Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady is a Canadian novelist and journalist...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 January 1970
CountryCanada
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One does not become an atheist out of a desire for hassle-free Sunday mornings. People come to atheism because they have a problem with organized religion - usually a problem they consider to be of moral urgency.
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When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something.
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The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down.
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To buy dinner transmits that you feel time spent in your date's company has been a pleasure and a privilege.
What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far.
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When a man tells a woman there is no chance of a formal, committed, long-term relationship, the only self-respecting response is to take him at his word and move on.
canada narrative outlets running showcase stories
We like long-form narrative journalism, and we feel there aren't enough high-profile outlets in Canada running the kind of stories we want to showcase - long, meaty, thoughtful, investigative.
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Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist.
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Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs.
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I'm always writing across the same themes. But with short stories, I'm doing something different than with novels. In some ways, they're coming from a much deeper place.
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My dad was a real man's man, and so were my brothers, in a small town where hockey is king. It's a masculine culture. It made me really attentive to what it meant to be a guy.
genuinely hard love people
There are people out there who genuinely love literature, who genuinely love to read and read widely, who will never like, or even necessarily get, my books. That was a hard one to swallow, to not feel slighted by.
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The creative process taps into our deepest subconscious, and we are each of us sex-crazed - products of a shame-based Judeo-Christian culture that has irrevocably warped us all to varying degrees.
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We live in a society that celebrates familial connection above any other kind of relationship. We are shown photos of our great-grandparents and encouraged to marvel over facial similarities. We are told to take pride in our bloodlines, celebrate our ancestry.