Lauren Carter’s most
recent book is the poetry collection Following Sea which traces her settler ancestry and her own infertility. Her second
novel, This Has Nothing To Do With You,
will be published by Freehand Books in September 2019. Swarm, her debut novel, was listed by CBC as a Top 40 novel that
could change Canada. Her poetry and fiction have been long-listed for the CBC
Literary Prizes multiple times, anthologized in Best Canadian Stories, and awarded top prize in the Prairie Fire and ROOM literary contests. The
Write Life called her website one of the Top 100 Websites for Writers in
2018 and 2019. Visit her at www.laurencarter.ca
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 don’t really feel like it changed my life but I suppose it
did. Lichen Bright, my first poetry collection, came out when I was 30, which
felt old, but, I realize now, is actually young. It was very exciting, and
great to finally have a book in the world but publishing my first novel did
more to change my life because with it I acquired an agent and it received some
great reviews and is still being read.
Having two books out helped me gain confidence that I could
then do it again which helped me calm down which helped me focus more clearly
on the work. Now I’m able to work more slowly, with more attention, more care,
less panic, less doubt, less hurry, less concern about perfectionism, and more
awareness that something will eventually be completed and polished and good
enough to publish (after a few rounds of rejections and subsequent revisions,
of course).
2 - How
did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I started with poetry because my teenage life felt sometimes
miserable and it was impossible to be honest about that. Writing poetry gave me
the ability to encode my experience (at least it felt like that to me). As my
reading broadened in high school, I also started to see how visceral experience
could be created on the page through poetry. I remember being in the library in
my high school in the tiny town of Blind River reading a Susan Musgrave poem,
with a line about blood (I wish I could remember it exactly but my mind has
never worked that way), and nearly falling over sideways. That’s what I want to
do, I thought. Raw emotion on the page, visceral and alive in image and rhythm.
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?
This
varies a lot, depending on what I’m writing. My most recent poetry collection, Following Sea, is a collection of poems
that I’ve written over more than a decade. A section of the book is formed out
of in-depth genealogical and historical research which needed an injection of
emotion and imagination to bring it to life so those poems took lots of notes
and drafts.
Others,
of course, come out fully formed. And there are some that are sitting in my
notebooks, where they’ve been waiting to gel for 20 years.
In
the past, I’ve tended to try to not think about things until I had a pen in my
hand and then I’d just let the writing come but I’m working differently now.
I’ll turn things over in my head for a little while until I have a first line,
then the next, then the next and then I’ll grab a pen and my notebook. I think
this has something to do with trusting my mind more.
I
do write everything long-hand first, including novels, because the connection
with the page and the unravelling thoughts feels different to me.
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?
Most things that I write start with images. Swarm, my debut novel, came with the
image of a woman in the window of a ramshackle house, looking out at a child’s
footsteps in the vegetable garden. That picture popped into my mind in the
middle of a lecture when I was in grad school.
With poetry, I write one poem at a time and often don’t
really understand how things are coming together structurally and thematically,
in the form of a collection, until I’ve got 50-some poems written.
With fiction, I tend to write as much as possible of a rough
draft in a few weeks to get the story arc, start thinking about the plot
points, etcetera (short stories I’ll write the first draft in one go).
Then, I’ll generally have to begin writing into the story
(because my first drafts are really short) in order to expand it and turn it
into a bigger, broader, multilayered story. It’s a bit like a plant. Once the
seed sprouts, I’ll help the roots dig in, then start growing the leaves.
5 - Are
public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort
of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I’m an extroverted introvert, so I love to do readings once I
get there but am also seriously tempted to cancel at the last minute because
I’ve got a good T.V. show to watch and a bag of salt and vinegar chips. But
it’s fun to talk about the work – as long as people are nice (which, of course,
they usually are, especially in Winnipeg, which has a huge audience for poetry
and an incredibly supportive and active creative community – if you ever
thought this was a city not to bother visiting, think again).
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 very cool to be able to look back and understand one’s
oeuvre after a few books are out. My fourth will be published in Fall 2019 and
what I have realized is that I tend to write about relationships but also displacement
and broken connections, emotional trauma and memory and the cracking of our
illusions – including how we see our society versus how our society actually
is, as explored in Swarm – as well as
where we fit personally in the broader politics and happenings of our
world.
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?
To answer this, a quote from Ursula K. LeGuin:
I think hard times are coming, when we will be
wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and
can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to
other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need
writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger
reality.
8 - Do
you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential
(or both)?
Both, and I love it! I love getting an alternate perspective
on my work when it’s still forming (although I don’t let anyone read until I’m
well into an advanced draft). I’ve worked with some fantastic readers and
editors – Alice Major, Naomi Lewis, Jane Warren among others – who have
carefully, precisely, wisely, helped me expand my own meaning and more
effectively put the pieces of my work together.
9 - What
is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you
directly)?
“Be kind and be useful:” how Barack Obama sums up the
fatherly wisdom he’s passed on to his kids (I saw him speak last week).
10 - How
easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to
non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I’ve always written in multiple genres: poetry, short and
long fiction, non-fiction journalism, a little bit of playwriting and,
recently, picture books.
I also do visual art: collage and fibre arts mainly (as well
as gardening, which is a sort-of art). I usually have a few different projects
going on at the same time - these days, mainly poetry and novels - which I find
helpful for continuing to work despite being stuck on one or the other.
The appeal is constant creativity, and allowing myself a way
to express myself in a multitude of genres and forms.
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 thrash and burn, abandon things, hate myself, battle
depression, try to remember to meditate, practice self-coaching, advise emerging
writers to write as often as possible then break my own rules and feel like a
hyprocrite. That’s about it.
But, on a good day, like today, I get up, grab my pen and
notebook without any whining, bring it back to bed with coffee and write for
three hours. When a project’s really burning, I’ll also often get up at 2 or 3
and do a few hours in the middle of the night.
So, you know: chaos and unpredictability woven with humming
hours of intense focus pretty much sums it up.
12 - When
your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a
better word) inspiration?
Walking. Art galleries. Reading in the hammock (in good
weather). Weeding. Knitting. Anything that lets my head get loose so the seeds
I need to see can sprout. I’ll also turn to books, of course, and the writers I
most love and admire: T. C. Boyle, Paul Auster, Joyce Carol Oates, Lisa Ko,
Karen Joy Fowler, Tash Aw, Alice Munro, among many others.…
13 - What
fragrance reminds you of home?
Pine trees and open water.
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?
Books do come from books. After I put down We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, dried my tears, and reached for a pen, This Has Nothing To Do With You came out
in a frantically written and fast rough draft.
I’m also inspired by history and visual
art. My mom is an extraordinary oil and watercolour painter and, as I get
enough work behind me to realize I have an ouevre, I can notice the links and
connections between her explorations and themes and my own: loneliness,
landscapes, open water.
This connection really comes together in an interesting way
in the cover of Following Sea, which
is a painting that she did of me as a teenager (but which she often says is me
but isn’t me – sort-of a fictionalized echo of her own experience of longing
and loneliness).
15 - What
other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life
outside of your work?
Lately, my Winnipeg community – Ariel Gordon, Erna Buffie,
Donna Besel, Sue Sorenson, Sally Ito – who have done a lot to help me resettle
to this part of Manitoba, after living several years in the north (after living
until then in Ontario). Others are Ian Williams, who helped me a lot through
conversation and simply an awareness that he was writing his own novel while I
was writing mine (we were both in Calgary doing writer-in-residence gigs and set
a deadline to take finished drafts to dinner which was really helpful). Naomi Lewis from Calgary is also a writer I respect a great deal and who was a smart,
sharp and terrific editor (I also adore her new memoir coming out this spring, Tiny Lights for Travelers).
16 - What
would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Oh, boy. Plant a prairie garden in my yard. Learn how to spin
my own yarn. Get really good at crochet. Walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall. Paint
my ugly kitchen cupboards. Finish a (good) novel written in third person (or
maybe second).
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?
Visual artist. There was a time when I was doing crazy things
like building anatomically correct papier-mache hearts and selling Japanese
paper dragonflies at craft markets. But, then again, I’ve also had fantasies of
being a dog trainer and a big city lawyer.
18 - What
made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Life. Genetics. Who knows. I started writing before I could
write.
I’d make scribbles with a pen and ask her what words I’d
written and tell my mom stories that she’d write down. One she even
illustrated: The Girl with the Green Hands. My late uncle was also a writer and
poet. I think it’s in the blood. Plus: my mom and brother gave me books all the
time for presents and pens and journals.
19 - What
was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I am reading the last few pages of Paul Auster’s epic, enormous 4321, a novel that weaves
together the four possible lives of Archie Isaac Ferguson, a young writer (in
all his realities) growing up in the U.S. in the 1950s and ‘60s. It’s intrigued
me, bored me, surprised me, stunned me and left me incredibly inspired to take
on an enormous canvas. Other books I’ve recently loved: How To Be Both by Ali Smith, TheFirst Book of Calamity Leek by Paula Lichtarowicz, The Red Word by Sarah Henstra, and The Leavers by Lisa Ko. I’m just about to crack open Reproduction by Ian Williams. As you can
tell, I mostly read fiction, and also don’t watch enough great films (although
I LOVED Russian Doll but do Netflix
series count?)
20 - What
are you currently working on?
A collection of poems about grief, depression, gardening and
my brother’s life and death, and a couple of novels in the literary and weird
fiction genres. Promoting my new poetry collection. Also, securing permissions
for the quotations in my next novel, talking about the cover, and that sort of
administrative, dressing the baby before it’s ushered out the door sort-of
stuff.
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