12 or 20 (second series) questions with Anna van Valkenburg

Anna van Valkenburg was born in Konin, Poland, and currently lives in Mississauga, Canada. Her poetry and reviews have been featured in The Puritan, Prism International, December magazine, The Rusty Toque, and elsewhere. Her work has been shortlisted for the Pangolin Poetry Prize and nominated for the AWP Intro Journals Project. Anna is the associate publisher at Guernica Editions. Queen and Carcass (Anvil Press, A Feed Dog Book) is her debut poetry collection.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Honestly, I don’t think it did. It’s an immense satisfaction to let a book out into the world in search of readers. But it’s not life changing. Perhaps it gifted me with a sense of validation, but even that’s a stretch— the truth is, writers get so used to rejection that waiting around for a book deal to feel validated is unrealistic. I was writing before the book was published. I’m still writing. In flurries, sometimes, between hiatuses. Writing isn’t always in the forefront, but it’s always there.

Queen and Carcass is my debut so I have no comparison to other books, though when it comes to poems, my work went through a few waves. When I started writing, my poems were often playful and whimsical. Then they shifted to very sparse, almost too severe. I wanted to make sure each word was deliberate, but sometimes that came at a cost of spontaneity. I think I eventually found a middle ground and rediscovered music in poetry without sacrificing terseness. (For now, at least— I think writing is always evolving, the next wave always coming in.)

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
It was completely administrative! I decided to apply to MFA programs last minute and the deadlines were coming up. I had to put together a portfolio and figured it would take less time to write poetry than to write prose (ha!). I became a poet thanks to early deadlines. But I kept with poetry because I love its sparseness— it’s a form in which what you don’t say is as important as what you do say. Absence speaks, it’s mystical— a fairytale in itself.

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 takes me very long to start something that I’m planning to start. When it comes to work that’s more spontaneous, naturally the start is quick. Some of my best poems have come out looking pretty much like the final version. Some I’ve had to labour over. When I read my work, I think about the process, so often the poems that gave me the hardest time feel the least finished to me even when in reality they’re polished. A sort of pentimento effect!

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?
Usually with the concrete. An object or a person. Sometimes a colour, a feeling. By instinct I’m an unduly concise writer. I think a lot of writers tend to write a lot then cut down. I usually need to pad what I write.

Queen and Carcass was a compilation of individual poems. I had gathered (a lot) of material over a few years, and eventually sat down to see if and how the poems fit together. It turned out they did, and in fact there were already many connecting threads and themes. Though of course there was a lot to be done in order to really pull the poems into a book. But I don’t start writing with the idea of a book. With poetry I think we have this convenience. My process right now is similar— I’m not working on a second book, but on individual poems. I’ve found it to be “healthier” for the poems. When I’m focusing on the poem, I’m seeing where it takes me instead of trying to fit it into a larger scheme.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Counter, counter! Instinctively… but I do see the value of them, and love that energy after a reading that’s conducive to creating.

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?
The question of “what does it mean to be human” is one that has been preoccupying me.

I think most theoretical concerns in literature boil down to this. What makes us human? What makes human life worthwhile? Regardless of the actual topic of the poem, short story, novel, and regardless of how you approach it. Wislawa Szymborska’s “Cat in an Empty Apartment” comes to mind as a good example of this. Szymborska spends the majority of the poem describing how an apartment changes to a cat after the death of its owner. But the point of the poem isn’t to decipher the cat’s feelings or actions. What we’re actually getting at is a speaker who wants to quantify death, to make sense of it. In all literature— we’re trying to make sense of what we are and what we’re supposed to be doing here. I don’t think the questions change over time, only the circumstances.

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 observe and interpret; to look for truth, even when the truth is not clear… particularly when it’s not clear (including to the author him/herself); to try to expose that truth, however grey and muddled, through their writing. In this sense, the writer has a responsibility to society (pointing at Whitman here). But anything outside of this is extra. Simply: I don’t think it’s the writer’s role to (aim to) have a role.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
So far, I’ve found it simply essential, and enjoyable. But my editor (Stuart Ross) has been accommodating and very understanding. So I think this largely depends on the editor. For the most part, I think an editor is indispensable, even a seasoned author has a restricted view of their own work. Of course there are those instances where an editor (or publisher) will have a very precise idea of what they want to see. This leaves no space for the author to discover. I think that’s where the difficulty comes in.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
In writing: act as if everyone is enlightened but you (Sandra Alcosser).

In general: “Dlatego dwie uszy jeden język dano, iżby mniej mówiono a więcej słuchano.” It”s a common Polish saying, loosely translated: “you got two ears and one mouth to speak less and listen more”. In fact, come to think of it, this applies perfectly to writing too.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Poetry and critical prose are completely different, they come from a different headspace. Sitting down to write poetry is a lot of chasing rabbits, looking for holes in the brain, prodding those holes, turning around, walking in circles. Sitting down to write critical work is rolling up your sleeves and moving forward.

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 have two small children so any writing routine has gone out the window to play with the birds! I like to write in the morning— that doesn’t often happen now. A typical day begins with making breakfast for my daughters. Getting them dressed. Then coffee. Then my baby’s nap. I’m fitting in writing where I can, whenever I can.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
My writing always (usually) comes from reading. I always (often) start a writing day by reading, and sometimes (often) write while reading. If I can’t write, I read, and the writing comes back.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Onions frying in butter, simmering chicken soup; the vacuum when it’s running; dog fur; summer rain.

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?
No, not consistently. Queen and Carcass was framed around Dvořák's Rusalka, an opera. Every once in a while a poem comes from a piece of visual art, but this is no different than a poem coming from a different visual for me. I don’t have an ear for music, though I respect it immensely. For me, words come from words.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I say this a lot, but I read a lot of work in translation. Queen and Carcass was written while reading a mix of Slavic poets, folktales, fairytales. I love folklore, it shows the roots and mentality of a culture.

At a certain point, the Modernists were very influential to me. I enjoy Slavic literature. Middle Eastern literature. Of course these are all boxes, constructions, not always clear— for example, Adam Zagajewski spent so much of his time in the United States. Faraj Bayrakdar lives in Sweden. But it’s the mentality that I’m getting at, the concerns addressed in a specific work. As an aside, or perhaps directly related, what has been most informative to me as a writer is reading work outside of my own experience and circumstances.

In regards to specific writers: Yehuda Amichai, Ilhan Berk, Valzhyna Mort, Adam Zagajewski, Dunya Mikhail, Anna Akhmatova. Many many others.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
In writing? I’d like to write a novel.

In general— I’d like to build a house. I’d like to get a potter’s wheel.

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 become a writer, I would have tried to become a professional cook. I think both are equally underpaid with long hours…

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It’s hard to say. I don’t think it was as opposed to doing something else, I was always writing ‘on top’ of other things. It was the next natural step after reading.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Last great book: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan

Last great film: Cold War (disclaimer: it’s been a few years since I watched a movie).

20 - What are you currently working on?
Poems, poems. Brainstorming a novel. Individual translations. Just plodding, plodding on…!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Gabriel Blackwell

Gabriel Blackwell is the author of CORRECTION (Rescue Press, 2021) and five other books. His fictions and essays have appeared in Conjunctions, Tin House, DIAGRAM, wigleaf, Post Road, the Kenyon Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He is the editor of the literary magazine The Rupture. http://gabrielblackwell.com

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
CORRECTION is the first book I've written entirely under constraint, and so in that sense, it's quite different from my other books. Though there were other contributing factors, many other contributing factors, I can clearly remember reading Daniel Levin Becker's book on the OuLiPo, Many Subtle Channels, and feeling jealous of the relationships the writers in that book had to their work. They all seemed so much healthier than my relationship to my own writing has been. So, I decided to introduce some constraints into my writing process, and I found I enjoyed the results, I think even enjoyed the process itself in a way I hadn't enjoyed it in some time.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I don't know if I came to fiction first. I think I wanted to write nonfiction, and, certainly, when I started writing with any kind of discipline, I would have been reading more nonfiction than fiction. (And then even now, I'm not always certain I haven't written nonfiction, though there are plenty of things I've written that are clearly fiction; CORRECTION, anyway, contains both fiction and nonfiction.) Sometimes one suits what I'm trying to write, sometimes the other does. I started writing by writing fiction because I couldn't figure out how to write nonfiction at the time, or else maybe because I thought I didn't have anything to write that would be recognized as nonfiction.
 
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 have done research and taken notes for my previous books, sometimes quite a lot of notes, as with Madeleine E. For CORRECTION, though, there were no notes, no especially directed research. When I came across a story I wanted to tell, I wrote.

Maybe I should say that one of the constraints used in CORRECTION is that I started a new piece every week. It wasn't necessary to finish each piece within a week, only that I would start a new piece each week. (They're all very short anyway, and I sometimes did finish them before the end of the week.) There was then a sense of moving on, taking up new concerns, which sometimes helped me give pieces a greater sense of compression and synthesis in revision. As far as I can recall, there were some pieces that were close to their final forms even in their first moments, but in general, my first drafts tend not to look much like the published versions. I enjoy revising, and I particularly enjoyed revising the pieces in CORRECTION.

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?
Both. Babel, for example, the collection that came out in November of 2020, was the result of seeing a set of related concerns in the short fictions I'd written over a period of six or seven years and then writing a few new stories that worked with that same set of concerns. My novels, on the other hand, were always intended to be novels. CORRECTION was always meant to have 101 texts.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I'm happy to give readings, but I don't seek them out anymore. I don't think they play any part in my writing process. (I typically revise by reading things aloud, almost always to myself, sometimes to the dog, but I think it would be a stretch to call that a "reading.") I don't hear well when there's background noise, so, even though I enjoy the company of others, I don't get much out of big gatherings. There's a bit of push and pull there.

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?
This is a good question, by which I mean I don't have a good answer.

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?
Though I think there must be writers who can do things other than write, I'm not sure I'm one, so I'd be disinclined to play a role other than writer in the larger culture, not that anyone has asked me to do more. Anyway, I think this is a part of why I'm so ambivalent about social media.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Being myself an editor, I can't say otherwise than "essential."

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
A piece of advice that has been very important to me and to my writing process: Michael Martone once told me something along the lines of, If you don't quite pull something off in one story, you can always try it again in the next story. Hearing that was very freeing. It helped me to see when I was done with things, when it was time to move on, when I might be overworking something.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?
Quite easy. Stories hold great appeal for me; they always have. Some stories are made up, others are not.

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?
At least since the beginning of the lockdowns, in March of last year, I wake at around 4 AM. I have a job and I also take care of a toddler, so I have to wake up before everyone else in the house or I won't get anything done whatsoever. I typically read for about an hour, then write until everyone's awake, maybe another two hours. Then I read books to and play with the toddler, take her to the park, and so on, until her nap. While she naps, I teach or edit, depending on the day. Then she wakes up. They're full days, and often tiring days.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I can't recall feeling stalled in my writing. Particularly now, I have many more books to write than I have time. When I don't feel up to writing something new, I revise. When I have nothing to revise, I read.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The smell of sugarcane burning in the fields.

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?
Madeleine E. had to do with Hitchcock's Vertigo, so I'm bound to say films, even though I almost never watch movies anymore. I so rarely have time. My mother and my sibling are both visual artists, and I do take a great deal of inspiration from visual art, but I think I tend to put that into words via story, and so a cogent answer here as to how I make use of those influences probably isn't forthcoming.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Even an attempt at a complete list would be interminably long, I think. Some writers that occur to me in the moment, and with the usual caveat that I will be leaving out a number of quite important writers: John Berger, Eliot Weinberger, Gertrude Stein, Garielle Lutz, Brian Evenson, Thomas Bernhard, Hannah Arendt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lydia Davis, WG Sebald, Bae Suah, Yasunari Kawabata, Marie NDiaye, Lawrence Weschler, Gerald Murnane, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Michael Martone . . . really the list would be quite long.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I'd like to finish two books I've already started. I'd also love to find a job from which—at some point in the distant future—I could retire comfortably, though I think that one is maybe far-fetched.

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?
Well, since I published my first story, I have been a server, a professor, and an editor, sometimes all at once. I very much enjoy teaching, and would like to think, if given a choice, it's what I would do regardless of what else I'd be doing.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I enjoy reading, and I want to do something for others worth doing.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Most recently, I very much enjoyed Werner Herzog's documentary about Bruce Chatwin, Nomad, though if I'm confining myself to just the last great film, I'd have to go further back. I really don't watch many films. As for books, there are Elizabeth Hardwick's Collected Essays, Jana Larson's Reel Bay, and Garielle Lutz's The Complete Gary Lutz, all great.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I have continued writing using the same constraints I used to write CORRECTION. I've also been working on a book of nonfiction for a few years now; I'd love to have the time to finish it, but I'm not sure how that might happen. Government-supported childcare would go a long way.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Peter Unwin

Peter Unwin [photo credit: Deborah Clipperton] is the author of The Infinite Park (Cormorant Books, 2021) and eight previous books, as well as many short stories, essays, and poems. His short story collection Life Without Death was shortlisted for the 2014 Trillium Book Award, and his poetry collection When We Were Old, was a Relit Award finalist. He is currently completing a PhD in the Humanities at York University.

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 was a collection of short stories The Rock Farmers, and the publisher mailed a copy to me to pick up at the post office in a small town in Renfrew County where I happened to be staying. I still have the envelope. Back then, an author’s first book had some authority, prestige even, for being your first book. That book in particular was widely reviewed. In those days there were newspapers and print, a print culture that included a love of print, and also included “book reviews.” I actually received an invitation to join Canada’s Who’s Who, based on that one book.

There is no book more delightful to hold in your hand than the first one. The last one feels good, as well.  And yes, in fact, my first book did change my life. It closed the door on my being anything else but an author. I am now more or less unemployable.

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

I was open to all of it from the start. I wrote plays as well, and produced them. Poetry is the highest form, always has been. I’ve always thought that poetry is to literature what golf is to professional athletes: the purest thing, and what everyone wants to do, no matter what sport they play.

The short form was always friendly to me. It catered to my strengths and interests as a stylist. The novel requires a lot of effort doing mundane things, like moving one character out of her chair, and getting her into a car, or on to the back of a toboggan, etc. This legwork does not exist in poetry, just the flame, the thought, the word, the moment, all at once. 

Prose, in my novels in particular, and in my non-fiction, allowed for me to explore history, to take my time, to come to know the land that had produced me, and that I was re-producing in my work. The short story is much closer to poetry than it is to a novel. Raymond Carver was the first writer I encountered who understood this.

The truth is, as an author, a creator, I feel no difference whatsoever between writing poems, short stories, novels, essays, or even tweets or Facebook posts.  Even academic writing. I recently wrote my doctoral dissertation, under the supervision of a committee of scholars, the experience for me was no different from writing poetry or novels, or books of non-fiction.

Increasingly, I think non-fiction is where the real power lies. There is something not quite right about fiction and novels, about the need to make things up, to try and convince people it’s real. Fiction too often turns into fakery. My wife calls what I do (i.e writing) “making shit up.” But I don’t really. I don’t like to do that. If it is in my books, that means it happened. In Written In Stone, there is an old fishing boat up on Lake Superior that Marilyn Monroe is thought to have taken several rides in. I would never make that up, that is to say, fictionalize it. Why bother? Being a fiction writer doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make things up.  There’s always plenty to work with.

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?

Twenty years seems a good rule of thumb for me. Usually I have a half dozen manuscripts on the go, and after twenty years, they are all done. Then I forget to publish them, and then I remember. That takes a couple of years as well.

For The  Wolf’s Head  I spent a few years travelling around Lake Superior, and writing. Those would be call notes, I guess. But really they were the pages of the book, I was writing them straight off, by pen, in notebooks. But I’m not a note taker. There are no rules, thank God. I think the real function of notes is so that later on, you can lose them.

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?

The urge to write for me, always comes after excellent reading. I read something good, a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, any poem by her, something by Frederick Seidel, until I can’t stand it anymore, then I have to jump up and start writing.  I need to drink that blood, to get in while it’s gushing. John Ashbery was like catnip to me.  I could never get more than two lines into his poems without jumping up and starting to write. It is quite possible that I have never actually finished a John Ashbery poem, for that reason.

 My novels are books first, all that is missing are the words. Poetry is different, fragments, dreams, lost things, things that are found. A poem is never a book, but books are often poetry, and strangely, I have found it a little bit easier to get my books of poetry published, than say, any individual poems. 

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

I once gave a reading while standing on a public bench in Coronation Park, to a bunch of baseball players who did not have faintest idea what I was doing.  They looked at me with a mixture, of pity, contempt, and pure hatred. That poem I read is now published in The Infinite Park, a baseball poem. I gave an outdoor reading at an amphitheater in Provincial Park on the coast of Lake Superior, the wind was gusting so hard that

I had to stand with my back to the audience, for the entire show, to keep the gale out of my microphone. I went from reading to a full house at Harbourfront to a reading a northern library where no one showed up at all. I ate all the donuts with the staff and had a great time. There was a wolf in town, it had attacked two joggers, people weren’t going out.

Readings have nothing to do with authorship, and that’s a good thing. I once listened to Saul Bellow read, it was excruciating, very painful to be around. I stopped after that. Recently I been performing my work with musicians. That’s better. It connects you to a tradition that goes back to Homer. 

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?

Canadian authors are traditionally mired in privilege, and the failure to address that privilege is the failure of the country, which is also a failure of our literature. Those are the current questions to me. Also Canada is an indigenous country. So the question becomes, “as a Canadian author, how does the Native impact your work?” If it doesn’t, why not? What’s your excuse? If you say “well I’m just a good old fashioned settler colonial white author who pays no attention to the Indigenous backbone of the country,” then you are contributing to the same literary ‘disappearing’ that we have come to take for granted, and that constitutes so much of Kanlit. 

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?

A writer is just someone who finds it more difficult to write than anybody else. Celebrity has penetrated so deep into the culture industries, that there really is no room for what I do, or what I have always thought was admirable in authorship, that is; anonymity. Auden said it; the role of the author is to be anonymous. The pure unrecognized, anonymity of authorship. I love it. These days you are supposed to be a celebrity, or you are supposed to want to be one. Has absolutely nothing to do with writing, but seems to be baked into the contemporary understanding of author-hood.

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

The editing process as run by an editor, is largely a North American thing. I don’t think it has caught on much in Europe....The truth is if you are in the literary game, or the book biz, the ground is shifting so fast under our feet, even as we speak, that it’s impossible to actually know whether there will be editors tomorrow. Look what happened to agents, and book reviewers! And book stores. I watched a standard trade book contract in Canada drop from $30,000 to $500 almost overnight, so the occupation of editor is here to day perhaps but not tomorrow. Who knows?

I’ve worked with good editors and bad editors. When it comes to editors, the best editors are the ones who will give you twenty bucks when you’ve got nothing to eat. Or let you sleep on their sofa when you are homeless. I know such an editor and admire him greatly.

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

Please remember that no one forced you to be a writer. You can quit any time. Mordecai Richler told me that when I was nineteen. 

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

I don’t see genres when I write. For me writing is just writing, there is no difference between any of it.  As has been noted, the only difference between prose and poetry is that the poet, not the typesetter (or typesetting code) gets to decide where the line comes to an end. This is a massive power in poetry, no other literary form has it. I think the great seduction of poetry, if you are writer, is the power of enjambment, that remarkable power that comes from

breaking the line
where you want , not
where the layout code software
forces it to end but
where you
want it to end.

This power lies outside the range of any other literary form.

11 - 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?

Writing comes from reading, at least for me. Play, athletics, sports, games, these things are crucial to my writing, I tend to view language as one of the great sports that for a few years on this planet, we are allowed play. Musicality, the cadence of the line, its metric, prose or poetry, these are also crucial to me

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

It has changed over the years. It you are an author of my generation, male, and white, you had to pass through Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was no way around it. It was not a bad start. If there is such a thing as perfect novel, I guess it’s The Great Gatsby. Around the sixth or seventh time through, it really becomes clear that a certain perfection is going on here. Jean Rhys was very important to me, that sulky, defiant style, I read every word she wrote. For a decade, Lowry’s Under the Volcano dominated my comprehension of what it meant to be an author, and what writing needed to be like. I’ve read it seven times and am reluctant to read it again, out of fear I might not be so taken by it.

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

I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at having a job. I think that would be cool. A little far-fetched maybe, but having a job must be amazing. I can only imagine. I’m told that if you have a job you get money, and everything. So that would be great.

14 - 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?

As a teenager I was briefly scouted as a baseball pitcher, but I had no conception of any life beyond that of an author, and would have turned the scout down flat. “Sorry bud, I’m an author.” Baseball seemed a good life but not as good as authoring. I just assumed I would graduate and enter a book writing factory. Which is more or less what happened.

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

I think I began to write because I knew I was not being understood as a child. Nothing has changed that way.  I write to determine if my incomprehension in any way resembles your incomprehension, if our mutual incomprehensions can approach a type of human triumph, and community.  

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

Dora Bruder, is the last great book I have read, and maybe the last great book I had read in decades. In the near past I spent a great deal of time in awe of W.G. Sebald, but on a recent re-read, the magic was not quite there for me.

 Ideally, I would get rid of “great” books, that sort of veneration does no good for anyone. The best writer is always someone you’ve never read, or is not even published yet. And besides, there is only one book, we are all writing, and always have been. There is very little difference between the reader and the writer, The book, as a communication technology, is four thousand years old. The notion of putting an author’s name on a book is a very modern one, even post Gutenberg. I don’t think it has accomplished very much, except vanity, and embarrassing situations.

17 - What are you currently working on?

I am putting the finishing touches on Playing Hard, a memoir of life and death, sports, play, and war. It is a book about my father’s life and death, and our relationship as interpreted through sport and games, and in his case, war. Its a book that has allowed me to combine a love of literature, and language, and all forms of play, and to really range back and forth across Canada, from the Arctic, to the Niagara escarpment.  

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Quartet for an end of landscape, with farmhouse

 

 

1.

At first it was his stretch of fields, a lease for a neighbour’s expanding yield
after health forced him to pause. The spring my father couldn’t plant, Ontario sky

of variable spelling, monochrome, exaggeration
of slow cloud. His sleep apnea, diabetes plus

, that set retirement to root. Downstream, we watched three tractors pull
their crop of soybean

acres-clean across a morning.

A few years later it the land: shorn off and sold. From the basecamp
of retained, remaining homestead: farmhouse, sheds, the barn. His cancer surgery

surpassing marks, a marked and marker. Held
his ground. A land                       condensed. He drove

his gator to survey the boundaries. Where
he could not walk.

As ALS crept further, strolled electric wheelchair up the laneway,
hand curled up, around

the dog’s leash, bounding forth.

 

2.

A farmer with no sons but one, who chose
a separate path. Embroidery of a curve

away. A daughter: thus, invisible. These
tiny changes made to earth.

  

3.

The nagging suspicion                           of a counter of exchange,
an erased fenceline he could trace

ungrammatical. A birdsong, custom purposed            to
a steady, measured stitch of rain. A phantom

set of tree limbs, trails.                 To watch him grasp 

the cypher, signal, of each leaf, yet occupy
such bounds of silence. An unending pair

of ambit, errant children. A moment, as if
to stumble, still.

  

4.

My father, long and overcast.

Upon his death, pandemic: house is slowly emptied, harvest; strata
of a life well-lived. Disassembled, scattered; donations

and inheritance alike. Is newly occupied

through rental agreements, the shake
of one good hand. Eight decades of tenure, my father’s cremated remains;

boy, am I

as hand-drawn figures in the landscape. Offered up as ghosts,
before the sun-bleach of the spring. These

blueprint pencils fade.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Hollay Ghadery

Hollay Ghadery is a writer living in small town Ontario. Her fiction, non-fiction and poetry has been published in various literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Room, CAROUSEL, The Antigonish Review, Grain and The Fiddlehead. In 2004, she graduated from Queen's University with her BAH in English Literature, and in 2007, she graduated from the University of Guelph with her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She is the recipient of the Constance Rooke Scholarship in Creative Writing, as well as Ontario Arts Council grants for her poetry and non-fiction. Fuse—a mosaic of personal essays on mixed-race identity and mental illness—was published by Guernica Editions MiroLand imprint in May 2021.

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?

Fuse made me more confident but also, quieter in many ways. I don't feel the need to prove myself as much, now that I've written something so intensely (and what some readers have called "uncomfortably") personal. Before writing Fuse, I was grappling with a lot of half-formed or misformed ideas about who I was and what I stood for. I have a better—albeit still evolving—idea of all that now. 

Prior to Fuse, I'd only written poetry and a little fiction, so this was a huge step outside my comfort zone. It's a raw experience; the book's existence in the world leaves me feeling vulnerable, because now just about anyone can read about some of the worst and most personally transformative moments in my life. But, as I said, I also feel more confident than I ever have. Even if people don't like or don't get what I write about, I know that it took a lot to say it and I know that it is resonating with a great many people, and that connection—having people contact me to say they cried reading Fuse because they felt understood and seen and so much less alone—that is a whole other kind of rewarding. Rewarding in a way praise for a poem or piece of fiction has never been. 

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

Poetry is language distilled to sense and sense distilled to essence, and for better or worse, my senses have always operated in overdrive. So, poetry felt more natural and as I result, I've written and published a lot more of it, piece for piece.

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 quick to start any writing process after a whole lot of reading and note taking. That process of gathering wool—the passive writing process—takes about as much time as the active writing. But once I sit down to write, everything comes fairly quickly. As quickly as my life/schedule allows.

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?

My work usually comes from a feeling; a sense that something is wrong or right or sad or beautiful or whatever. It's all very abstract at first. Annoyingly so, because then I have to try to pull out the story or sentiment behind this feeling. 

But ultimately, it's the feeling I want to capture. In the case of Fuse, it came from feeling helpless and frustrated; not just about my own life, but helpless and frustrated that nothing was changing in the world, either, because no one was saying anything. I wanted to say something.

With poetry, each poem exists for itself and not a bigger piece, but usually, I have a common theme I am working my way through. 

With personal essays and fiction, I often have a book in mind. 

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

I understand readings can be beneficial and I don't mind doing them, but they are not my strong suit so I do not enjoy them as much as I perhaps might if I were a better reader. This is why I am so immensely grateful for everyone who comes to my readings anyway. 

My inner critic is often reading over my shoulder and it makes me ramble-y and self-conscious. However, this will not stop me from doing readings and trying to get out of my own way. But I truly doubt I will ever be one of those amazing readers. George Elliott Clarke comes immediately to mind. 

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'm always interested in identity and rebellion. Especially now, when there is so much to fight against—climate change, social injustice, willful ignorance, etc. How do our identities fuel the things we choose to rebel against and why? I am working on a project now where I consider answers to these questions. 

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?

Probably sounds hokey, but I think the role of the writer is to make the world a better place. This can be achieved in millions of different ways that will resonate differently with millions of different people. 

Thankfully, there are millions of different writers.

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

I've always found working with an outside editor to be wonderful, necessary experience. Maybe I've just been lucky, but every editor I've had the fortune of working with has asked all the right questions and made my work better.

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

Read, and read widely. 

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

I find it fairly easy. The appeal for me is that certain ideas I have are better explored by different genres. For example, when I am trying to wrangle my thoughts about the big questions (our role in the universe and impotence in the cosmic scheme of things), I find form poetry (sestinas, pantoums, haiku, ghazals) useful because they provide this lovely, predictable framework. I have something to hold onto as I begin. 

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 start my day with movement: running, weight lifting, mobility training, etc. Whatever my body craves. It helps clear out my mind and burns through some nervous energy so I can better sit still long enough to write. It’s the best way I have of managing my OCD. 

Then, because I write professionally for clients, I either get to my work for them or, if I've cleared enough time to do my own work, I dive into that. I typically stop when the kids get home from my parents' house, if they are there. If they are with me schooling for the day (they're homeschooled, due to COVID), I work nights, weekends, or stolen moments of calm in the afternoon. Mornings are always too busy.  

Regardless, the day starts with movement.

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

I read. Not necessarily in the genre I am writing, but I read something, anything, I love, which means I'll often reread something I already know I love.

I also move. Walking therapy is always breakthrough, so I head out with a pen and piece of paper in my pocket and put one foot in front of another until things start to fall into place. 

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Woodsmoke, lilac and apple turnovers—all at once.

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?

Nature plays a huge influence in my work, living in the country and having spent much time in nature as a child. Astronomy is also sneaking it's way in more than I realized: that crushing weight of the universe and all.

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

I love Lucy Maud Montgomery—her journals, specifically. They make me feel less alone in my struggles with mental illness and I find it fascinating to see how what she wrote--all that hope--was so different from how she actually felt about her life. I can relate to that: creating worlds that are signposts for the one in which we live. 

I also love fairytales (though I don't write them), romance novels (though I don't write them either), poetry of all sorts and creative non-fiction. Really, as I write this list, I realize every sort of writing can be inspiration for me. 

I just finished reading a coffee table book on the history of machines and was riveted. I am taking a keen interest in translations recently, thanks to the astounding work of Khashayar Mohammadi, and am enraptured by this nuanced art form. 

All this is to say that a variety of writing is important for my work and my well-being in general. I have four children who I'd die for without a second thought, but I can envision a possible life in which I am not a mother. I cannot picture a possible life in which I am not a reader and writer.

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

Publish a full-length book of poetry. 

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?

Tough, because I can’t picture myself as anything else. However, if I had to pick something, I think it would be law: environmental or human rights. It would have to be a profession that made the world better in a really direct way. 

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

I couldn't think of another way to be happy. Flannery O'Connor said, "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say" and that pretty much sums it up for me. Writing is my way of making sense of myself and my world. 

Having my particular mental illness means that my mind is often frantic—experiencing sensory overload—writing slows me down enough to make sense of what's going on. 

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

The last great book I read was the last book I finished reading (I’ve finally allowed myself to just not finish books if I am not enjoying them): Walking Leonard and Other Stories by Sophie Stocking (Guernica Editions, 2021). I'm attempting some short stories and found that on the levels of craft as well as pure enjoyment, this collection was exceptional. I loved the way Stocking honed in on the details of everyday life and showed how the quotidian decisions are the ones that often have the biggest impact. 

I'm going to reread it just to take notes. Plot development is not my strong point, which it doesn't need to be for all short stories but it should not be as underdeveloped as mine. 

The last great film was the Iranian movie, The Colour of Paradise (1999) directed by Majid Majidi. It's so gorgeous and heartbreaking. 

20 - What are you currently working on?

A couple things: I have a collection of poems (free verse and form) about rebellion that's kinda, sorta done (ready to be seen at least) and then a collection of short stories about fantasies (like, the everyday sort of fantasies we have about running away with the circus, not the fantasy genre). 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;