Essential and engaging essays about the joys and challenges of creative writing and teaching creative writing by a host of Canada's leading writers. Writing Creative Writing is filled with thoughtful and entertaining essays on the joys and challenges of creative writing, the complexities of the creative writing classroom, the place of writing programs in the twenty-first century, and exciting strategies and exercises for writing and teaching different genres. Written by a host of Canada's leading writers, including Christian Boek, Catherine Bush, Suzette Mayr, Yvette Nolan, Judith Thompson, and thom vernon, this book is the first of its kind and destined to be a milestone for every creative writing student, teacher, aspirant, and professional.

One of the most common phrases in print is "cover before striking," a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers.
Uppal's characters in "Cover Before Striking" are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. The pyromaniac at the heart of the title story winner of the Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Prize desperately uses fire to reconnect with lost lovers and family members. In "Vertigo," an injured Olympic athlete becomes a research guinea pig in a surreal scientific experiment. In "The Boy Next Door," a teenager recounts how her mother took her and fled Canada for Brazil, along with the local Catholic priest.
Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of "Cover Before Striking" each move towards that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together. With this collection, Priscila Uppal offers the literary equivalent of playing with fire."