12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tonya Lailey

Tonya Lailey (she/her) writes poetry and essays. Her first full-length collection, Farm : Lot 23,  was released this year by Gaspereau Press. Her poem, “The Bottle Depot,” was shortlisted for Arc Poetry 2024 "Poem of the Year". Her poems “Bat Love” and “Love on the Rocks” won first and second prize in FreeFall Magazine’s Annual Poetry Contest 2024. She holds an MFA in creative writing from UBC. 

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 has not changed my life materially – ha! It has given some confidence, and some small sense of place in the big open field we call writing. I now know it’s possible to have a manuscript accepted and published. I also know that the publishing experience can be good. Andrew Steeves, at Gaspereau Press, was lovely to work with – clear, kind and respectful in his approach. The book always felt like my book in his hands.

My second manuscript (my most recent and not yet published) deals with more charged material, namely, addiction and codependency. I don’t know how different the writing is, exactly. I play with form as I do in the first book. A single thread of colour – yellow – runs through this second collection. It felt very different to write these poems since I didn’t write them to belong to a book. The poems took shape over 10 years, in various workshops and with writing groups, friends.

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

At King’s College in Halifax, where I did my undergrad degree, I took a French Feminism course with Professor Elizabeth Edwards. She was the first person who told me that my writing was poetic, that I had a sense for metaphor. Whether or not that was true, I believed her. I think that metaphor happened to me from reading Kristeva and De Beauvoir and being swept up by their prose. I wasn’t much of a reader or writer as a teenager. I mean, I won the English award when I graduated high school, but I didn’t write much beyond school assignments. I spent the bulk of my time outside of school training as a competitive swimmer, then also a runner. Growing up on a farm and doing sports had me living an intense body life. I think that’s a solid prelude to writing poetry, being deep in the bodies of things, deep in one’s own body— its pains and pleasures. And I’ve also always been a day dreamer, space-cadet as we called it when I was a kid. I think poetry is kinder to dreamers than fiction might be. I’ve always felt more at home catching poems than telling stories.

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 always have many writing projects on the go. I think that’s not unusual for writers. Starting projects comes easily. Developing these ideas and getting them to a point I feel good about  is not such a snap. It’s rare that a draft appears looking close to its final shape. I take it as a good sign when it does. I live for the poems that “flow from the hand unbidden”, to quote Derek Mahon. More often I write by hand frantically to capture what feels most alive on paper and then I spend hours working with the juicy material, trying to coax it into something without killing it. It’s not all that different from winemaking.
And often, yes, I start with research and many, many pages of notes until I feel at home enough in the content to play with it and have a say.

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?

I do both. I write the poems that arise out of daily living. I write them to write them. I believe in those poems. They keep me going, the way perennials keep me wanting to garden, and seeds that germinate keep me wanting to plant seeds.

That said, I also like piloting projects. There’s a thrill in imagining a book then working to pull it off, especially if I’m open to “it” becoming not what I thought it would be.

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

Hmmm. I’m not sure yet. I haven’t done enough of them. I’ll say I learn a lot about my writing by reading it out loud to people. I hear more clearly where the writing trips over itself. I hear where I may need other words I haven’t found yet.

I have both enjoyed readings and not enjoyed readings. The biggest barrier to enjoyment is typically myself, my insecurities. If I prepare myself in a loving way and read from that place, lo and behold, I find I can love the reading. I try to remember to practice what Richard Wagamese writes in Embers:

When my energy is low, meaning I don’t feel at my best in terms of creativity, inspiration, attunement or rest, I let Creator have my flow and ask only to be a channel. My deepest audience connection has always happened when I do this. So, on my way to a podium nowadays, I say to myself, ‘Okay, Creator, you and me, one more time.’ When I surrender the delivery, along with the outcome, the anxiety and the expectation, everything becomes miraculous. It’s a recipe for life, really.

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?

Oh, yeah. I’m always asking about love and relationships, how to love, how to have better relationships, what that looks like, how it’s done, what the actions are, whether the desire for sustainable, deep, caring love (not caretaking love) is a pipedream or an attainable, generative foundation for living.  I’m betting the latter. And by relationships, I mean all of them—to the self, to each other, to difference, to all the other life on the planet, to technology, to work, to eating, to aging, to death.

So, that’s also to say that I’m concerned about the social and economic systems within which we conduct our collective selves and that shape our imaginations for what is and what could be. I don’t like how we tend to define our choices, limit them. It’s strange because in so many ways we scoff at limitations, particularly when it comes to the exploitation of natural resources. At the same time, our imagination for public wealth and well-being is gravely constrained. So, yeah, I’m concerned about concentrations of wealth and power and how limiting and deadly they are / we know them to be.

I am also concerned about the degree to which women continue to be held in contempt in our culture.

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?

I’m not one for “should”. And, I don’t know about writers having a defined role in larger cultures. Something about attempting to define that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think writers are a special class of people. Writers are people who write and share/distribute their writing in public places. I want to live in a world where people do that. And I want to live in a world where people are interested in reading what other people are writing about, especially if those other people live very different lives from their own. I want to live in a world that thrums with imagination. Writing can be one way to cultivate imagination.

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

Again, my experience is limited. To date I have had only positive experiences with outside editors, but I know writer-editor relationships can be fraught with difficulties.

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

Don’t write to be loved.

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

I find it a challenge and a relief to move between genres. My move is most often from poetry to creative non-fiction. I find the scale of CNF intimidating – it tends to happen over so many pages whereas I can contain a poem on one page. Since I write mostly poetry, when I go to write a poem I can drop into a certain state. I don’t have that as reliably with CNF. I definitely don’t have that yet with fiction.

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 tend to resist routine, but I like commitment. So, I commit to a certain number of hours each day. That number changes, almost daily. Alternately, I commit to finishing something, which doesn’t mean I won’t work on it again but rather that I’ll submit it for publication and see what happens.

The one constant is that every day begins with an hour of spiritual-type readings and a brief free write or “noticing poems” as Patrick Lane called them.

Early morning is my best writing time. I tend to wake up with a thin skin, alert and sensitive. This can work well for writing.

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

I go for a walk. I clean. I make food.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Parathion. Woodsmoke. Rotting peaches. Fermenting grapes. Diesel. Cedar. Yew.

Willow. Kerosene. Brown bread and baked beans.

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?

Yes : Plants. Paintings. Photographs. Music. Science – botany usually. Sculpture.

And the fabric arts are not to be overlooked! And the prompt – a poetry prompt is an art form I tell you.

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

I tend to freeze when someone asks me this question, so I’ll just start writing the names of the writers that feel most present with me these days. Emily Dickinson / Ross Gay / Claire Keegan / Sarah Moss / Ocean Vuong / Alice Oswald / Seamus Heaney / JaneHirshfield / Marie Howe / Ada Limón / Richard Wagamese / Richard Powers / Susan Musgrave / Sue Goyette / Joan Didion / Rainer Maria Rilke / Anne Lamott / Bronwen Tate / Lorna Crozier / Bob Hicok / Gregory Orr / Aimee Nezhukumatathil / Karen Solie / Naomi Shihab Nye. And so many Canadian poets not already named whom I work with or have shared work with like, Juleta Severson-Baker, Mary Vlooswyk, Erin E. McGregor, Kimberley Orton, Bren Simmers, Barbara Pelman, Barbara Kenney, Micheline Maylor, Lisa Richter, Richard Osler, Andrea Scott…this list is much longer but this is a start.

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

The Biles II.

Write a novel that gets published and then read by at least a handful of people.

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?

In no order: master gardener for hire, vegetable/flower farmer with a market stall (you know, even just a folding table would be great), winemaker with a market stall (but with no sampling, I’ve been that woman and it wasn’t fun).

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

The flexible schedule: I had kids. I’m not great with my hands. I was encouraged to do it on a few occasions that remain vivid for me – felt like a lightning strike. Writing can take place in bed, in a car, on a log, with a frog.  Farming is bloody hard work.

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

Book? Books:

Foster by Claire Keegan.

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

I’ve read both books three times. I’m not even sure why I find these books so affecting but I do. The writing comes close to the bone while feeling deeply mysterious. I find it uncanny. 

Film? Films:

The Cathedral

Good luck to you, Leo Grande

Women Talking

20 - What are you currently working on?

An essay about traffic, driving, the end-days of cars, with the working title: “Palliative Car”.

A couple of poetry book reviews.

A commonplace book on the Black Ash Tree that I hope is the foundation for a hybrid form book with the working title: “In Light of the Black Ash”

A drawing practice – I want to draw regularly.

Italian; learning it.

I need to write a pantoum that incorporates things near and things far; it’s for a writing group. (So far, it’s gotten no further than the back of my mind.)

Everyday poems that come up, as they do.

Revisions to short stories I wrote two years ago.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

the first review of On Beauty, the Archibald Lampman Shortlist + upcoming shortlist reading,

In case you hadn't heard, my latest poetry title, World's End, (ARP Books, 2023), was recently shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award, alongside D.S. Stymeist's Cluster Flux (Frontenac House, 2023) and Sandra Ridley's Vixen (Book*hug Press) [see my review of such here]. Naturally, I've lost track of how many times (a handful, certainly) I've been up for the Lampman (always a bridesmaid, never the bride, as Bugs Bunny once complained as well), although the last time I was, ten years ago, it was also along Sandra Ridley (for those at home, keeping score). If you are so inclined, also, be aware that the three of us will be participating in a Lampman Award Shortlist reading this coming Monday at 7pm at Ottawa's SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre, 77 Pamilla Street (in Little Italy). In other news, Canadian writer J. Jill Robinson was good enough to provide a deeply generous first review of On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press) over at Goodreads! Thanks so much! Here's the link to where she posted the review, or you can read such, below:

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying reading and being challenged by rob mclennan’s fine new book of stories, On Beauty. It’s called ‘stories,’ but the author’s approach to narrative is largely unconventional, untraditional, and distinctive.

In mclennan’s work there is a fine balance between how each piece happens and what happens, which is a particular delight for readers who are writers: opportunities to learn craft from a master. Poetry and prose combine, and fuse. mclennan has the facility with language of a poet, uses compression like a poet, yet he also indulges a fondness for story. He uses brush strokes, wispy suggestions, evocative details, and graceful, often charming phrasing to convey meaning drawn from the domestic to the sublime.

At times mclennan speaks directly to writerly choices in craft: for example, “Who is the intended reader of the contemporary novel? Some books are composed to be intimate. Is that better, or worse? Perhaps an improvement to be spoken to directly, as opposed to listening in to a conversation between others.” Thus the frequent use of the close third person, and first person, drawing his readers near to his head, and his heart.

Each of the often brief stories, which are interspersed with fourteen “On Beauty” sections, is introduced by a quote that both informs each piece, and also illustrates how well-read mclennan is, how varied his influence are, seen through a wide range of writers including writers like Brossard, Auster, Kundera, Wah, Stein, Miranda July, Gunnars, and many others. A diverse bunch of language lovers.

Examples are surely the best way to convey the fineness of mclennan’s work. Here are a few of my favourites.

Before his son is born, the persona writes, with humour and delight:
I was beginning to see them more clearly, fleshy outline of baby-foot in my dear wife’s belly. There was something inside.

And then, on witnessing the birth of that son, the persona observes:
Stunned as our newborn pulled himself to the breast. Baby skin-to-skin as I quietly wept, and our new trio drifted from anxiety to relief.

Note how much he can convey in so few words, a quick character sketch of a wife as an domestic whirlwind: "Their mother a flurry of cupboards and movement"

And then there’s this, which follows a quote from Paul Auster: "What frightens us most isn’t death, but its result: absence"

Or, in “Translator’s note,” “I am shaped by these words, as I understand them.”

And here’s one of my favourites, in which a social media excerpt is incorporated:
On National Boyfriend Day, @adultmomband posted: that ex u still romanticize is just a concocted projection based off of everything they were never able to give you.”

The piece goes on to note: All of this is projection. All of this is created.

Throughout On Beauty mclennan provides the reader with the “delightful instruction” Aristotle speaks of. I would add that On Beauty is also of beauty, in beauty, from beauty, as well as being simply beautifully written, beautifully expressed. Lovers of language and of narrative will delight in this volume.

Congratulations, rob mclennan, on this fine book of intellectually and emotionally engaging work, work that skilfully uses the abstract and the concrete to entertain, touch, and move the reader with mclennan’s open mind and open heart.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Leah Souffrant

Leah Souffrant is a writer and artist committed to interdisciplinary practice. She is the author of Entanglements: Threads woven from history, memory, and the body (Unbound Edition Press 2023) and Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable (Collection Clinamen, PULG Liège 2017). The range of Souffrant’s work includes poetry, visual art, translation, and critical work in literature, feminist theory, and performance. She teaches writing at New 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?

Every time a book is published, it is important. That affirmation, showing that your work reached a reader, can energize the works that come next, and that’s been true with my books.

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

Poetry had been the most freeing writing, where sound and idea and image intermingle in unexpected ways. Given how poetry is often taught with emphasis on form and received “meaning,” this liberating relationship to poetry isn’t always the case for young writers. In recent years, the categories themselves – poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and so on – have felt restrictive. Now, writing is most free when I’m not bound by those categories, or where the boundaries blur. A poem composed of sentences. An essay that slips into poetic lines. Non-fiction infused by imaginative sequences. This flexibility revives the sense of freedom I recall when poetry first seduced me as a writer.

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?

Writing is fast and slow at the same time. Some of my most satisfying writing comes in bursts, quickly written, but what the reader eventually encounters is the result of a slow process. In starting a poem, I might see or hear something, and it begins, and through writing I figure something out. Then I re-write, often for sound and often cutting the first couple of lines or moving them to a later moment in the poem.

Writing longer-form prose is both fast and slow, too, but on a more sprawling scale. Writing prose, what I’m encountering is often research. So that takes time, collecting those encounters with reading and experience and research. I write as I go then rearrange things. I love both the urgency of getting ideas down, reacting to thoughts – my own and others’ – and I love the slow meditation on the shape of the line or the shape of the paragraph.

One of my favorite things to do with my writing is to move things around and see how those changes impact the writing, the experience of reading. It’s extraordinary and fascinating, how the order of the encounter impacts our mind and feelings. Or, I might say, How the order of the encounter impacts our mind and feelings is extraordinary and fascinating. And to do that, I have to slow down.

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?

I begin noticing something – a word in a book, a sensation in the body, and experience in life. Often those observations build into a pattern of observations, which eventual become a book. That can feel like a “project” once I start to fix on tracking those patterns of encounter. I want a book to have a sense of wholeness, which becomes more coherent when a project emerges. But it’s often hard to know what will inform that coherence until later in the writing process. Nevertheless, we all have preoccupations, and that informs what we write.

And as a reader I love project books and focused series. Today I’m thinking about The Glass Essay by Anne Carson or the Lucy poems in Break The Glass by Jean Valentine come to mind. I love The Rupture Tense by Jenny Xie.

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

Pacing, repetition, coherence, variation, silence and noise, ambient sounds we can’t control or anticipate… They all fascinate me. Public readings push me to be thoughtful about what and how I share with a live audience. Some books – likely most of my book Entanglements – are more impactful when encountered privately by a reader. I’m interested in the different ways we come to knowledge, and a live performance is a different encounter than a private 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?

Memory and embodiment – how what we do and remember (and forget) relates to how we understand and make sense of the world – are endlessly interesting to me, and lately I’ve been especially interested in the ways these theoretical concerns emerge in everyday or mundane experience. I’m deeply interested in questions about love, in private and in community. My writing returns again and again to women’s experience, and more generally those experiences that are underexamined or difficult to name.

Abiding concerns in my writing and art include what is difficult or impossible to convey, yet are essential to human experience, understanding, knowledge and ignorance. My first published book, Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable, works to name what is often most powerful to me in books: the ways what is blank or silent in a work of art is often holding something important, often traumatic, and the difficulty or impossibility of conveying that importance is very exciting to me as a reader and writer and artist. My recent book Entanglements: threads woven through history, memory, and the body, enacts the principle that what we experience, what we read, what we learn, what we inherit, all impact knowledge and ideas.

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?

Reading can make us slow down, pay attention. We pay attention differently and to different things (ideas, worlds, experiences) when we read. This feels like an urgent practice to cultivate now, given the ways the “larger culture” forces an attenuation of attention in so many ways. Of course, not all writing challenges that force, but I value writing that invites a slowing, that seduces us to slow down.

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

I have a few readers I turn to during the editing process. I sincerely value the insights of those trusted readers. I rely on different people for different projects. Finding these people is essential work of writing, being in community -- and the challenge of finding readers and editors you trust is something I appreciate more as time goes by.

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

I’m a writer because I write, and I’m a poet when I write poems, an artist when I paint. I really believe in the call to do the work. Create, write, persist. Put in the time. It’s a sort of faith, but it’s also practice. You just have to do to become, and if you don’t do then you aren’t that – you’re doing something else – but if you are doing it, you can (and should) claim that practice.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poems to art to criticism)? What do you see as the appeal?

Easy – essential, even.

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?

Wake up early. Write anything. Then pick up where you left off – a line, a reading, a sketch, whatever the work is. And at the end of your (creative) day, leave something for tomorrow to discover and continue. Leave these gifts for yourself to keep you working next time you turn to the page or the studio or the file.

Depending on the time of year and my other commitments (teaching, for example), my schedule fluctuates, but having morning time to write makes a big difference to me. There have been times in my life when that meant setting an alarm for 5am to make it possible. If I get something down first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is buoyed by that effort.

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

Walking and reading – not at the same time.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Less is more when it comes to fragrance; I’m keenly sensitive to smells. When I’m not distracted by any scent, then I feel at home.

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?

Entanglements, my 2023 book, is in part a meditation on how everything impacts us. I steadfastly believe all these influences and experiences are entangled in what we think and know and create.

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

I often return to Simone Weil. And Rilke. They remind me of the profound power of thinking with others, of poetry and ideas. And Anne Carson’s writing has been very important to me, not only individual books, but the ways Carson experiments and reaches across genres, disciplines, and conventions. Yoko Ono’s art and writing has had a deep impact on me, too, for similar reasons.

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

I’d love to show my art more widely, to make the connection between my writing and visual art more available, and perhaps to a different audience.

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?

As a child, I thought about becoming an architect, because the architect puzzles out the use of space, but I’ve never been very interested in precise measurements, so I wouldn’t trust myself with architecture. Then, thinking about similar puzzles of space and how an environment makes us feel, makes me think of interior design. Shaping the experience of being in a space interests me, and interior design should be less dangerous that an imprecise building.

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

Writing is a way of thinking – I need this, and I’ve felt connected to that process for as long as I can remember. And it’s fun, too (sometimes!). Writing is fundamental for me. Even when it’s hard. And beyond my own private needs for working out ideas and experiences, I value sharing ideas with others -- in person, in conversation, in the classroom, as a reader. As a writer, I enter this broader conversation by offering ideas and images, even with unknown readers. Writing – and putting it out into the world -- is an act of optimism, compassion, and curiosity, all of which are vital.

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

Great books are hard for me to narrow down, but what stands out to me right now are Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting and Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World and Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living. (Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll likely have a new list!) The last great film I’ve seen – easy: Poor Things.

20 - What are you currently working on?

As usual, I’ve got a few irons on the fire. I spend many days in my studio painting and drawing. This summer I finished the first draft of a novel, which is a new genre for me, and I’m revising a collection of poetry, working to bring together older and newer poems. And I’ve continued a performance research project as part of the LeAB Iteration Lab with poet and theater artist Abby Paige. All this contributes to developing ideas about creative practice, memory, and experience, which are abiding interests.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

dusie : the tuesday poem,

The Tuesday poem is more than eleven years old, with new poems by more than six hundred different authors since April 9, 2013. For those unaware, I've been curating this weekly poem series over at the dusie blog, an offshoot of the online poetry journal Dusie (http://www.dusie.org/), edited/published by American poet and publisher Susana Gardner.

http://dusie.blogspot.ca/

The series aims to publish a mix of authors from the dusie kollektiv, as well as Canadian and international poets, ranging from emerging to the well established. Over the next few weeks and months, watch for new work by dusies and non-dusies alike, including Dawn Macdonald, Marilyn Bowering, Han VanderHart, Joseph Donato, David Harrison Horton, Hannah Siden, Jillian Clasky, Steven Ross Smith, Nikki Wallschlaeger, Mari-Lou Rowley, David Currie, Charlie Petch and Dag T. Straumsvåg, among many others.

And submissions to this series remain open: send poem(s) and bio as .doc w photo to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com with subject line: "tuesday poem submission"

A new poem will appear every Tuesday afternoon, Central European Summer Time, just after lunch (which is 8am in Central Canada terms).

If you wish to receive notices for poems as they appear, sign up here for the weekly email list.

So far, the Tuesday poem series has featured new writing by Elizabeth Robinson, Megan Kaminski, Marcus McCann, Hoa Nguyen, Stephen Collis, j/j hastain, David W. McFadden, Edward Smallfield, Erín Moure,Roland Prevost, Maria Damon, Rae Armantrout, Jenna Butler, Cameron Anstee, Sarah Rosenthal, Kathryn MacLeod, Camille Martin, Pattie McCarthy, Stephen Brockwell, Rosmarie Waldrop, Nicole Markotić, Deborah Poe, Ken Belford, Hugh Thomas, nathan dueck, Hailey Higdon, Stephanie Bolster, Jessica Smith,Mark Cochrane, Amanda Earl, Robert Swereda, Colin Smith, Sarah Mangold, Joe Blades, Maxine Chernoff,Peter Jaeger, Dennis Cooley, Louise Bak, Phil Hall, Fenn Stewart, derek beaulieu, Susan Briante, Adeena Karasick, Marthe Reed, Brecken Hancock, Lea Graham, D.G. Jones, Monty Reid, Karen Mac Cormack, Elizabeth Willis, Susan Elmslie, Paul Vermeersch, Susan M. Schultz, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, K.I. Press,Méira Cook, Rachel Moritz, Kemeny Babineau, Gil McElroy, Geoffrey Nutter, Lisa Samuels, Dan Thomas-Glass, Judith Copithorne, Deborah Meadows, Meredith Quartermain, William Allegrezza, nikki reimer,Hillary Gravendyck, Catherine Wagner,Stan Rogal, Sarah de Leeuw, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Arielle Greenberg, lary timewell, Norma Cole, Paul Hoover, Emily Carr, Kate Schapira, Johanna Skibsrud, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Richard Froude, Marilyn Irwin, Carrie Olivia Adams, Aaron Tucker,Mercedes Eng, Jean Donnelly, Pearl Pirie, Valerie Coulton, Lesley Yalen, Andy Weaver, Christine Stewart,Susan Lewis, Kate Greenstreet, ryan fitzpatrick, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Lina ramona Vitkauskas, Nikki Sheppy, N.W. Lea, Barbara Henning, Chus Pato (trans Erín Moure), Stephen Cain, Lucy Ives, William Hawkins, Jan Zwicky, Rusty Morrison, Jon Boisvert, Helen Hajnoczky, Steven Heighton,Jennifer Kronovet, Ray Hsu, Steve McOrmond, Lily Brown, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Beth Bachmann, Harold Abramowitz, Sarah Burgoyne, David James Brock, Elizabeth Treadwell, Shannon Maguire, Mary Austin Speaker, Victor Coleman, Charles Bernstein, Jennifer K Dick, Eric Schmaltz, Kayla Czaga, Paige Taggart,Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Lillian Necakov, Liz Howard, Jamie Reid, Jennifer Londry, Rachel Loden, a rawlings, Jenny Haysom, Jake Kennedy, Beverly Dahlen, Kristjana Gunnars, Eleni Zisimatos, Pete Smith,Julie Carr, Natalee Caple, Anne Boyer, Alice Burdick, Buck Downs, Phinder Dulai, Bronwen Tate, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Nelson Ball, Laura Sims, Cassidy McFazdean, Paul Zits, Geoffrey Young, Michael Sikkema,Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Emily Izsak, Michael Ruby, Kemeny Babineau, Mairéad Byrne, Amy Bagwell, Jamie Sharpe, Dina Del Bucchia, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Claire Lacey, George Bowering, Muriel Leung,Michael Lithgow, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Kate Hargreaves, Carrie Hunter, Jennifer Baker, Rita Wong, Kristina Drake, Sonnet L’Abbé, Montana Ray, Farid Matuk, Michael Cavuto, Mark Truscott, Virginia Konchan, Christine Stewart and Ted Byrne, Chris Martin, Jason Christie, Marie Buck, George Stanley, Sean Braune, Natalie Lyalin, Donato Mancini, Shannon Bramer, Anne Cecelia Holmes, Kiki Petrosino, Emily Abendroth, Melissa Bull, Barbara Langhorst, Suzanne Zelazo, Aaron McCollough, Éireann Lorsung, Alexandra Oliver, Klara du Plessis, Daphne Marlatt, CAConrad, Sarah Dowling, Sara Renee Marshall, Sarah Fox, Nyla Matuk, Cody-Rose Clevidence, Brian Henderson, Adrienne Gruber, bp sutton, Laura Walker, Jessica Popeski,Collier Nogues, Mark Goldstein, Zach Savich, Jacqueline Valencia, Gerry Shikatani, Jennifer Stella, Matthew Henriksen, Sharon Thesen, Sarah Cook, Eryk Wenziak, 신선영 Sun Yung Shin, Ander Monson, Carrie Etter, Sarah Moses, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Aimee Herman, Christine Stoddard, Aaron Boothby, John Barton, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Steve Venright, natalie hanna, Melissa Eleftherion, Adam Clay, Jennifer Zilm, Michelle Detorie, Kyle Flemmer, Biswamit Dwibedy, Rebecca Salazar, Ryan Eckes, Kate Siklosi, Lissa McLaughlin, Ashleigh Lambert, Shane Book, Anna Gurton-Wachter, James Meetze, Conor Mc Donnell, Jake Syersak, Domenica Martinello, Stephanie Grey, Christy Davids, Jay Ritchie, Katie Fowley, Emily Sanford, Geoffrey Nilson, Simina Banu, Marty Cain, Chelene Knight, Madhur Anand, Matthew Johnstone, Chia-Lun Chang, Andrew Wessels, Michael Martin Shea, Kimberly Quiogue Andrews and Sarah Blake, Lance La Rocque, Callie Garnet, Kerry Gilbert, Laura Theobald, Felicia Zamora, Eléna Rivera, Christian Schlegel, Janet Kaplan, Stuart Ross, Beth Ayer, Laressa Dickey, Beni Xiao, Annick MacAskill, Jenna Lyn Albert, John Phillips, MC Hyland, Di Brandt, Anthony Etherin, M.H. Vanstone, Sommer Browning, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Madeleine Stratford, Liz Countryman, Jamie Townsend, nina jane drystek, Nicole Steinberg, Lauren Haldeman, Catherine Cafferty, Cath Morris, Kristi Maxwell, Shira Dentz, Taryn Hubbard, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Joel Robert Ferguson, Jane Virginia Rohrer, Elisha May Rubacha, Noah Falck, Rebecca Rustin, Seth Landman, Marvyne Jenoff, Mikko Harvey, Erin Emily Ann Vance, Michael Turner, Heather Sweeney, Tanis MacDonald, Evan Gray, Conyer Clayton, Laynie Browne, Timothy Otte, Tim Atkins, Erin Bedford, Alex Manley, Jen Sookfong Lee, Kirby, Emma Bolden, Ruth Daniell, Lindsay Turner, Brenda Brooks, Rob Winger, Jordan Davis, Avonlea Fotheringham, Winston Le, Diana Arterian, Manahil Bandukwala, Samuel Ace, Zane Koss, J.I. Kleinberg, Luke Bradford, Sadie McCarney, Shelly Harder, Samuel Strathman, Ariel Dawn, Arisa White, Ian Martin, Charles Rafferty, Andrew Cantrell, Terese Mason Pierre, Guy Birchard, Kimberly Campanello and Léonce Lupette, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Lucy Dawkins, Shannon Quinn, Tom Snarsky, Aja Moore, Paul Perry, Erin Lyndal Martin, Alice Notley, katie o’brien, Chad Sweeney, Nicole Raziya Fong, Emily Lu, Henry Israeli, Jónína Kirton, MLA Chernoff, Wren Hanks, Catherine Graham, Geoffrey Olsen, Jami Macarty, David Groulx, Emmalea Russo, Kyle Kinaschuk, James Hawes, Anne Lesley Selcer, Amelia Does, Franklin Bruno, Matea Kulić, Breanna Ferguson, émilie kneifel, David Bradford, Trish Salah, Astra Papachristodoulou, Amy Parkes, K.B. Thors, JoAnna Novak, Jean Van Loon, Brandon Krieg, Jennifer Wortman, Kim Fahner, Cameron Gearen, Hamish Ballantyne, Diana S. Adams, Bill Carty, Khashayar Mohammadi, Allyson Paty, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, Ginny Threefoot, Mahaila Smith, Lloyd Wallace, Nicole McCarthy, Jérôme Melançon, Jessica Q. Stark, Jaime Forsythe, SJ Fowler, Emma Tilley, Jake Byrne, Kimberly Alidio, William Vallières, Cecilia Tanburri Stuart, Michael Edwards, Julia Drescher, James Lindsay, Edric Mesmer, Kat Cameron, Brandon Brown, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Barry Schwabsky, Tom Prime, Jennifer Falkner, luna ray hall, Endre Farkas, Gregory Betts, Kate Angus, Ren Pike, Helen Robertson, Jack Jung, Nate Logan, Natalie Rice, Emily Brandt, Christina Shah, David Buuck, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Benjamin Niespodziany, Katie Jean Shinkle, Ken Norris, Howie Good, Lesle Lewis, Jaclyn Piudik, Alexander Joseph, Alina Pleskova, Christopher Patton, Nathanael O’Reilly, AM Ringwalt, Allison Pitinii Davis, Carla Harris, Adam O. Davis, Camille Guthrie, Paul Pearson, Andrew Dubois, Trevor Wilkes, Liam Siemens, Saba Pakdel, Moira Walsh, Natalie Jane Edson, Monica Mody, Grant Wilkins, Maw Shein Win, Jade Wallace, Wayne Miller, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Katie Naughton, Julian Day, Evan Nicholls, Therese Estacion, Jessica Laser, Matt Robinson, Ayaz Pirani, Elizabeth Clark Wessel, Sue Bracken, Gregory Crosby, Roxanna Bennett, Jessie Janeshek, Leah Sandals, Lindsey Webb, Robert Hogg, Daniel Owen, Kimberley Orton, Colin Martin, Michael Boughn, Kate Bolton Bonnici, Joey Yearous-Algozin, James Yeary, Ellie Sawatzky, Sharmila Cohen, df parizeau, Shane Kowalski, Rose Maloukis, Andrew Gorin, Vivian Vavassis, Micah Ballard, Angeline Schellenberg, Robbie Chesick, Douglas Piccinnini, Sue J. Levon, Olive Andrews, Matthew Hanick, Ben Jahn, Mary Rykov, Phillip Crymble, Chris Kerr, Sarah Feldman, Ben Meyerson, Jaeyun Yoo, Kirstin Allio, Heather Cadsby, Ori Fienberg, Isla McLaughlin, Nathan Anderson, Margo LaPierre, Chris Banks, Joseph Kidney, Anna Zumbahlen, Jay Stefanik, Clare Thiessen, Kōan Brink, Simon Brown, Dessa Bayrock, Tolu Oloruntoba, Réka Nyitrai, Brad Aaron Modlin, Miranda Mellis, Guy Elston, Jon Cone, Robyn Schelenz, Tara Borin, Emma Rhodes, Peter Myers, Adam Katz, Jessica Gigot, Kyla Houbolt, Michael Betancourt, Isaac Pickell, Emily Tristan Jones, Russell Carisse, Amanda Deutch, Matthew Owen Gwathmey, Lori Anderson Moseman, Caelan Ernest, Kate Spencer, Adriana Oniță, Alana Solin, Eric Weiskott, Lynn McClory, Jason Heroux, Terri Witek, Colin Dardis, Tricia Eddy Woods, Erin Robinsong, Jason Emde, Jerome Sala, Ian LeTourneau, Sandra Ridley, John Levy, Alina Stefanescu, Brandon Shimoda, Yoyo Comay, Lydia Unsworth, Constance Hansen, Barbara Tomash, Ron Silliman, Nicholas Molbert, J-T Kelly, Margaret Ronda, Catherine Rockwood, William Cirocco, Elana Wolff, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Bruce Whiteman, Sonia Saikaley, Summer Brenner, Robert van Vliet, Lock Baillie, Anna Reckin, Kyle McKillop, Mark Valentine, Nico Vassilakis, Isabel Sobral Campos, Maya Clubine, Henry Gould, Noah Berlatsky, Charlene Kwiatkowski, Ted Landrum, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Ian Seed, Beatrice Szymkowiak, Nicholas Bradley, Megan Nichols, Adam Beardsworth, Concetta Principe, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Asher Ghaffar, Maggie Burton, George Shelton, Gabriel Ojeda-Sague, Karl Jirgens, Naomi Foyle, Joel Chace, Tracy Quan, Neil Surkan, John Stiles, Katie Ebbitt and Patrick Grace.