12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jess Taylor

Jess Taylor [photo credit: Angela Lewis] is a Tkaronto (Toronto) writer and poet. She is the author of Pauls, the title story of which won the 2013 Gold Fiction National Magazine Award, and Just Pervs, a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction. Her story, “Two Sex Addicts Fall in Love,” was longlisted for the 2018 Journey Prize. Play is her debut novel.

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

Pauls, an interconnected book of short stories, changed my life in a lot of ways. Having a book out gave me legitimacy that hadn’t been there before, especially being so young. I’d struggled financially before the book came out, and I strongly believe that having a published book helped me get more courses to teach, which gave me some financial stability that I needed.

Play, my debut novel that’s coming out in April [ed. note: this interview was conducted in March 2024], was extremely difficult to write in comparison to Pauls. Structurally, it’s a lot more complex and a bit darker. This time around, though, it’s my third book, so I feel a lot more self-assured and less nervous about its publication.

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

I actually write all three and had a couple of poetry chapbooks published (And Then Everyone… by Picture Window Press in 2013 and Never Stop by Anstruther Press in 2014) before my first story collection came out. I always say that I’ve been writing seriously since I was a kid, as I started to submit to local contests at the age of 12. Although I was writing stacks of poetry at the time, one of the first prizes I won was for a short story. I feel like that helped fuel my confidence in writing stories. Over the years, I’ve gravitated toward fiction a little more.

One of my favourite things about writing fiction is that it allows me to slip into other perspectives and characters. While occasionally I’ll write poetry as a character, my poetry more typically has a confessional, lyrical element where if the speaker is not myself, they are at least close to how I see the world. With fiction, it’s easier for me to invent complete people who think, feel, and perceive differently than I do.

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?

Usually, I’ll have an idea or line first that gives me the sense of a character. Next, I need to have some idea of a structure. If the voice is really strong, I might start to follow the voice of the character and see where it takes me, or if the story is based on an idea, I might need to let its energy and shape sit within me before I approach an actual draft. During that time, I might write bits and pieces, but I’m not approaching it with a strong sense of direction. Instead, it’s exploratory. For me, along with character, feeling is central to my work. So I need to also be chasing a feeling or have a particular vibe for a writing project.

The length of time a piece of writing takes depends on the project. My debut novel, Play, took me close to 10 years from the idea to publication, but it was a very difficult project structurally. The book has taken many different forms over the years before I finally got it into the shape it is now. I also worked with a developmental editor, Meg Storey, as I was struggling with finding the right structure. Play also has really heavy subject matter and I wanted to make sure that I was getting it right, not over-sensationalizing trauma. I think for me to do it well, I needed to give myself time to mature. I felt that while writing and trusted myself. I’m happy I didn’t push it out into the world without giving the book time to develop the way that it needed to so that it could be sensitive and thoughtful.

I just finished writing a solid draft of my second novel, and that book came to me while I was struggling with post-partum anxiety after the birth of my daughter. All of a sudden I had the voice of a character and with the character came this whole family, and I understood the family deeply without doing any exploratory work. It felt like I’d plucked them from the air. I started to write the book with naps and after about six months I plotted out Act 1 and then after another month, the remaining acts. From start to finish, that book took me two and half years, and that was with working full time and parenting in between. Probably it’ll be another year before it's ready for a publisher and then the process from there will be up to a publisher, but I think four years instead of 10 is awesome!

I know the next book could take another ten years though, and I’m okay with that, as it’s about putting the best work possible into the world and serving both the book and my audience in the best way I can. That can take time.

4 - Where does a 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?

A lot of the time I begin with a character. For my themed collections, I find that I’ll work on stories for a bit and then start to see if there is a cohesive pattern after about four stories or so. If I can find a pattern, then I know what the project is and I’ll only include stories that fit the project so that I can have a book of stories that feels like a cohesive book. I like having my collections feel like the stories work together – It’s interesting to me.

For novels, sometimes the grain might begin in a short story and sometimes, just from the scope, I can tell it’ll be a novel. That was the case with the novel I recently wrote, where as soon as I knew about this family, I was like, “Okay this is a novel and also there will be UFOs in it.” Haha.

For Play, it came out of the stories in Pauls. Paul (Paulina) is a character in three stories in the collection, and in “We Want Impossible Things,” she hints at a troubled past that she will not talk about. She was an interesting character for me because I’m an oversharer and am a little too straightforward, whereas Paul side-steps a lot in conversations and has a hard time trusting. I could relate to her pain, her shame, and her distrust, but our communication styles are different. I wondered, what would healing look like for this person? Would that type of communication, of hiding through communication, would it ever get blown open? Would she ever talk about her past? So I wrote into that, and it became Play.

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

I do enjoy readings and see it as part of the work of being a writer. For me, it’s another art form, and although it’s nerve-wracking, I like performing. For short stories, I find doing readings extremely helpful for a creative project, as when you’re halfway to three-quarters of the way through a reading, sometimes you can feel a real click moment where you feel in sync with the audience and you know they are listening; you have their attention. Then you know it’s a good story and one to keep in a collection. Other times, you can feel where you lose them or where their attention wavers. You might also have moments where you’re reading something and are like, Wow this is awful, but I didn’t know until I read this embarrassing line in front of someone else. That can help with cuts and edits.

I haven’t read too many novel excerpts aloud and find I usually default to reading a piece at the beginning. I think when I do my readings for Play, I am going to try to experiment with excerpts from different parts and see how it goes!

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 think a lot of the questions I have are about the ways people relate to each other. Throughout my life, I have often been perplexed by human behaviour: Why are people not truthful? Why do people hurt each other? Why do people communicate in different ways? So I write to try to make sense of these questions.

I’m also interested in how different people perceive the world. My favourite books are ones where a character’s perception of the world colours the entire book. I am trying to add books into the world that do that as well.

I also want to know why do we consider some things taboo and not others. Where does shame come from and how can we undo it? I think over time, I’ve come to believe that shame comes from feeling that your experiences are unspeakable, so I see writing as a way to unravel shame.

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 think it’s the writer’s job to shine a light on society and to give words to the things that are hard to articulate.

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

I really love it! I think it can feel a little vulnerable, especially if you have doubts about the project. Still, one thing I tell people when I give them feedback is that I wouldn’t spend time or go in-depth on something unless I respected the writer, so I try to receive feedback with that attitude as well. I think having someone who doesn’t live inside my head give me feedback on a project is essential. Both the developmental editor I worked with Meg Storey, and Bookhug’s editor Linda Pruessen gave so much to Play. It really wouldn’t have managed to be the book it is without them.

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

When I became a parent, someone once told me that everything is a phase so that when you’re experiencing a particular challenge, you might feel like you need to fight fight fight to fix whatever the issue is at the time, and then two weeks later, everything is different. There are new problems, but that old problem has blown over. I think that can be extended to life in general. I tend to sweat every little thing and expect things to get to an objective level of “good”, but really with art, parenting, work, and everything, the hard stuff passes, the good stuff passes, and you just have to go with it and ride it out.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel to picture books)? What do you see as the appeal?

I love moving between genres. I get bored easily, so one of my procrastination hacks is to always have a bunch of projects on the go so that when I get bored or stuck on one, I can work on something else. Multiple genres keep things even more fresh,

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’m trying to be a little more consistent this year, as typically I work more in binges since working full-time. Parenting definitely throws a wrench in the works (a cute, joy-inducing wrench), so I have very few slivers of time: Tuesday and Thursday mornings between 8 and 9 a.m., time on work lunches, and after toddler bedtime. So that’s my time for writing, crafts, reading, and cleaning (yeah right). So basically whatever my priorities are, I use those scraps of time toward that. Lately, I’ve been trying to write daily pages, whether they are reflections or snippets of books so that I’m writing each day. 

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

When things get stalled, I now see it as a sign to rest and fill my experience bank. You can’t write without any experiences, so it’s important to find ways to be present and recharge. I craft a lot and find doing things with my hands is a good balance for my writing. I also think that it allows me to still take creative risks, which then builds creative confidence.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

After it rains and you’re in a forest and kick leaves and you can smell the wet soil underneath in the air.

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 think every art form I come across influences my work. Even watching a show like Chef’s Table, I’ll be inspired by how the chefs see the world and their craft. Visual art is a big one, as visual art has always been a big part of my life.

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

I have some writers that I collaborate with and who read my work. Sofia Mostaghimi has been a big one. In recent years, Catriona Wright has become one of my main beta readers, and I love her work so much. I find her a really interesting writer as she publishes in both fiction and poetry.

The work of Elif Batuman is also really important to me, as I think it opened up some stylistic possibilities that I hadn’t thought about before.

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

In life or in writing? In writing, putting out a book of non-fiction or a book of poetry.

In life, um, EVERYTHING. My biggest hurdle is that I want to do too much. I have so many dreams.

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 actually want to go back to school to be an occupational therapist but will continue to write books.

If writing had not been part of my life, I would have focused on the sciences and gone into wildlife biology and conservation.

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

That’s a really interesting question, especially since I’m drawn to so many art forms. In my youth, I saw other art forms (like songwriting and art) as a way to build on my writing. I went to an arts high school, and even in the audition for visual arts, I told them, “I want to be a writer and I think visual arts will help me describe the world.” I’m not sure what made writing capture me. I really loved books and stories, and, like many, found friendship and escape within them. I also was drawn to the stories of my family: tales my parents would tell me about their lives and the people they knew. In some ways, I became the storykeeper of the family as a child, which is funny now because I have no interest in family lore and my brother is meticulously cataloguing it and is now the family historian.

My brother also gave me a lot of encouragement to focus on writing as my art form as well. We were six and seven and working on comic books in the backyard, and I moaned about how much better his cartoons were. He told me, “But what you’re great at is the stories.” He gave me the same feedback as a songwriter when we were in a band together. He always saw my writing ability as my biggest strength, and as my first artistic collaborator, I took his opinion very seriously.

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

The last book that wowed me was probably Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter. I’m still thinking about that book, and it did so many interesting things stylistically. For film, I really loved Everything Everywhere All At Once.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I just finished a good draft of my second novel, Experiencer. I also have a story about my obsession with beads gathering in fragments and thoughts. I’m always working on way too many projects until I focus, so I also have a non-fiction manuscript about my abdomen; a long poem about the month of July; and a weird book of stories coming into existence slowly.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Adam Clay, Circle Back: poems

My review of Southern Mississippi poet, editor and critic Adam Clay's latest, Circle Back: poems (Minneapolis MN: Milkweed Editions, 2024), is now online at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. You can see my review of his prior collection, To Make Room for the Sea (Milkweed Editions, 2020), here.

Dawn Macdonald, Northerny

 

A BORING POEM

I’m not so interested in writing
any Northern/Nature/Yukoner poems about the Northern Lights and
my trusty-sled-dog-see-your-breath-adventure but all my poems turn
out to have animals in them because that’s where I’m

and I do share 50% of my DNA with a banana

so I don’t want to hear any more about how I’m
bad at sharing just because I’m an only child
and everybody’s bad at assumptions

well at the end of the day I was born
here at the end of the day in a thunder
storm of anesthesia and incubation

an animal purred into that room, nipped
a neat umbilical, wolfed
my head right out of the womb.   that’s its breath

on the window page

      blurring

                              it makes a real hot meat view

From Whitehorse, Yukon poet Dawn Macdonald comes the full-length debut Northerny (University of Alberta Press, 2024), a collection set in and responding to her particular landscape, place and experience of what the rest of us in the lower parts of Canada refer to as the north. “Fireweed is edible and best before / the bloom.” she writes, as part of the poem “ROADSIDE WILDFLOWERS OF THE NORTHWEST,” “Pigweed, a sort of spinach. / Kinnikinnick, we called it / honeysuckle. There’s something else called / honeysuckle. We’d call it what / we want.” As she highlit during her launch a few weeks prior, the poems here refuse the easy depictions and descriptions, and even work to correct outside narratives on and around a place she knows intimately, but I would suggest she offers these elements not as foreground but as an underlay, beneath her depictions and observations, writing her own line across such intimate backdrop. “growth is its own / value proposition.” she writes, as part of the poem “INCREASE,” “love’s supposed / to be automatic / like transmission.”

Macdonald’s poems flash light, offering intrigues of clarity, depth of lyric intrigue across narratives that depict and document a particular kind of angled roughness and wilderness. “One day the wind will have my heart, I guess,” she writes, as part of the poem “WALKING THE LONG LOOP,” “flash fried and let fly from the jar of ash, / assuming such litter is permitted, and you’re there / to flip that lid. / I could do worse than to lodge, / even the barest bonescrap, atop / a nodule of pine. Anything / with sap in it, a line / to the nearest star.”Playing off Emily Dickinson, her opening poem, “FIRST THINGS,” hold to the small moments of chickens and broken eggs, writing: “Riddle wrapped up inside, / cased, laid, brooded, clucked upon, clean // as a whistle. An egg’s / a thing / with features, but, order / of operations applies – a flashlight shone clean / through the inside / illuminates outline, diagram, edges blown: [.]”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Pamela Porter

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Pamela Porter immigrated to Canada in 1994, where she joined workshops with Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier. Patrick Lane called her "a poet to be grateful for." Her work has earned many accolades, including the inaugural Gwendolyn MacEwan Poetry Prize, the Malahat Review's 50th Anniversary Poetry Prize, the Our Times Poetry Award for political poetry,  the FreeFall Magazine Poetry Award, the Prism International Grand Prize in Poetry, the Vallum Magazine Poem of the Year Award, as well as the Raymond Souster and Pat Lowther Award shortlists. Her novel in verse, The Crazy Man, won the Governor General's Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award and other prizes. Both The Crazy Man and her later novel, I'll Be Watching, are required reading in schools and colleges across Canada and the U.S. Pamela lives on a farm near Sidney, B.C., with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs and cats.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book completely changed my life. I was born in the US and studied poetry and prose writing  in undergraduate school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I even changed universities in order to be able to take the poetry writing class; I managed to do that during Christmas break one year. After undergraduate school, I was accepted to the University of Montana in order to take Richard Hugo's workshops in Missoula. But after graduation, I was on my own. I was born and grew up in the US and only came to Canada because my father in-law was in his nineties and wanted to retire from the business of growing wheat and other crops on the prairie land in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and my husband, and the only male son in the family, was the only one who might have any interest at all in Canadian farming. At the time, we lived in Montana, on the east side of the Rockies in a very fertile valley; as well, a river cascaded down river right beside our house and flowed into a lovely spot where beavers made their dams and even chewed down a few thin trees on our land to make their homes. We had very young children at the time and were happy where we lived. The only drawback as I saw it was that we would need to move to Canada in order for Rob to take on the farm business. Rob, my husband, told me of my father in-law's request, and asked that we think about the idea of moving to Canada.
My earliest experience of Canada took place when world's fairs were popular at the time and I goaded my family to drive us to San Antonio where there was going to be an abbreviated world's fair. When we arrived to the fair, I continued to nudge my family to visit the Canadian pavilion where, upon entry, cold air was blown at you on arrival and it was really dark inside, though the many photographs of Canada's beauty were spread along the walls. That about summed up what I knew about Canada. I was ten. Nonetheless, Rob and I thought seriously of moving north.

We had a Metis friend named Georgia who was looking for work and we were overwhelmed with the babies. We hired Georgia to help us with cooking and cleaning, and in return, she told us about her childhood.

Georgia lived in northwest Montana with her grandparents on a ranch and the family lived a hardscrabble life of poverty. A number of dams had been built on the east side of the Rockies, dams that were built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930's, and all the dams were built from wood. One year while Georgia was still living with her grandparents, a storm came up and overwhelmed the area with rain. Well, all those dams burst at the same time. There was discrimination from the officials brought the flooded folks to rescue centers, who were tasked with separating the white folks from the First Nations. And slowly, the rebuilding.

That was my first attempt to write a novel. Of course, it needed to be a book my children could hear me read to them, and later, read to themselves.

I'd had rejection after rejection for so many years, I didn't know if this story, Sky, would be just another rejection. But an editor at Groundwood Books in Toronto, wrote back to me and said that the story had promise, but "it needs work," they said. I said that I was willing to do the work. How to start? We'll help you, they said. So I worked on Sky, the book, for weeks. The editors sent me more work. I did the work. One day I got a call from Groundwood Books to say that they were pleased with my edits and the board had decided to publish the book.

I held myself together enough to be able to thank the person on the other end of the phone; I hung up, sat down in a chair, and sobbed. I counted up how many years I had been working to create something that would be published rather than rejected. I counted that I had been working 25 years to see one of my stories published as a novel for young readers.

Once Sky was accepted for publication, I went to work on a book in free verse poetry, about a girl in Saskatchewan who suffers a catastrophic farming accident which alters her life, and how she works to recover from her life-long disability. As I thought about what I wanted to write, characters would come to me, as though each one sat beside me one by one and introduced themselves. I felt the presence of a large man sitting beside me, and quietly, I asked the presence his name. He said his name was Angus. That began the story The Crazy Man, over which I spent a year writing, and which later won the Governor General's Award for literature for young people. I still get cards and letters from readers about The Crazy Man and how some people say they keep the book on their bedside table and read from it their favourite parts.

I was having lunch with Patrick Lane some years ago, and he mentioned that it was as though the characters came across a kind of bridge in order to present themselves as part of the story. I said I had had a similar experience.

I wrote another book in free verse about WWII, titled I'll Be Watching which is read by students in high schools when teaching the second world war.

I came to fiction first because I wanted to tell Georgia's story. I came to poetry as a novel because I discovered from talking with students in schools that boys in particular will read a book in which there is a lot of white space on the page and often boys find reading such a book to be a relief and one they can enjoy rather that be overwhelmed by pages and pages filled with words. I have to say though, that for me, poetry really does come first for me.

As a child, I loved listening to to rhyming poetry, and as I grew up I looked for more books of poetry that would inspire me to write. I'm also a pianist, so music, and the music of words are important to me. The lyric for me is important, particularly in poetry. My father once gifted my mother with the Complete Poems of Robert Frost. One day when I was about 15, I finally drew up the courage to stand on a chair and take down that book, and I'd sit on the floor of my bedroom and read Frost's poems. I'd memorize many of them as I walked to school, though once I got to "Out, Out--" well, I didn't know what to do with that one, though over the years I realized what poetry can be in its many iterations.

How long does it take to start a writing project? Well, it depends on whether I see a novel in free verse or a poem of 15-30 lines. Sometimes the poem of 30 lines is more difficult because one may "worry the poem to death" when the poem is as good as it's going to get. Recently I uncovered the start of a poem and decided it just needed a little more attention. Sometimes first drafts appear fairly finished, though others may take much more time to come upon what the poet is working toward -- it is music that is needed, or some deft editing?

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I came to fiction first when I wrote Sky, because I wanted to show readers, especially young readers the rough lives Georgia's family experienced in the flood: the discrimination, the poverty, so that young readers will have a glimpse into another person's poverty and struggle.

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?
It really depends on how much material you want to include in your writing project, whether prose is best -- and it can be a prose poem if that seems to be the way your brain is working, or it can open up to a story or a novel in prose. If the prose is working well, keep going. Some writers will present a piece of prose and then include a poem if it seems appropriate.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction 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?
Usually I want to start with a poem or several, or a whole book of poems. Two people in my life have passed fairly recently, so I have been writing poems about them and about their lives. That's not to say that one can't include prose poems or prose in conjunction with poetry, as long as there is a balance in the project.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy doing readings, because if I may say so, I'm a very good reader to an audience. I was fortunate in middle school in that I had an excellent speech teacher, who taught us how to create space when speaking, and how to provide emphasis when needed and to speak in a way that allows listeners to take in everything you want to say.  I'm forever trying to get a speaker to learn how to use a microphone properly so that the audience will be able to understand all that is said.

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?
Yes, I want readers/listeners to hear clearly what a poem or paragraph or haiku is about, and how can the listener/reader best understand the poem or prose piece? In that manner, we need to speak clearly and naturally so that the information being delivered is clear.

The questions I want to answer in my work are those that are of significant importance: how should we live so that others can live fully as well? How can we write in a way that helps others to see the critical questions which we as a society need to answer? How can we be awake to those questions so that we can begin to live toward the answers? There is so much destruction and pain and poverty in many parts of the world -- how can we begin to discover the answers?

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 believe the role of the writer is to ask the questions which the society at large needs to confront.

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

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Let another person whom you trust look through your work and give suggestions if needed.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to novels)? What do you see as the appeal?
I tend to stick with poetry though recently I've been writing prose poems which is a kind of hybrid. One doesn't get the music of the lines as much as lined poetry, but it holds onto the visual elements, I think.

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?
Well, I have a writing group who keep me going and asking questions of the poems, or prose, which is always interesting.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I look for books of poetry or of prose poems for inspiration.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The pinon scent of New Mexico, where I was born.

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?
Visual art influences me, particularly Van Gogh.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Music, whether written or sung or played on instruments.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
A book of poems with paintings: whose, I'm not sure.

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?
Probably, a teacher, though having to grade papers would be the end of me, I think.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I wanted music in my life, and colour, and art.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Esi Edugyan's Washington Black.

20 - What are you currently working on?
a collection of prose poems.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;