If you’re interest in the techniques of expository writing, read on: Back at Carleton’s journalism school at the turn of the century, professor Catherine McKercher gave me one rule for opinion ...

The acclaimed Nigerian writer talks to Q’s Tom Power about her first children’s book, Mama's Sleeping Scarf, and why she thought her style of writing would never work for kids.

I thought about it for a very long time and realized what I wouldn't be able to do and the kind of sentences I wouldn't be able to write. There were a lot of rules involved in doing this.

1. Never snack while writing; consume only complete meals - a starch, two vegetables and one serving lean protein (remember that one serving is about the size of a pack of playing cards.) 2.

In business writing, limit your thoughts to one per paragraph. When you have another suggestion, thought or idea, start a new paragraph. 2. Put your point in the first sentence.