12 or 20 (second series) questions with Christian Wessels

Christian Wessels is a poet and critic. He is the author of Who Follow the Gleam (University of Massachusetts Press, April 2026), winner of the Juniper Prize in Poetry. His poetry has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, and Harvard Review Online, among other journals; his criticism has appeared in Literary Imagination, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Cleveland Review of Books. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Rochester, from which he received his PhD in English. He splits his time between New York and the Black Forest, Germany.

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

I’m not sure I ever set out to be a writer in the first place, in the sense that I would have selected between genres. In my second semester of college I took a comparative literature course in which we studied the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. I remember reading his poem “Seaward” in translation and thinking it’s magic that language can move like this; it made sense to me intuitively, and by necessity at the time I wanted to foster that intuition. So it didn’t feel like a choice, more a compulsion.

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?

Starting a project seems easy enough to me—until I inevitably realize that the framework of a “project” has led to several false starts. Now I’m trying less to think about a poem in sequence and more about what’s immediately on the page. I revise slowly, making small changes until finally cutting more substantial portions of a poem. I fill up notebooks with asides and scribbles in the meantime.

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

I know some poets have strong feelings about readings. I attend far more readings than I give. I love getting dinner with writers after readings.

I feel more neutral, I guess. I enjoy readings when they’re good, and I enjoy giving readings when I can perform enthusiastically. It’s always useful to read your poems aloud, of course, to hear in a different context how a poem moves. In that sense giving a bad reading is also very useful.

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

Oh, there are many ways to answer this. Let me share a goofy, revealing anecdote. I remember working on my MFA thesis at Boston University, advised by Dan Chiasson. I was twenty-one and a little too self-serious, a common problem for writers starting out, as Berryman described: a way to propel oneself into work that is thankless by some measures. Dan complimented the work, but then reflecting on the temperament of the poems (and my temperament in the workshop), he said something like, “in the spirit of friendship, my best advice for you is to chill out.”

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

Writing criticism is a way to keep myself busy when I’m not writing poetry. I do love writing about poems and poets—as a practice of attempting precise formal observation—though I consider myself a poet above all else. This has made it very easy to switch between genres.

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?

Because I have a young daughter, my day starts early; I try to get started at least a few hours before she’s out of bed. I only write poems in the early morning. Prose is for the afternoon. I wouldn’t say I keep a particular routine, though: between teaching, my spouse’s academic schedule, my daughter’s various dates and activities, I write when there’s time. And I’m very grateful to Tanja for building into her own schedule time for me to focus on poetry.

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

Poems come in bursts: I write a lot over a short period of time, then spend several months revising. This is how it’s always been for me, so I trust that, at some point in the future, I’ll have another intense phase of writing. In the between periods, I write criticism and, of course, I teach: it’s hard to overstate how much teaching has impacted my work, guiding these periods of silence. I’ve had brilliant students, and our conversations challenge and reinforce what I love about poetry.

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?

Oh, there’s so much. I try to disappear a little bit when it comes to taste. I have a large collection of music and love going deep into particular labels and catalogues. I’m listening to everything Billie Holiday right now. Also, in Who Follow the Gleam, there are a few poems indebted to particular films. I Married a Witch from 1942, one of my favorites, and two of Herzog’s, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and a made-for-tv documentary, Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices, about the sixteenth-century Italian composer. I’m lucky enough to be married to a brilliant film and television scholar, and luckier still that we have very different preferences. 

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

Finish Twin Peaks. Fall asleep in the Cologne Cathedral. Ride a horse.

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 come from a family of landscapers and arborists on Long Island. My siblings and cousins all worked (or still work) in the trade. It’s hard to imagine a life without poetry where I didn’t end up spraying pesticides on boxwoods. I would have lost my job by now though. I did it for a few summers and couldn’t quite keep up with the pace. I was always distracted.

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

After her death, I read Ellen Bryant Voigt’s Kyrie, which is a provocative, formally complicated book of sonnets that I will revisit. 

The last film I remember truly loving was The Haunting from 1963 – the famous adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. 

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’ve finished a second manuscript of poems. I’m always working on reviews. I have a few essays kicking around. I’m translating into English some poems by Friedrich Hölderlin. I’m learning German with my daughter. I’m trying to figure out if I have hobbies.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

John McAuley (1947-2026)

Sad to hear, from Stephen Morrissey, that Vehicule poet John McAuley has died; author of the classic Nothing Ever Happens in Pointe-Claire, published by Vehicule Press in 1977. Through the 1970s and into the 80s and beyond, McAuley was one of the self-described Vehicule Poets--alongside Ken Norris, Endre Farkas, Stephen Morrissey, Claudia Lapp, Artie Gold (1947-2007) [see my obituary for him here] and Tom Konyves--a loose cluster of upstart poets in Montreal experimenting with sound, visuals and lyric, and forging relationships with literary communities in Toronto and Vancouver, including around Coach House Books and Talonbooks. His last outing, as far as I'm aware, was his inclusion in the anthology The Vehicule Poets Now (2004).

John William Gordon McAuley Obituary

John William Gordon McAuley passed away peacefully in Montreal on February 13, 2026. Born in 1947 in Montreal, John was the eldest son of Charles Gordon McAuley and Jacquelin Louise Rollit. He is survived by his brothers Charles, David, and Michael. John was predeceased by his loving partner of 40 years Ritva Seppanen. He will be missed by Ritva's son Christopher Nicholson and his wife Helene of Medicine Hat, Alberta, as well as Ritva's grandchildren Emma and Dylan Nicholson. John received his B.A. and M.A. from Sir George Williams University. He taught at Concordia University in the English Department from 1978-2018. In addition to teaching, John was one the Vehicule Poets in Montreal and published five books of poetry. The family is very grateful to all the medical staff at the Montreal General Hospital and the Royal Victoria Hospital who cared for John in the last two months of his life. There will be a private interment for family only. Donations to the Alzheimer Society of Canada would be greatly appreciated.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike [photo credit: Layne McKenna] is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and the 2025-2026 Wayne O. McCready Emerging Fellow at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, Canada and the winner of the 2025 African Literature Association’s Best Book Award (Creative Writing). He is the author of literary works, such as there’s more (2023), Double Wahala, Double Trouble (2021), Wish Maker (2021/2025), and a co-editor of Please Don’t Interrupt (2025) and Wreaths for a Wayfarer (2020), and the academic monograph, Masculinity in Nigerian Fiction: Receptivity and Gender, Edinburgh University Press (2025). His latest poetry book, We Survived Until We Could Live, is out on April 15, 2026 from the University of Calgary 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?

Uche: My first book, Dark through the Delta, was inspired by oil exploitation in the Niger Delta and the environmental devastation that followed. Writing that book convinced me of literature’s power to spotlight various forms of plunder of both human and nonhuman worlds. My most recent book, We Survived Until We Could Live, is different, in tone and theme. It’s less ecological and much more intimate and explores postwar memory, historical and family traumas, domestic violence, grief, healing, and love. In some way, both books are still very much about devastation. While Dark through the Delta examines the devastation caused by an oil behemoth and its effects on both human and nonhuman life, We Survived Until We Could Live reveals the devastation of war and its toll on human lives and relationships. I think this book is my most ambitious and certainly my most vulnerable. I couldn’t have written it without the generous support of the entire team at the University of Calgary Press.

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

Uche: I came to poetry by accident, in my late uncle’s house – a biochemist, but an avid reader of literature. He had a storage full of books, including British and Roman poets and playwrights. One day, I went to the storage to get something and stumbled upon a small book, Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I opened it almost at random, and the rhyme scheme, its imagery, and its lyric intensity captivated me. It’s funny, because before that, I’d never been particularly interested in literature at high school. That Shakespearean moment, or rather, encounter, is what really started me writing poetry.

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?

Uche: It usually takes me a while because I always find it hard to start any project. But once I manage to begin, I write almost compulsively until the project is done. Usually, the process can drag on for weeks or even months, especially since I sometimes procrastinate. There are moments when the writing comes quickly and with vigour, and then there are other times when it feels slow and quite frustrating. I write many clunky drafts – so many that I often reach a point where I want to abandon the whole thing and start something entirely new. But eventually, somehow, the draft begins to look appealing. That’s when the rhapsody takes over.

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?

Uche: There isn’t a single way a poem or a piece of fiction begins for me. Sometimes an idea comes from a conversation, something in the news, or from reading someone else’s poetry or fiction. Other times it starts much more quietly, maybe an image, a passing thought, a bird in the sky, or a subject I’m trying to understand. There are also times when I’m trying to imagine someone else’s reality or identify with their struggle, so I consider writing a poem or a story about that. And when I’m working toward a book, I usually carry a loose narrative in my mind. Having that frame helps me craft individual poems that echo one another.

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

Uche: I enjoy doing readings every now and then, since they foster literary community and bring the author closer to their readers, but I don’t love travelling too far from my family.

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?

Uche: For me, the questions always come back to how we live with the constant presence of political, economic, social, and environmental violence, and what it means to live with others in a world shaped by colonial modernity and its afterlives, a world continually damaged by rapacious capitalism and its impact on the planet.

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?

Uche: I can only speak for myself, not for other writers. My last poetry book, there’s more, was about migrant struggles and precarity, and what it meant to be an African immigrant in the West. My latest book reveals the damage war inflicts on families and why we need to consider the suffering of those who survive it. So, I think it’s important to keep illuminating the human suffering that exists among us. Also, I try to leave space for hope: for what might still be possible, even amid brutality and terror.

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

Uche: Editors are a gift to any writer, and I’ve been fortunate not to have had to work with a difficult editor. Over the years, I’ve worked with Helen Hajnoczky, Juleus Ghunta, Peter Norman, Kara Toews, Richard Harrison, Gary Barwin, and Kimmy Beach on various projects, and they’ve all been incredibly generous and supportive.

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

Uche: Find delight in the ordinary: it has a way of surprising you with extraordinary moments. I can’t even remember who first told me that, but it’s stayed with me. And I like this advice from James Baldwin about saying, Yes to life even amid all the world’s terribleness.

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

Uche: It’s challenging, but it’s a good kind of challenge. There are times when I want to write prose and all that comes to me is a poem, and I must wrestle with either genre. And then other times, all I want to do is simply work on a poem, and prose tugs at me.

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?

Uche: It would be nice to have a set period each day dedicated to writing. Anyhow, I try to write in the morning and late at night, only if I still have any energy left after teaching, supervision, committee work, parenting, and the everyday demands of school runs.

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

Uche: I like taking long walks in my neighbourhood, going up Nose Hill, or just listening to nature music.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Uche: The smell of ripe mangoes. The aroma of freshly baked meat pies.

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?

Uche: That’s mostly true for me. I find inspiration from nature, music, books, science, or visual art – and sometimes on the train.

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

Uche: There are so many writers and works that have shaped–and continue to shape–my creative writing. Specifically, I want to highlight some of the thinkers who have enriched my approach to literary and cultural scholarship: Chinua Achebe, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Emmanuel Levinas, Sara Ahmed, Kevin Quashie, Lee Maracle, Chielozona Eze, Rinaldo Walcott, Judith Butler, Christina Sharpe, Richard Wagamese, Jennifer C. Nash, and Max Wyman.

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

Uche: I would like to skydive or bungee jump, but I’m not sure I am brave enough. 

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?

Uche: In another universe, I could have been a chef. Or a soccer player.

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

Uche: In the 1990s, many Nigerian writers used their work to oppose military regimes. When I began writing poetry and short stories playfully during my undergraduate years, I, too, wanted to speak out against the government. Later, in the 2000s, after I had long graduated, I took my writing more seriously to draw attention to the dangers of tyranny and the struggles of citizens.

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

Uche: Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes is an incredible mosaic of Black life, capturing both its struggles and its joys. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a great film! I generally enjoy horror films, but this one stands out. Coogler reimagines the genre in a richly witty manner to confront historical trauma in the U.S. What I appreciate even more, though, is how it affirms Black joy, intimacy, music, and community, even in the face of pervasive death.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Uche: Right now, I just want to spend some time with the books I’ve collected over the last three summers and not take on any major projects. My goal is to get through at least half of them.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

 

new from above/ground press: Wilkins, Maloukis, van Vliet, Cone/Lipschutz, Bach, Sparrow, Macdonald, Kennedy, Sparling, Burgoyne, Wells, Levy + Sharp, Touch the Donkey #48 + a bilingual anthol eds. O'Meara/Sylvain,

Towards A Poetry Of <something> Tentative / Notes from a stalled art project, Grant Wilkins $6 ; TWO, Rose Maloukis $6 ; inventions, Robert van Vliet $6 ; AN ACCELERATION & A CALM / A SHEAF BY THE LATE P. M. SAMSON / COMMENTARY BY BARNARD SWALLOW, A SHEAF BY THE LATE P. M. SAMSON, COMMENTARY BY BARNARD SWALLOW, devised by Jon Cone and K.Lipschutz $6 ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], forty-eighth issue $8 : Words and Image / Entre mots et images, eds./dir. David O’Meara and/et Véronique Sylvain, translations by/traductions de Myriam Legault-Beauregard $10 ; EVAD, Glenn Bach $6 ; SPECTACLE/SPECTATOR, Noah Sparrow $6 ; Weeds of Canada, Dawn Macdonald $6 ; LONG SPEECH FROM MY FATHER AS MY FATHER AS WU TAO TZU ET AL, Jake Kennedy $6 ; 310 Consecutive Life Sentences, Ken Sparling $6 ; AN ACCURATE CIGARETTE: Poetry & Prompts, Sarah Burgoyne $6 ; The Unknotter, Christina Wells $6 ; Vast Spaces, John Levy $6 ; Now When, A Poem, Travis Sharp $6 ;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January-March 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy of each

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button (above). See the prior list of recent titles here, scroll down here to see a further list of various backlist titles, or click on any of the extensive list of names on the sidebar (many, many things are still in print).

keep an eye on the above/ground press blog for author interviews, new writing, reviews, upcoming readings and tons of other material; and you know above/ground press has a substack now? sign up (for free!) for announcements, and even new features! catch recent/forthcoming interviews with ryan fitzpatrick, Travis Sharp, Shelly Harder, Sarah Burgoyne, John Levy, Misha Solomon, Guy Birchard, Rose Maloukis, Pearl Pirie, N.W. Lea, Guy Birchard, Jill Stengal, Lillian Nećakov, Cary Fagan, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Ken Norris, Michael Sikkema, Ben Ladouceur, Nathanael O'Reilly, Micah Ballard, Lydia Unsworth, Amanda Earl, Buck Downs, russell carisse etc.

With forthcoming chapbooks by: Dag T. Straumsvåg, Sarah Burgoyne and Clara Yeager, ryan fitzpatrick, Stuart Ross and Jason Camlot, Misha Solomon, Stephanie Bolster, Susan Rudy, Shelly Harder, rob mclennan, David Phillips, Mrityunjay Mohan and probably others! (yes: others,

as well as a new issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club, just in time for this month's 16th annual VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival!

AND 2026 SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE NOW AVAILABLE (but you probably already know that,

Gion Davis, Designated Stranger

You can actually run away. You are allowed to go, at least for a little while. You can drive all over the place and end up in California and eat fried cod in Fort Bragg and half-joke about moving there even though you know you won’t because small towns you can only get to by wild little highways aren’t really your thing anymore.

 

You are allowed to have the most perfect day you can remember, even though you are tired from sleeping on an inflatable mattress in some stranger’s living room. It’ll be a day where it doesn’t matter than you are trans, that you are newly twenty-eight, that you are waiting on the hospital bill from your boyfriend having to go to the ER with COVID after you lost your insurance because you quit your job three weeks ago to run off into the country.

 

It won’t matter that you’re a poet standing under some giant redwoods and wondering if they ever have perfect days and what those days are like. Maybe just the right amount of sun, just the right amount of rain, just the right amount of passing nutrients back and forth to one another underground in secret. It’s hard to imagine anything going wrong for them. I stood in the burned-out heart of a tree that was still healthy and enormous everywhere except right at the bottom in the middle which was empty. You could have lived inside it. Maybe someone has. (“The Thing No One Wants You to Know”)

Following his full-length debut, Too Much (Ghost Peach Press, 2022), comes Denver, Colorado-based poet Gion Davis’ latest, the collection Designated Stranger (Logan UT: Thirdhand Books, 2026). “there are parts of me / I will never see / there are parts / of Louisiana / that are underwater,” he writes, as part of the poem “Simple Divorces.” There’s a restlessness to the poems in this collection, one that emerges from a narrator seeking out their place; wandering, for the sake of seeking somewhere to settle, or even feel comfortable, perhaps, working to articulate a wandering period of youth, and the current realities of being transgender and poor in America. “You can’t imagine it: the smell drying onto cardboard & into an old / Red wheelbarrow full of stomachs heavier & whiter than the moon.” begins the poem “Nothing’s Hanging Out Going to Whole Foods,” “They do not / Do that where you are from. Where you are from, a velvet rope runs the circumference / Of death & you stood in line with a ticket just to touch it.”

As the press release offers, the book “spans years, states, genders, and climates as it confronts the concurrent apocalypses of being trans and poor in America,” as Davis offers poems that are smart and exploratory, exhausted and declarative, utilizing a sharp use of both the lyric sentence and the line-break, prose poems and accumulated phrases. “I wanted to live / in this junk drawer / of a city with you / among the pyramids,” begins the poem “Goddamn Universe,” “and piles of ripped up / rebar like wads of hair / from a brittle brush / beside the Mississippi.” Or, as the poem “How to Be a Good Man (If Conditions Are / Better to Be a Wildfire)” ends: “Wear a shirt that is nonthreatening. / Try on that pair of Wranglers / again. Maybe they’ll fit you / if you surprise them. / Come home to one person / in your bed every night / and stay who you are / for the rest of your life.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Misha Solomon

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has twice appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and in journals across Canada. He is a student in Concordia's Interdisciplinary PhD program. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, appears with Brick Books in March 2026, and his third chapbook, Misha Solomon's Biodôme: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster, follows with above/ground press in April 2026.

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

My first chapbook, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020), made me feel like I was actually a poet. It changed my life in that it opened up the possibility of pursuing poetry in a real and public way. My upcoming first full-length book, My Great-Grandfather Dance Ballet (Brick Books, 2026), feels different from FLORALS in that it has a strong central concept/narrative. But it also feels like a natural extension of some of the things I’ve been exploring since before FLORALS came out, a sort of closing of this first long chapter of my poetic “journey.”

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

I happened to take a Quebec Writers’ Federation poetry workshop taught by Derek Webster and just liked it. I had been taking QWF prose workshops for a few years, just as a hobby, but it wasn’t until the poetry workshop that I found something I felt like I could really do. The contained, brief nature of a poem (or at least of the poems I wrote back then) was appealing to me. They were things both with and without rules, and I like applying structure to creativity and creativity to structure.

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’m not sure how long it takes me to start a project. Sometimes projects starts before I know they’ve started. My writing comes quickly and first drafts are reasonably close to final drafts, for me. I edit, of course, but I write quickly and when I write a poem I write to completion. I think my poems can sometimes trick me into thinking they’re done because I am good at having a beginning, middle, and end all figured it out, so that’s why I like to write in some sort of community to get early feedback.

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?

Often poems begin with a prompt of some kind, maybe one I’ve been given or one I’ve given myself. Sometimes they come out of just an idea, a feeling, a thesis, but that’s usually once I already have a project on the go. In the past I’ve been an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, but these days I’m more focused on working on a “book” right away.

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

Public readings are an essential part of my creative process. I love them. I would do them all the time. They are my favourite part of being a poet. I write to an audience.

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! Or at least I hope so! In My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, I think my editor, Leah Horlick, really nailed the questions I was asking in the back cover copy she kindly wrote for the book: "What if the queer ancestor you always wondered about had really existed—and could speak to you across all time? When there’s only one document to be found in the archive, can our misheard or half-remembered family stories be enough?” In my new work, I’m focused on questions of (non-)reproduction, of what it means to be an animal, of what it means to be a human with an animal in your house.

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?

Writers certainly have a role. Different writers have different roles. I think, at my core, I see myself as an entertainer? That sounds vaudevillian, song-and-dance-y, but what I mean is that I want my writing (or my performances of my writing) to provide distraction and engagement. I want people to enjoy my writing, even if I also want my writing to shift a political consciousness or evoke negative emotions.

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

I love working with an outside editor. I had an incredible experience working with Leah Horlick on this book. I don’t find it difficult. I really enjoy seeing how my work is landing for someone else. In my non-poetic employment, I give notes to screenwriters, so I’ve very used to the process, and it’s fun to be on the other side of it.

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

What does it say about me that I cannot for the life of me think of an answer to this question?

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

I haven’t really moved between genres in a public-facing way yet. My current project involves a lot more prose and lyric essay and academic writing, and the shift has been fluid. It has felt like the right time, especially since so much of my poetry is prose-y already. The appeal for me is the ability to dig further into ideas in a single work. There’s also the appeal of the potential of a wider audience, since readers are for some reason more “comfortable” with prose than with poetry.

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 do not have a writing routine of any kind. A typical day begins with my fiancé, Guillaume, and my dog, Mugcake.

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

Frank O’Hara. And Mugcake.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Of my current home? Mugcake. A mostly pleasing doggy odour.

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’m influenced by science. My BA is in biological anthropology, and I grew up wanting to be a zoologist. My current work is interdisciplinary and heavily influenced by thinking about primates, biological reproduction, animal studies, etc. In My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, I was influenced by ballet, which isn’t something I knew (or know) very much about, but I’ve always been interested in it and loved being able to research it and write about it. There are also a few ekphrastic poems about the art in my home, so I suppose I am influenced by visual art on occasion.

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

Oh wow. So many! I am fortunate to have many writer friends. Allegra Kaplan, a fantastic Victoria-based poet and friend, recently said something about how so much of my poetics is about community, which I thought was a very nice way of putting it. Sarah Burgoyne, my poetry fairy godmother, has been a fundamental source of inspiration, support, encouragement, and friendship. Stephanie Bolster, my MA and PhD thesis supervisor, whose work (especially her zoo-related work) has been an inspiration (stay tuned for a new above/ground press chapbook…). My generative writing group (currently mostly on pause), with André Babyn, Sasha Manoli, and (previously) Lauren Peat. My current writing/workshop group in Montreal, with Robin Durnford, Madelaine Caritas Longman, Domenica Martinello, Melanie Power, Sarah Wolfson (we miss you, Patrick O’Reilly and Carlos Pittella!). Other poetry mentors/teachers I’ve had over the years, including Liz Howard, Sina Queyras, Lisa Richter, and Danez Smith. I could go on and on, truly. And I haven’t even gotten to poetic inspirations like Frank O’Hara.

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

There are lots of things I haven’t done that I’d like to do, but I feel like I can’t quite put them into words. That’s not true — I just don’t want to put them into words, for fear of their not happening.

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?

If I hadn’t been a writer, I would have surely continued working full-time in scripted television development, which I still do as a freelancer. But going back to my childhood dream of zoology would be fun. Hosting an animal-centric documentary series. 

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

I wanted to express myself artistically and publicly in some way, and this is the way I enjoy most and am best at.

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

I just finished Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told by Jeremy Atherton Lin and found it fascinating and moving. I also loved his previous book, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out. I also just mostly completed by annual year-end film catch-up — I think The Secret Agent may be my favourite film from 2025.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my spring above/ground press chapbook. Kinda sorta putting together a second full-length collection while working on my PhD project.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;