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 – Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens (Stelliform Press) – was a compressed, fragmented re-visioning of aspects of my life lived away from cities, and embedded in marshes and fens. It was also an expansion of a previous flash fiction about wild orchids I found in those places. Orchid changed my life in that I’d never conceived of my small world appearing on the printed page and being sent out into the ether. I was gratified to find that it touched people, and also slightly unnerved that my world was no longer private or hidden. My current novel Nightshade (Assembly Press) is different in that it’s less a series of small fragmented chapters and more a continuous time-based narrative about a small family of Romany women working in southern Ontario tobacco fields. There are similarities, though, in that both have elements of nature, horror, and a kind of magic. Interestingly, I wrote Nightshade before Orchid, but it was the second to be published.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I actually started out writing poetry in an informal way, but it was too small a container for my ideas. However, it did start me off in realising I needed to explore larger themes and ways of expressing them. I love honing a piece of writing down to its beating heart, but wanted more room – more space – for a larger narrative.
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?
Before I even start a writing project, an idea needs to simmer for a period of time – a month, 6 months, a year or more – during which time I may write down ideas now and then, but the project is always working away quietly in the background. Once it’s a bit more gelled, I make notes – and copious is the right word! – on loose sheets of paper and various notebooks around my house. So it’s rather a slow process. First drafts are quite rough. I usually write between 12 and 17 drafts – I wrote 17 drafts before submitting Nightshade to Assembly.
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 book always begins small for me. I think of a seed unfurling. My two books are based on stories. Orchid started out as a flash fiction piece about gathering wild orchids in a marsh, and then became a story that went nowhere, and several years later I harvested elements of it for the novella. The origin of Nightshade was a short story of the same name, published in Room Magazine. I’d initially had no intention of turning it into a larger project, but it kept telling me there was much more I could say about this family of women and the beauty and horror of their experiences working and surviving in the tobacco belt. My friend and colleague, author Nina Munteanu, after hearing about my dad’s family and their lives, urged me on.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love doing readings. And they’re definitely a part of my process, because they often elicit responses from an audience that cause me to reflect on my work. From these responses, I can get insight into the work itself, its themes, its architecture, its narrative. When I’m reading, I’m seeing the story in a completely new light.
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 definitely have theoretical concerns in my writing. The questions I raise – and endeavour to answer – are foremost about identity. (My identity as the daughter of an English Romany father is fraught with common myths and pernicious stereotypes which, along with my own personal reactions, are expressed through the characters in my work.) Another concern is environmental.
Because I grew up around forests and streams, I identified intimately with them, and still do. Ecological devastation is the pressing issue of our time, as are war, extractive mining and other disastrous corporate ventures, exploitation of vulnerable beings both human and non-human. Depending on the theme of a work I’m developing I’ll address these issues, not in a didactic way, but through writing that’s often surreal, magical and otherworldly. Current questions, according to the writing I see around me, seem to be focused on human and environmental rights expressed through eco-fiction and even horror (which sharply reflects the state of our world right now.)
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?
Now that I’m embedded in the writing world, I appreciate even more deeply the work that writers are doing. I was recently on a panel at a literary festival, and the audience engagement revealed how passionate people are about books. Writers bring people together. I think that’s what writers can and should do: unite and inspire readers, reflect our world back to us, carry us into new worlds and new ways of thinking.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I love working with outside editors. I can’t praise them enough. I ask for a tough critique in order to make my work the best it can be. I’ve had the great pleasure of working with mentor Ursula Pflug who walked me through short stories and the early drafts of Nightshade, and my two outstanding editors Selena Middleton at Stelliform and Leigh Nash at Assembly.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Arundhati Roy said, “If i had any advice to give to people who want to write…please try and switch off…you don’t need all this information….you don’t need to know everything about everything, it’s unnatural…you need to know the earth, your neighbours, the birds…” I’ve taken this to heart. It feels as if she were speaking to me directly.
Leap and the net will appear is attributed to naturalist John Burroughs. I encountered it quite by chance, and it was a voice at my ear when I decided to change direction from visual art to writing and then later on whenever I submitted stories or more recently my two books. The thought behind it, I think, is to push through the fear, take the leap. You won’t find yourself in freefall, but will be held in a safe place, whatever the consequences. Interestingly, I’ve had almost no direct advice in my life. One thing I do remember was a friend, a much older poet, telling me a few years ago, “Get to know other writers.”
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
My day begins with green tea, crosswords, gazing out the window. Sometimes a walk, which is helpful, because it gets me thinking about what I’m going to write, and I’ll frequently dictate notes into my cellphone. Other than that, there’s no specific routine. I could say the writing, or the level of inspiration, are what determine the day’s routine. When I’m deeply immersed, I’ll write all day for days, and even at night in the dark. (I keep a notebook nearby so when an idea comes to me or wakes me up, I write it down, hoping I’ll be able to read it in the morning.) But generally I’m really all over the place.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I make soup. Cooking is integral to my process, and I write in my kitchen, so cooking usually gets me started. These two things reverberate off each other…..when I’m stuck it’s back and forth from the computer to the stove. Also I read. Frequently it’s fairy tales. I grew up with Baba Yaga and Russian fairy stories, and they always take me back to that deep dark magical place where anything is possible. At the moment I’ve been returning to Han Kang’s We Do Not Part and Thomas Ha’s Uncertain Sons. I also watch trashy movies, horror movies, and murder mysteries. They lead me into the same territory––and have the same effect––as fairy stories. I’ve no idea why.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The smell of books, oil paint and turpentine.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
All of the above! Nature – forests, marshes, fens, streams. They live in my writing. Music – Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, Erik Satie, Sibelius, Nino Rota’s score for Juliet of the Spirits, Romani singer Saban Bajramovic, the Romani anthem Djelem Djelem sung by Esma Redzepova, Goldberg Variations or anything played by Glenn Gould. (I’m listening to Arvo Pärt while writing my WIP.) Science – constellations, galaxies, black holes (featured in Nightshade), fractals seen in leaves, river deltas, the whorl patterns of petals. Visual art – Hieronymus Bosch, Käthe Kollwitz, Diego Rivera, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, David Siqueiro.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
In no particular order, Kazuo Ishiguro, A. S. Byatt, Alistair MacLeod, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Ha, Rebecca Campbell, Omar El Akkad, Ursula Pflug, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Milton Acorn, Sylvia Plath, Emily Bronte, Albert Camus, Cormac McCarthy, Nina Munteanu, Emmi Itäranta, Sulaiman Addonia.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d love to complete the novel which right now exists in my head and in notes scattered around my house.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I would have continued making art. I came to serious writing late in life, so at this point, as the end draws closer each year, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I switched to writing because I had stories inside me that needed to get out, and partly as a refuge from the exhausting rigors of studio work - painting and making pieces for art installations. The switch had to do with ageing and declining physical ability. When I was a visual artist, my paintings and installations were thematically and stylistically a precursor to my current writing, so it was a relatively smooth transition.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Han Kang’s We Do Not Part. It haunts me still. Last great film was The Zone of Interest. I saw it three times. That, too, haunts me.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m working on an eco-horror novella about a Romany crone who collaborates with human and non-human women to dismantle political systems engaged in water privatisation. I’m also beginning a novel about a Romany woman who clandestinely enters the libraries of the wealthy people whose houses she cleans, and spends her nights lost in books.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
