Her current work focuses on mental health and intergenerational female trauma. tell the birds your body is not a gun appeared in 2021 with Frontenac House.
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 of poetry was an experiment in form for me. It’s a fictional novel-in-verse, told from the voices of three different Italian women. The shaping of the different voices on the page, learning what that meant in poetry, was game changer for me in learning about what poetry could do and my own capacities as a writer. But it was also my first book of poetry. I’ve learned a lot in the four years since it was published. My most recent work, which comes out this April with Frontenac House, is a fully non-fiction confessional manuscript and delves into deep trauma. In Tell the Birds Your Body is not a Gun I question my relationship with religion and challenge how we reflect on our own memories of trauma. I explore my relationship to grief and healing in connection to my teen’s depression and suicidal behavior, my own struggles with depression, a cancer scare and survivor’s guilt, systemic family trauma and generational loss of motherhood. I push boundaries further by using a hybrid text of minimalist poetry, prose poems and poetic essays to interrogate and dissects the areas of trauma in our lives even as I question if I’m writing about loss in service of myself.2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I feel like I came to fiction and poetry at the same time. Both have been integral to my reading life and I wrote my first poetry book while simultaneously writing my first genre fiction book. They were published by traditional publishers within months of each other.
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 think it is a slow start for me but I write quickly once I’m immersed in a project. I’m actually trying to slow that down. I’m learning to give my words and voice the time they need to breathe on the page. I think that is a vital part of the writing process that we can tend to rush over.
4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Both poetry manuscripts I’ve written came about because of an idea or a life experience and knowing they’d be a book from the start. I have a new fiction book concept that I’m fleshing out after writing it as a short story and knowing it needed to be a book.
The poetry writing I am doing now is intentionally not connected to any larger project. I simply want to sit with each poem I write for a bit and not force a project concept onto them.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I 100% enjoy doing public readings. Even for the more difficult material. I think it is a vital part of the back and forth communication process I value as a writer. I’m also a big proponent of alternative forms of publication transmission. Not every poem, I want published will be picked up by a journal, etc. But I can share it at a reading so the poem still have some life off the page our outside my head.
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?
My questions right now, based on the writing I’ve been doing are, What is my truth? and Am I telling the truth?
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I used to think we had a major role in voicing culture and manifesting or facilitating change. I’m more conflicted now. I value the lived experiences of women writers and I want to uplift our voices and read about how those lived experiences are represented in Canadian literature. I also recognize the huge burden placed on women in particular. I do not want to force a burden or expectation onto women writers. I want them to write about whatever they want to write about, be it how the river flows or sexual assault.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It is essential for me. I am not a copy editor, I never will be. I have paid for outside editors to go over both my poetry manuscripts before I even consider submitting them to publishers. I know that I cannot see my work objectively.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Allow yourself to sit in the discomfort of your writing. That was a game changer for me.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I move between both fiction and poetry, and this year with also academic writing as I work on my Masters degree. Being able to switch between the different forms provides me with little escape windows that I can jump between depending on my capacities that day. And I can keep up an “almost” daily writing practice without the pressure to be forced into one type of writing that I may not be able to emotional engage with on a given day.
Since starting my Masters Degree last year, my routine has significantly altered. I write daily but I no longer have a set schedule. I do a lot of bouncing. After writing the book coming out this spring, I allow gentleness to focus my writing practice. My mental health demands it. Writing Tell the Birds Your Body is Not a Gun was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The book comes out this spring and I’m still not sure I want to give that much of myself.
My only set in stone writing routine is that I always write poetry by hand in a journal first. I cannot write a poem on a computer until it has settled into my skin for a bit.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I walk or run in nature in the hopes it will get me out of my head. Walking away from something is okay. Especially during a damn pandemic. The fact that anyone is writing anything at all right now is a miracle.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
As a child, horseshit. As an adult, lilacs.
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?
Connections to nature find their way into most of my books, but also almost unequivocally the female body and narrative.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Natalie Diaz. Have you read, If What I Mean Is Hummingbird, If What I Mean Is Fall Into My Mouth by Natalie Diaz? It might be the best damn thing I’ve ever read.
I go back to Joy Harjo all the time. Canisia Lubrin is a fucking wonder. Tanis MacDonald, Shazia Hafiz Ramji. Billy Ray Belcourt is a fucking genius. Alice Munro was the first short story writer I read and that shifted a lot for me.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Far too much, or nothing at all. I’m trying to let go of expectation as a writer this year.
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 consider myself a cultural producer. I suppose I’d like to get more into the publishing side of things. Maybe run a small press, but then I think, oh, you’d have to be crazy. I’d love to run a romantic little bookshop in Florence, Italy, if I could sit and read the books all day.
In all seriousness, I’d run a creative mentorship program for young single mothers. Still trying to figure out how to make that a reality.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I have done and currently do a lot of other things, so I guess I’ll simply say, because writing is a part of who I am that I choose not to ignore.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just finished Station Eleven by Emily St. John as research for a project I’m working on. I’m currently reading, How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa.
I honestly don’t remember the last great film.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’m playing with the idea an experimental interconnected micro-story fiction collection tentatively called Cut Lines that looks at the lives of trauma in young women as presented through a dystopian, dysmorphic lens. It’s in the early, early stages of development. It’s still in the develop in your head stage of my writing practice with the occasional burst of inspiration regarding how I want to plat or shape it, etc.
I am writing new poetry with no plan other than writing it.
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