12 or 20 (second series) questions with Onjana Yawnghwe

Onjana Yawnghwe is a Shan-Canadian writer and illustrator who lives in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Kwikwetlem First Nation. She is the author of two poetry books, Fragments, Desire (Oolichan Books, 2017), and The Small Way (Dagger Editions 2018), both of which were nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She works as a registered nurse. Her current projects include a graphic memoir about her family and Myanmar, and a book of cloud divination.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Did my first book change my life? Should it? I think in the sense of giving some legitimacy to this whole writing thing, like ‘oh your writing is actually good’ and confirming my writing’s external worth. It gave reinforcement to my life choices and how I spend my free time. It was a great feeling to have the first book out - a release of held breath, a ‘oh, finally!’.

My new book, We Follow the River, has had a strange life. It was actually the first book/manuscript that I finished. But no one wanted to publish it. So I moved on, and published two subsequent poetry books, Fragments, Desire, and The Small Way. Those are both about romantic love and the loss of that love, very different from this current book which is more about my family, immigration, race, and culture. This book coming out feels like things have come full circle.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a writer, or more specifically, a novelist. But when I was 18 or so, words emerged in the form of poems. I was surprised. But I was reading a lot of poetry at that time, which I loved since I was young. Our family had one poetry book: a small paperback anthology of verse. In elementary school we had to recite poems from memory and I chose Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” which was about the end of the world, and Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” (I had a bit of a morbid streak as a kid.)

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?
The tricky part for me is coming up with an idea that sticks. Sadly, I’m not the type of writer who has a multitude of ideas. Ideas sort of appear on their own after a period of incubation, and when an idea grabs a hold of me, I become pretty obsessed and want to work on the project in every spare moment. I usually do the necessary research in a fever, write a lot and quickly after that. When I’m taken with a project, a first draft comes together relatively quickly, and arrives in pretty good shape. I then like to take a break from it, and then start revisions with fresh eyes. The revision process usually takes the longest time. I usually have a vision of what the book project should look like, and the writing and revision process are basically attempts to be true to that ideal.

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?
A poem begins with either a line that I can’t get rid of in my head, or a desire to capture or express a particular feeling or thought. I think of my writing as going from project to project, definitely thinking of the larger whole as a book instead of writing short pieces and compiling them in a book. In seeing the project as a whole book, I like the investigative, interrogative function of writing poems - you’re telling one larger story but presenting different facets or experiences within that narrative. Poetry has built-in gaps in its form - it doesn’t pretend to tell the whole history of anything - and I like how each poem can evoke a glimpse of something and shed light on it. I see the thing as a whole, with me trying to help it come into being.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
They are neither part of nor counter my creative process. To me the writing part is its own creative thing, and I consider the work finished when I’m done with the writing and revising process. I’m naturally a very shy person, so readings were very awkward and uncomfortable for me, but this time around I’m enjoying doing events a great deal more, partly because I’m excited to share a part of my family to the world.

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 guess I’ve been concerned about how to express the intangible and unsayable. How to translate a particular emotion or the inner experience of something into a form that will be able to be shared with the world, to make the subjective less objective. I like finding moments that resonate, that ring out, that confirms, that makes you tremble and feel joy and weep and be in awe. I also think that I’m just the conduit for the art; a lot of my concern is trying to let go of ego and control and let the thing be what it wants to be. It’s important to accept emptiness, free up space, and receive the art. Observing and allowing, and doing only what is necessary.

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 see writing as having a number of roles: a magnifying glass, a mirror, a camera, a telescope. Writing can distil and focus and make us feel present in a single moment; it can reflect back on ourselves, our weaknesses, strengths; it can document and give witness; it can be an exploration, adventure, an escape.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
The way I work is very solitary, so I have limited experience with outside editors. However, I did work with the brilliant Betsy Warland for The Small Way, because the material felt too close and raw and I couldn’t get much distance from it. In general, I like to edit my own work. But I like to have feedback from one or two writer friends.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.” Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to the graphic novel)? What do you see as the appeal?
I’ve never seen myself as a poet per se, but more a writer who is involved in a lot of creative projects. The way I think about poems is often cinematic and visual, and I think that is very much similar to the graphic novel form. That being said, working on a graphic novel is difficult for me because I don’t have formal art training. I sometimes feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m learning as I go along.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Maybe because I work in spurts, I don’t have a writing schedule or routine. It’s also difficult because my work schedule (as an RN doing shift work) is erratic and irregular. There are chunks of time when I’m just absorbing - doing new things, meeting friends,  going out for walks,  looking at art, watching films, or reading. When I’m working on a particular writing project I wake up around 7:30am, meditate, wash up, have kombucha and coffee, then try to do a full day of writing, stopping only for meal breaks. When I’m deep into the zone, I often work until bedtime, around 11pm. Time passes amazingly fast. Before bed, I record everything I do during the day in a notebook. Sometimes I journal in a different notebook.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
When I’m bummed or feeling blah or need inspiration, I go to the movies. Being physically in the cinema and having your senses taken over by the film really rearranges my molecules. If the film is really good, I leave the theatre feeling like a new person: inspired, refreshed, renewed.

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
I avoid parties so I don’t do the holiday thing. I think in 7th grade, I wore a cat costume.

14 - 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 already mentioned films, and how I conceive of poems almost as scenes from a film. I also love visual art - particularly more spare and minimalist works, like Agnes Martin and Robert Irwin. Odilon Redon was a major influence for my first book, and Henri Rousseau for the second. I think good art distils and transcends. Art is food, water, and air for me.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Just off the top of my head, this limited list: Peter Blegvad, Dionne Brand, Anne Carson, Emily Dickinson, Marilyn Dumont, T.S. Eliot, Thich Nhat Hanh, Galway Kinnell, Roy Kiyooka, Yoko Ono, Dale Parnell, Sylvia Plath, Claudia Rankine, Christina Sharpe, Fred Wah.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Let’s just say I lack a lot of foundational experiences. Camping, or being in a canoe or rowboat. Staying  in a remote cabin in the woods.

17 - 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?
Filmmaker. I think I also would have liked to become a graphic designer who designs book covers and movie posters.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I was born to write. It seems to be my sole purpose. It started with non-stop reading as a child.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Last great book?
Probably the graphic novel Monica by Daniel Clowes; it’s really weird. The last great film was The Beast, by Bertrand Bonello - it’s Lynchian and romantic and anti-romantic at the same time.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve been working on a graphic novel about the story of Myanmar/Burma and my family for years. I’m hoping to create some shorter graphic novel pieces in the meantime. I’m collaborating with an artist friend on a cloud divination book. There’s a time travel romance novel I’m vaguely writing with a writer friend.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kat Cameron

Kat Cameron is the author of two collections of poetry: Ghosts Still Linger (University of Alberta Press, 2020) and Strange Labyrinth (2015). Her short-story collection The Eater of Dreams (Thistledown Books, 2019) was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. She has published poetry and stories in numerous journals and anthologies, including Beyond Forgetting: Celebrating 100 Years of Al Purdy, CV2, Descant, Grain, New Forum, Room, and 40 Below: Volume 2. Her short story “Dancing the Requiem” won Prairie Fire’s 2018 fiction contest. She lives in Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory and teaches writing at Concordia University of Edmonton.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

When my first book of poetry, Strange Labyrinth, was published in 2015, I finally felt validated as a writer. But it was also a learning experience. I realized how little I knew about the business of publishing: the launch, marketing, books reviews.

My second and third books appeared within seven months of each other: a collection of short stories, The Eater of Dreams, in the fall of 2019, and my second poetry collection, Ghosts Still Linger, in the spring of 2020. Both publishers, Thistledown and the University of Alberta Press, were extremely supportive, and The Eater of Dreams was nominated for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Despite having three published books, I still feel impostor syndrome every time I send out a new poem or story. Rob Taylor writes, “The lot of poets is to feel like a perpetual neophyte.” This is true for me.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I started writing poetry quite young—I won a prize for a poem I wrote in grade 4. Then in high school and university, I took fiction classes and published stories in student journals.

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?

Some poems I can write in one or two drafts. I wrote a poem, “Trespass,” while my first-year English students were writing their final exam. Usually, the process takes a few weeks (or months) and multiple revisions before I feel a poem is done.

Writing fiction is a slow process. I’ve spent the past two years researching and writing a novel and I imagine it will be another three or four years before I finish. I have a binder of research for this novel, which is set in Tudor England.

4 - Where does a poem or work 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?

Many poems begin with an object or one line. One of the sections in Ghosts Still Linger examines the lives of women of the West, such as Annie Oakley. My husband and I took a trip to Wyoming in 2013. At the Cody Museum, I saw a pair of white shoes, which belonged to Arta Cody, Buffalo Bill’s daughter. A note in the case with the shoes said that Arta died two months after her wedding. I wanted to learn more about the life of this forgotten daughter of a famous father.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I’m not a natural performer, so I get nervous before a reading. I admire spoken word poets who can perform a piece. I have written a few dramatic monologues that are structured to be spoken. But at the same time, I think some poetry works best visually on the page. I read e. e. cummings in my twenties, and his experiments with line and punctuation influence my work.

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?

During my PhD at the University of New Brunswick, I researched female identity construction in post-colonial literature. My interest in identity construction and women’s voices influences my writing. One question I ask myself is “Who is remembered?” Or to put this question another way: “Whose voice is heard?”

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I don’t know if poetry has a role. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself, because I think that culture is sometimes seen as peripheral, but I couldn’t live without books and music. As writers, if we’re very lucky, a poem or story will resonate with a reader. Last May, I was reading Martin Heidegger’s Poetry, Language, Thought at the Banff Centre and these lines stayed with me.

                        The thinker says being
                       The poet names the holy.           

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Working with Jenna Butler on Ghosts Still Linger was a joy; she is both knowledgeable and supportive.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Be patient. Keep writing. Be persistent.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I write fiction and poetry at the same time. I might spend a week working on a short story or a chapter in my novel, but I’ll still jot down notes for poem ideas. Poetry is fun because I can write a first draft of a poem in an hour and then play with line breaks and language. Fiction is more time-consuming and structured. Virginia Woolf wrote that she spent a morning moving her characters from one room to another: the spatial aspect of fiction is a challenge but also interesting.

11 - 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 get up, have breakfast and my first cup of coffee, and then sit down at the computer. I listen to CBC or my own playlist. In the summer, I write for three hours most mornings. When I’m teaching, I can’t write every day, but I try to take one or two mornings a week for creative work.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

If I’m stalled, I take my notebook, walk to a park, sit under the trees, and write. Before the pandemic, I would go to a coffee shop, buy a latte, and write for an hour. Typical writer stereotype—I need to have my coffee to write.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Cinnamon buns and coffee.

14 - 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?

All of the above. I’m a bit scattered. Ghosts Still Linger has examples of ekphrastic poetry, poems inspired by musicians (John Mann), poems inspired by the Alberta landscape, and poems about natural disasters such as the Fort McMurray fire. I’ve even published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Early poetic influences were John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Earle Birney, e. e. cummings, Sylvia Plath, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I love the poetry of folk singers—Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Dar Williams, Simon and Garfunkel. Anne Simpson’s Light Falls Through You showed me what could be done with a long poem. “Usual Devices” uses punctuation to tell the story of the Trojan War and I was awed by her weaving of narrative poetry and form.

For fiction, I could list a hundred books, so I’ll just name a few on my bookcase: A. S. Byatt’s Possession, Margaret Atwood’s Robber Bride, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Marge Piercy’s He, She and It, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and Michael Ondaatje Anil’s Ghost and Runningin the Family.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I hope to travel to Egypt to sail up the Nile and see the Valley of the Dead.

17 - 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?

I would love to be a composer, but I don’t have the ear. I can’t imagine not writing. Even if my work was never published, I would still write. 

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I’ve always loved reading. When I was a teenager, my grandma said to me, “When you’re 80, they’ll find you on the couch with your nose in a book.” I’m not sure it was complimentary, but my reaction was “Wonderful!” I think I write because I want to be part of a community of people that gives so much joy to readers.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I’m reading Guillotine by Eduardo C. Corral, who was my mentor at the Banff Writing Studio in 2019. The book documents the experiences of people on the borderlands between the US and Mexico. His work is stunningly painful and haunting. I’ve quoted two lines from the book.

                        gently he hammers gold into a sentence           gently
                        the sentence enters me           

The last movie I watched in a theatre was just before the pandemic began. My husband and I saw Parasite at a small theatre in Banff. Brilliant movie, but also terrifying in its depiction of class conflict.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I just finished my third poetry manuscript, With Her Eyes Wide Open, which examines the multiple selves contained within the female body in art, literature, and twenty-first century media. I’m also working on a novel set in Tudor England.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Eve Joseph

Eve Joseph’s two books of poetry, The Startled Heart (Oolichan, 2004) and The Secret Signature of Things (Brick, 2010) were both nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Award. Her nonfiction book, In the Slender Margin was published by HarperCollins in 2014 and won the Hubert Evans award for nonfiction. The book was named one of the top 100 picks of the year by the Globe and Mail. Her latest book of poetry is Quarrels, new from Anvil Press.

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 was 51 when my first book of poetry came out. There’s something about seeing that number in print that is shocking! I don’t know what the impact would have been if I’d written my first book in my twenties. Perhaps it would have changed everything, perhaps nothing. To say it changed my life is too big a claim but it let me imagine another life. Similarities? Both my first and my most recent books move by a kind of illogical logic. They are both associative in nature and rely on leaps rather than narrative. I find myself reaching towards the surreal recently, interested in how, when we scratch the surface of our lives and stories, the foundation is often strange and marvelous.

2.     How did you come to poetry first, as opposed say, to fiction or non-fiction?

I wrote my mother a ten-page poem for her 80^th birthday and got hooked again. Worst poem imaginable. She loved it. I knew nothing about poetry other than I’d loved it when I was young and had written and then stopped for 30 years. I think poetry was dormant in me all that time. When it woke up it was hungry and consumed everything without discrimination.

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 write painstakingly slowly. Emphasis on “pain.” My initial drafts, both in poetry and nonfiction bear no resemblance to the final manuscript. I edit as I go along and rewrite numerous, numerous times.

4.     Where does a poem or work of prose 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?

Very much the former. I don’t know I’m working on a book until I’m deep into it. Writing nonfiction, for me, is akin to combing tangles out of one’s hair. I write until I’m snagged and then have to go back and work out the knots. My nonfiction book came out of an essay that I went back into and “blew up” - the way one blows up a balloon - until it was a book. I had to follow a line-of-thought as far as I could and then follow another. There is a point when I become aware that I am working on an actual book and that’s exciting.

5.     Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I dread readings beforehand and then, most often, enjoy them when I’m doing them. I’m always tense the day of a reading. It’s helped to separate myself from the work. My husband, Patrick Friesen, is an amazing reader. He’s taught me to give the words their due. When I’m reading, it’s about the work and not about me. That helps.

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?

It’s feels politically incorrect to say I do not have theoretical concerns behind my writing. But I don’t. At least not in the sense that I have a cause to champion or elucidate. I think all writers probably have a very few “themes” they return to, or circle, in their writing. My themes are probably grief and wonder.

7.     What do you see the current role of the writer being in the larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think the role of the writer is to be true to the work. Whatever happens after that is out of his/her hands.

8.     Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both?)

Absolutely essential. In some ways I trust myself more when I’m editing, and working with an editor, than when I’m writing. Writing is tentative, an exploration. When I’m editing I’m working with a known, trying to make it better. Reaching for what it is I actually want to say.

9.     What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard (not necessarily given to you directly?)

Years ago I read “Instructions to a Writer” by Jane Kenyon in which she said “ask yourself if the work passes the ‘so what’ test.” I apply this test to all of my writing. Funnily enough, when I looked up Kenyon’s instructions just now I couldn’t find the ‘so what’ test anywhere. I may have imagined it but it’s stood me in good stead nonetheless.

10.  How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to nonfiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I love moving between genres. Each genre contains the other…my nonfiction is guided by poetic thinking and my poetry contains the “seeds” of something larger. I have to say I am more and more drawn to prose. I love the room to range that prose provides. I am also really enjoying the containment of prose poetry. Charles Simic describes prose poetry as the place where the impulse for prose and the impulse for poetry collide. I like the collision that takes place…a little of each destroyed and something new created.

11.  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 don’t keep any kind of routine. I’d like to and I’ve tried but it never lasts long. I need to be alone to write so I go away three or four times a year for a few weeks at a time. I like the anonymity of being in a hotel in a city. A rhythm starts to build  when I’m on my own. A sort of a dance will begin between procrastination and finally falling into the work. I get up, go out for coffee, go for long walks, I don’t talk to anyone and over the period of a few days I begin to feel the “pull” towards working and will often end up writing 10-12 hours a day. I have to find my way towards that every time. Once I have found my way into something then I can work at home.

12.  When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

When writing eludes me I am convinced it will never return. I go through long periods of circling writing, trying to find my way in. Kenyon (again) has a six line poem called “Not Writing”

A wasp rises to its papery

nest under the eaves

where it daubs

at the gray shape,

but seems unable

to enter its own house.

I often feel like that wasp. Probably the hardest thing about writing is being locked out of one’s house.  My late brother-in-law, Jamie Reid, wrote that poetry came to him in short bursts, punctuated by long dry spells during which he ardently prepared for the moments when poetry was given to him again. That rings deeply true for me as well. The way back in often involves writing really bad poetry or prose in order to feel the point at which the writing takes over and brings me with it.

13.  What fragrance reminds you of home?

Hops. There was a brewery not far from our house in North Vancouver. Certain mornings, the air smelled like popcorn only a bit sweeter and sicklier.

14.  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?

The question makes me think of oral vs. written history. In the west, it makes sense that books come from books. There is a long history of influence and there’s an ongoing conversation that flows out of literature. In this way, books can and do come out of books. But they also come out of stories – the stories we grew up with, the stories we tell ourselves, the stories the world tells us. The oral tradition is the oldest form of storytelling that we have and I am deeply influenced by it.

15.  What other writers or writing are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

There are just so many wonderful writers. I go back to the classics I loved as a young woman at the same time I find new, and exciting, writers all the time. I’m often guided by the genre I’m working in. Most recently, working on prose poetry, I kept Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Tranströmer, Bly, Follain, Carsten René Nielsen, Rafferty, Simic and others close to me whenever I sat down to write.

16.  What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?

I’d like to go deeper into what I’m already doing.

17.  If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternatively, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Patrick believes that many artists are engaged in their second closest art form because their first is too close. He would have loved to have been a musician. I would have loved to have been an actress even though I have zero talent and was kicked out of acting class when I was 15. Still, it’s another life that I dream of.

18.  What made you write as opposed to doing something else?

Without wanting to sound pretentious, I’d say that writing chose me. I didn’t choose it. Writing invites me into the world in ways that nothing else does. I’m enormously grateful for it.

19.  What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

 Beloved by Toni Morrison and the New Zealand film The Dark Horse.

20.  What are you currently working on?

I am intrigued by short fiction and am playing around a little with that.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;