1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? In 2010 I had a chapbook published with JackPine Press, a lovely project driven publisher in Saskatoon that invite poets and visual artists to co-create hand made books, only 75 copies are ever made. I submitted a project as both poet and artist and my project was accepted. That chapbook titled, A Eulogy for the Buoyant, consisted of 11 poems all engaging the process of grieving my late father who died suddenly of liver cancer when I was 22. It was a very powerful project in many distinct ways, primarily it allowed me to creatively process the trauma of losing a parent. I often process everything in my life visually, in one way or another- but with this experience I was entirely unable to. I began simply writing things down, strange remembrances, stranger feelings, and memories always memories, some tied to my dad others simply about a childhood that included him… I had years before taken a poetry class with the wonderful poet Tim Lilburn during the final year of my undergrad at the University of Saskatchewan. I hadn’t had the inclination after the class that I was a poet or writer by any leap of the imagination, but that I really appreciated how visual and philosophical poetry could be (like visual art) a conductor of great questions about life- a mode of communication that was textual by nature, but could also be incredibly visual. My first full length book was A Natural History of Unnatural Things, (2021) and it was it was a catalyst for my continued desire to write much more regularly, and with a more centred confidence in my own voice.
2 - How did you come to visual art first, as opposed to, say, poetry, fiction or non-fiction? I was always drawing from early childhood. and for many years into my schooling could not either read or write without great difficulty because I have several overlapping forms of dyslexia. It was noticed at a young age, and fortunately for me I was in special classes throughout the course of my education. But it was definitely a struggle for me.
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? For the past several years I have listened to what I refer to as a ‘small generator’ of particular thoughts or kernels of ideas. I simply jot the bones of whatever that is down when they occur to me- and later I either carry the thought further, if it needs it- or ignore it all together if it no longer appeals to me as an idea to pursue. There isn’t really a rhyme or reason to my writing in regard to speed, sometimes they pour out in a matter of minutes with little editing- other times ideas grow small and need multiple versions before they are fully formed.
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? Generally, thus far, my poetry begins with an accumulation… somewhere in the middle I begin to see threads that tie a theme, of course that is, aside from the chapbook I mentioned, which was a more or less fully formed thing when I proposed it.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? I think poetry in particular has two lives, that of the reader enveloped in their own take on your writing, they are perhaps clothed in you while reading your words- and then there is the second life, which is the performative act of reciting, reading as a source of origin, putting your words on to read them out loud to an audience.
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 often reflect on past personal experiences in an attempt to relate them to both my present self and to what is happening more broadly in the world. My personal thoughts on my queerness, atheism, the nature of creating, and my continual enchantments with nature and art history are mainstays. Also rumination on places I have visited that help me to understand the world around me and reinforce a sense of place in the local.
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? Writing has many roles. I believe literacy is power. Writing a really good editorial requires a talent for persuasion, writing an article for a scientific journal requires a different type of discipline and relationship to specific information and how it is communicated; writing poetry is vastly different from the first two forms- but in it's own way, equally important and impressive when done well. The ability to reflect on ideas and experiences of the world around us is uniquely human. It is an important way to decipher how people and, more broadly how human systems operate. I am of the opinion that oral storytellers as well as those who write down stories in the form of prose or poetry are at their best a mirror to the reader or listener. If you see yourself the communication has resonated in some fundamental way. In my experience this can cause revulsion, adoration, sympathy or more subtle reactions that echo the former. At present there has been a resurgence in readership of novels like 1984, Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale- it’s really not that hard to imagine why- they have become classics relevant to the present moment because they mirror human experience.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? Essential. The clarity it provides is akin for me to the difference between viewing one of my finished drawings in the studio and seeing it in context installed in a museum or gallery.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? Never take rejection personally. Very few people are going to win big art or writing prizes- if you expect a lottery, don’t bother. Write or create because you cannot do otherwise, not for praise alone.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to visual art to collaboration)? What do you see as the appeal? I have not found it difficult at all. Each takes its time and requires its own process. These mentioned genres all seek at the same outcome- to share and acknowledge our experiences of the world around us.
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 don’t really have a routine when it comes to writing. It fills time when I have it to give. I would really benefit (I think) from a writing residency. Like the multiple artist residencies I have done, I think it would help to structure my practice a bit more. Maybe this would be a hindrance, I don't know- but I don’t getting the impression it would be.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? I’m not sure I’ve ever been stalled, because I just let ideas come when it they do… I’m not beholden to any particular deadline because I’m often required to be absorbed, time-wise by my visual work.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? Coffee beans. My morning coffee ritual.
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, art history, music and science have all been influential- as well as the quotidian, the reality of passing existence without fully knowing why- I guess I like a good question, but I’m not always interested in concrete answers. Green, my new book engages all of these forms- it also includes a visual component that are observations of artworks, plants, animals and other inanimate objects, a compendium of 5 years of experience in no particular order.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? As a queer person, I am fascinated by religion, by religious texts, particularly the Bible. I was raised Catholic, but am no longer. It did however leave a mark. I have been deeply influenced by its visual tradition. In my visual practice, I often use catholic tropes to return a queer gaze on historical depictions of the male body. In my writing I have explored similarly the fears and fixations these teachings and writings provoke in their adherents. Notions of naturalness that exclude the queer experience, or work to other it- rather than understand it as a perfectly natural occurrence. I love the hypnotic language of fairy tales and often reference in particular the Grimm’s tales as well- I return to several Classical mythological characters often, Daphne and Persephone are particularly interesting to me due to their connections to rebirth and transformation.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? Maybe write a novel.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer? I would have worked in Theatre or film.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? In a strange way, my dyslexia drew me to both visual art and writing.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Book: Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses. Two recent films I'd like to list: Night of The Hunter (1955); and A Face In The Crowd (1957)- which is frighteningly relevant in relation to the current American administration.
20 - What are you currently working on? I’m just finishing up a one-month artist residency and exhibition between Vienna, Austria and Sofia, Bulgaria. In the studio, I have several big projects presently in production for exhibitions in Italy this September and across Canada over the next 2 years. I’m also carrying on writing in the midst.
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