1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I’ve contributed chapters and essays to various anthologies and media outlets over the years, and always had the experience of building my small piece into a thematic whole where it can be read in relationship with the wisdom and talent of other writers and artists. Crushed Wild Mint is my first book, and it’s daunting – and exciting! – to stand on my own.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I grew up spending a lot of time on the land with my father, who wrote and loved poetry. We had a habit from my childhood days of writing poems back and forth in a notebook that stayed in our favourite remote cabin in the wilderness. Although I also write non-fiction, poetry is the form I loved first in part because it was inseparable from my love for my father and that cabin in the wilderness.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I tend to live a very busy life, so poetry is a form that fits beautifully in the margins and bubbles up through the cracks in my day. I find that often poems emerge in close to their final form, but often in fragments over time that have to be fitted together when they’re ready. That said, I’m sure I have thousands of vague post-it notes scattered around my desk as a testament to still unfinished writing projects.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I tend to write shorter pieces that emerge from very specific places and moments, and what binds them together is the motherland – the ocean and land and culture – where I’m rooted. This place defines the larger project, and my poems are just little windows in.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I live in a geographically remote community of 1,400 people, so I don’t often get to attend or participate in public readings. This is the hardest adjustment for me to make with Crushed Wild Mint – getting comfortable with a physical audience in front of me!
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I’m not sure there’s a question I’m trying to answer, but I do want to show people that there is an authentic way of being that is rooted in land love and connection and reciprocity. I try to write without cynicism in a way that does not uphold capitalism, colonization, and patriarchy, one that centers Indigenous joy and thriving and real integration with lands and waters. It’s a beautiful and relational way of living and I hope one that more folks can draw from to feel connected to the places and cultures that matter deeply to them.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I come from a very oral culture where who we are is passed down through the loving and diligent repetition of stories. In this worldview, I think that writers are one modern iteration of the storytellers or oral historians who have always held the role of creating a container for history, knowledge, and identity to be held in. In my culture, the role of a witness is also an incredibly important one, and I think readers as witnesses are equally essential.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I expected to have a hard shell about it, but I found it to be an utter joy! It was so affirming to have an excellent editor who independently identified all the sticky bits of my writing that I’d never quite been able to resolve, and then helped me find my way out of them.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Write bad poetry. I tend to get hung up on my own perfectionism, but it’s so liberating to write my own authentic grief or joy without always worrying about the craft of it all. When I let myself write without fretting about how it holds together, I often surprise myself in really good ways.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I have no routine beyond being present! I admire writers who have routines. I write in little gasps amid a busy life raising kids and working for my community, and then periodically I try to step back and take larger blocks of time for assembling fragments and revising drafts. It’s haphazard, but it’s how my life fits together.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I don’t think I could ever have become a writer without first being a reader. When my own writing process is stalled, I immerse myself in reading books – any books – to bring me out of my frustration and back into my joy and sense of engagement.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
This is a little on the nose, but the fragrance of crushed mint. And I always travel with a little roller of redcedar essential oil to remind my heart of home.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I spend a lot of time in the wilderness and it absolutely influences my work; I’d argue it’s essential to my writing. I also feel my ancestors are a strong influence as I try to live their values and practices and thrive in the landscape where my people have been for hundreds of generations.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I love Eden Robinson for her writing and for being the ultimate Auntie to young Indigenous writers. And the work of other Indigenous poets helps me thrive – especially Samantha Nock, Emily Riddle, Selina Boan, Erica Violet Lee, jaye simpson, and Katherena Vermette.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would love to write a piece of fiction! I think that fiction is the ultimate writing challenge – building worlds and crafting narratives that hold together and work with the imaginations of readers. I hope someday I develop my craft to the point that I can explore that form.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
If I could be anything at all, I’d be an outboard mechanic! Be what you need. Besides writing, I spend my time running a non-profit and taking care of my community, and that’s a pretty sweet gig.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I wrote a lot when I was young, then I got caught up in every “something else” that felt more productive and urgent and for years, I almost never wrote at all. I’ve only come back to poetry in a serious way in the last few years as I realized writing is what makes me feel grounded enough to be a good human and do all the other things that give me a sense of purpose.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Heading into the fall I’ve been reading Indigenous literature that gives me chills – Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline for the haunting factor, and My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones for some seasonal gore. I’m not much of a film buff, but they’d both pop cinematically if they were made into films!
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m working right now on a collection of essays that build my personal story into overarching narratives about place, culture, and wildness. I hope this will find its way into the world next year!
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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