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His debut work, Conversational Therapy: Stories and Plays, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Chapters Indigo. The work has recently sold over 100 copies and is part of the library system (Toronto and South Australia).
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Publishing my first work allowed confidence to enter my artistic life. Confidence which I did not possess for more years than I care to mention. I was terrified. Critics, criticism, negative reviews… This has been a journey. Which ended in monumental mental step-taking. I got here a little later than I wanted, but I regret nothing.
My recent work, Conversational Therapy: Stories and Plays, truly has a therapeutic quality for me. It compiled stories I have written around 2006-2008 and plays I wrote in 2014-2016 around the time I attended the Toronto Film School. Some plays were actually short films originally. I’ve included what I thought was the strongest, re-wrote plenty and edited the whole thing with my dear friend and mentor Lee D. Thompson, who also happens to be a fantastic writer.
This collection is a step forward. A step in the right direction, and it pays homage to what I did in my twenties with a polish, maturity and confidence I’ve gained in my thirties. This won’t be my strongest or most memorable work, but it is brave, innovative and deliciously experimental. Personally, I think that’s worth something.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
Both of my parents were strong readers who wrote poetry in their twenties but discontinued their poetry writing as time passed. I am in possession of some of my mother’s poems, which I hope with her permission and blessing to translate and release one day. That being said, since a very early age, I have always gravitated toward fiction. With age, I am not inflexible in this stance. I welcome both poetry and non-fiction, but fiction is where my heart and soul find solace.
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 must confess that I am a slow writer. I still haven’t achieved the work ethic required daily of writers for the best results possible. I always seek that which is impossible in writing—perfection. Obsessiveness, rewriting, seeking perfect words to use. In the end, what I am left with won’t change too drastically. When I perfect something at the very start, I find I won’t need to resort to heavy editing. Editing will transpire, polishing will happen and even some re-writing. But I would say that my pace and my approach to my work are usually rather close to my final vision.
4 - Where does a work of prose or a play 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?
I used to think of myself as a short story writer and a scriptwriter for many years. Forever stuck with a dream of writing longer and more important work. The importance of length mindset soon disappeared, disproven rather quickly once I read short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov. I often champion short stories to people who prefer novels. I tell them often that what Borges could do in four pages is better than most novels. Short Stories are forever underrated and underappreciated. Bernard Malamud, Juan Rulfo, Clarice Lispector, Julio Cortázar, Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Bruno Schulz, to name a few masters of the short form. My current project is a novella tied to two or three short stories from my debut collection. And I hope to follow that up with a novel. But I will never renounce my love and admiration for short stories.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I have yet to do one. Perhaps in the future. Canada was a very different place when I arrived here in 1998. I had to deal with many years of non-acceptance. My background was not accepted. My accent was not accepted. I was not accepted. When you feel like an outcast for so many years, it doesn’t exactly boost confidence for public speaking. But I am slowly getting over this bump and working toward making public appearances and certainly looking forward to eventually doing a reading.
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?
With this work, I largely set out to disprove notions about the mystery/crime/noir genres as being lesser. I tread where better writers than I have gone before, such as Vladimir Nabokov with The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Paul Auster with his New York Trilogy.
The premise of one story, The Train Ride, is, of course, an homage to the one and only Patricia Highsmith. Before Paul Auster cleverly reminded us how it is possible to elevate this genre, and truly break through presumptions about it, a path I’ve also tried to follow. There was Highsmith and her incredible psychologically dissecting thrillers with plenty of dark comedy. The genre is more than locked door mysteries. It is more than black gloves and silenced pistols. To use my own work as an example, I believe most readers understood what my intentions were and what I was trying to achieve here. I wasn’t actually writing serious crime mysteries or noir thrillers. There was always a toying with the genre, but always respectfully, there was also always the psychological aspect, beyond the dazzle of metafiction, experimentation and innovative trickery. At the heart of it all, I wanted to infuse a genre often looked down upon with the complexity and depth of literary fiction that far surpass it according to those same individuals until all lines and opinions are blurred. Did I fail? This isn’t for me to decide. That is for the reader. But for me, it’s never fascinating to write about a gun. What fascinates me is to write about a person holding the gun and firing it. The motivation behind their actions. Nor about the actual investigation, as much as about the person investigating it. Plenty of serious and great writers also dabbled with crime writing. Because there’s this allure. Impossible to ignore.
When my favourite novelist wrote a non-conventional detective novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I knew I was onto something. For many, that work isn’t in Nabokov’s top five, but I’d argue that it can easily be. And the amusing part, you don’t remember the investigation. The train tracks taken, or roads driven upon, or many of the twists and turns. You remember the discussions on memory, philosophy, things which we leave behind which we are remembered by (in this case photographs, diaries). You remember the characters which under masterful brushstrokes become real people, or do they? Since full understanding and true identity play an important role. But what is certain is that we learn about these characters more than what is generally expected by those critics of the genre. And therefore, the elevation has successfully occurred. The work is no longer just a thriller. It is a serious work of fiction that should be seriously considered. And are we not perhaps too rash at times, to compare, and to do so negatively? What would G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, among so many others, have to say about this? Why do we need work like The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, The Lime Twig and The New York Trilogy to direct our attention to the fact that the walls separating these genres are rather thin and decrepit? Why must these in-between novels be written to make us question literary fiction elitist gatekeeping about what exactly classifies as a masterpiece and the criteria it has to fall under? The Lime Twig is a crime novel at heart. And I consider it to be brilliant for one.
7 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Hiring a professional editor was a learning experience full of growing pains. I learned plenty, and I am a different writer now who has a better understanding of ways to improve my work. There is a difference between a light edit and a more serious one. My editor became my friend and my mentor. What I will say is that no one is above therapy, and I don’t think anyone is above editing. This is my opinion, but I stick to it. I’ve met plenty of lovely individuals and talented writers who do not believe in professional editing, and they are fully entitled to their opinions. I respectfully disagree. Some writers are natural editors, some learn and reach a level where outside editors are not needed. But most of us require another set of eyes. Expertise of someone removed from our work. In the end, do whatever works for you. What works for me is working with editors like Lee D. Thompson.
8 - What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
To stop obsessing over trying to achieve perfectionism and flawlessness in my writing. To simply, just write.
9 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (plays to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I believe all writers have the ability to move between genres. Their level of success is to be determined. But if one can write, one can write anything. I began with short stories and continued with them until I experimented with screenplays. Largely, it is the recalibration of the brain in order to jump aboard another ship and set sail. Otherwise, it is all writing and writers surely know how to do this.
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?
There is no specific routine, but I do have to have my notebook when I am reading. I get inspired by reading great works of literature. Ideas come to me. Snippets of dialogue. Entire paragraphs if I am lucky. Writers cannot write without reading. The two go hand in hand.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I have been fortunate not to have dealt with writer’s block thus far. But to answer the question of where one seeks inspiration. I find it in outstanding books and unforgettable cinema. All I need to do is pick up a book by Vladimir Nabokov or watch a film by Ingmar Bergman. The online community for artists is also wonderful. My brief e-mail exchange with Joseph McElroy was truly inspiring. A brilliant novelist who took all sorts of literary risks and deserves more recognition.
All one has to do is to keep going. If I stopped writing, I would stop living.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I would love to answer this question with Proustian prose. Alas, I am unable. My first home is under attack. When I think of my home, I do so with tears in my eyes. But Ukraine will survive.
13 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Vladimir Nabokov, Don DeLillo, Joseph McElroy, Thomas Bernhard, László Krasznahorkai, Franz Kafka, Machado de Assis and a few others I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this lovely interview. I would also encourage readers of this interview to sample the work of some really great Canadian authors, like Lee D. Thompson, Jeff Bursey, W.D. Clarke and Braden Matthew.
14 - What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?
To write a novel.
15 - 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?
Writing, sadly, does not pay the bills for most of us. I work. I support my family. Do I enjoy this non-artistic type of work? No. Would there be a great difference if it were something else but still a distance away from art? The answer would be a firm No once again. Most of us dream the same dream. Perhaps one day that dream will become a reality. And we can do only the type of work we truly want to be doing.
16 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Impossible to answer. I was doing it from such an early age. It is part of my identity at this point. A separation is inconceivable. I write. I am a writer. And I will continue to create until I am unable.
17 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Books: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. Satantango/Chasing Homer/The Last Wolf/Spadework for a Palace by László Krasznahorkai.
Films: Ruben Östlund’s The Triangle of Sadness.
18 - What are you currently working on?
A novella which will take me out of my comfort zone. Challenging everything I have learned about writing up to now and making me try different styles to go along with the highly experimental nature of this work. Which is: Psychological, philosophical, poetic.
This novella revolves around the journey of a woman seeking meaning and understanding. Her life at the moment is incomprehensible, her partner is missing, and she is all alone. A mysterious phone call in the middle of the night sets things in motion, and so begins a deeply rich psychological analysis of a character trying to adjust to her newfound situation.
Silence plays a significant role in one chapter. Almost becomes the protagonist. Another chapter brings us inside of a book which was abandoned on a nightstand by the main heroine. And yet another chapter focuses on a philosophical discourse on life and death between the said heroine and a ruthless hitman inside of a motel which seems to be suspended between worlds.
A splintered narrative, a remarkable tale of humaneness, a breaking down of our deeply embedded beliefs, the ignited gunpowder of originality. An honest look at human fragility, the tenderness and vulnerability. Masked faces unmasked. An examination of our routines, our societal performances, stationary existences, medievalism of our belief in predestination. A written concernment with everything that makes us human. Humanity transcribed onto the page.
I really want this work to cause a revolutionary reaction. I want any preconceived opinions or expectations of a work of fiction from Canada to go out the window. While this pays homage to the past, it is also very much the next stage of Canadian Literature. Unafraid to take any plunge. Deterministic to undermine all preconceptions.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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