town where we lived. The freelancing started  with writing letters to the editor of The Canadian Statesman in Bowmanville. I expect it’s one of those newspapers that is no longer in existence. When a meeting was held for locals, particularly parents interested in a school to be built for a newer area of Bowmanville, I wrote an article about the meeting and sent it to the newspaper. They put it on the front page! It may have been a slow news day but whatever hap ..read more
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Writing by Heart
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
9M ago
I love writing in community whether in a circle facilitated by me or at a workshop (which could be a writing retreat) with a respected mentor. Meredith Heller, who lives in Northern California, loves writing in community too. I can tell by the enthusiastic and engaging writing in her new book: Writing by Heart: A Poetry Path to Healing and Self-Discovery (New World Library, 2024). Meredith started “Writing by Heart” poetry workshops during the pandemic with some women from Marin County, California. Now, people from all over the world attend her workshops on Zoom. She has had the “honour and jo ..read more
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Spring Writing Circles
Mary Ann Moore Blog
by Mary Ann Moore
10M ago
Last week I attended a poetry retreat in Honeymoon Bay, on Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island.  I try to do this at least once a year. That good habit started in 2006 when I began attending poetry retreats with Patrick Lane. Patrick died in 2019 and it’s now his partner and fellow poet, Lorna Crozier, who has taken on the leading of the poetry retreats in Honeymoon Bay. It’s wonderful to work with a master poet and teacher. The other fabulous part of attending a retreat is being able to hang out with fellow poets. There were nineteen of us and we were able to write together, share our poet ..read more
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