It is tempting to want always
to reduce the thing to its detail. To make it small.
That morning I wore
heels, and because I had to walk forty blocks that way, I no longer wear them, I said for
the first time a year after 9/11 at an event commemorating the cataclysm. I don’t
remember the walk home at all, but I would say it again and again. (“Death
parade”)
Gwen Tuinman is descended from Irish tenant farmers and English Quakers. Her storytelling influences include soul searching, an interest in bygone days, and the complexities of living a life. Fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity, she writes about women navigating the social restrictions of their era. Gwen lives with her husband on a small rural homestead in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region.
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, The Last Hoffman, affirmed that writing is my true calling. I’d begun writing through a set of fluke circumstances and it took time before I was comfortable introducing myself to others as a writer. Through the years of producing that manuscript, I honed my craft and established a creative process. My second novel, Unrest, is a 19th-century feminist adventure involving a deeper exploration of female rage, motherhood and class-divide. It’s set in 1836 versus 1950 through to the early eighties when the first novel takes place. Unrest required more extensive research, but I loved it. For me, writing about a more distant past feels like coming home.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, non-fiction or poetry?
When I was an educator, I attended a professional development workshop at a gallery to learn about using artworks as story writing prompts for children. During a writing exercise that day, one painting inspired a scene which I wrote it down. Later, I was compelled to continue the story and it blossomed into a full novel. That’s how I was drawn to longform fiction. I have dabbled in writing poetry, short stories and essays, but those shorter forms cannot pull me away from the lengthy embrace of the novel.
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 research casually for my future novel while still writing my current work in progress. Once finished the WIP, I’ll research for about six months, recording character and plot ideas in a notebook as I go. When I can clearly envision the world the characters will inhabit, I start writing the draft in chronological order. I’m a slow and methodical writer. The first draft is but a shadow of the final version. I edit and revise heavily as I better my understanding of the characters, their motivations and the repercussions of their actions. So yes, the manuscript evolves from deep historical research and the layering in of details from my ever-expanding notebook.
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?
Story inspirations come to me in the form of a historical scenario. I’ll wonder what it might have been like for working class and less privileged people to live through that experience. A full-length novel is always the goal. I write the book from start to finish, as if I were watching the story unfold in a movie.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
As a new writer, I did public readings of my works-in-progress. Now, I prefer to keep the unfinished work under wraps while it’s evolving. It is a pleasure to do public readings from a completed novel. What a privilege to witness how the writing is received by an audience of readers or fellow writers.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns [GT1] 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 don’t pre-identify themes to explore through the work. My focus remains on the thrill of spinning an engaging story. I’m propelled by a fascination with how women of the past navigated the social restrictions of their era in order to survive, and hopefully, attain some level of fulfilment. As I write, themes reveal themselves. I may be nearly finished the book before I fully recognize what I’ve written about.
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 think the role of writers is to hold a mirror up to society. We are capturing the zeitgeist through story telling. Our art challenges what people believe about themselves and humankind. It’s important that we also offer hope and possibility. For me, writing about contemporary issues against the backdrop of a historical setting, can make some revelations more palatable for readers.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Unrest was published by Random House Canada (RHC). My experience of working with RHC editors is a phenomenally creative adventure. A quality edit is a part of my publication journey that I relish because closely examining every page and line of a 130,000-word manuscript, through the eyes of a second reader, allows me to see the story in a fresh way. This perspective is helpful during the revision phase.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Don’t think it up, get it down.” I adopt the mindset that the story has already happened and I’m recounting it. The pressure is removed when I think of myself as a conduit for the story versus being its inventor.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (non-fiction to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?
When I do write an essay, I can only focus on that singular project. Until I finish, the novel remains dormant and my nerves buzz until I return home to my characters. Inside the novel is where I live. I love reimagining the past and exploring characters interior lives.
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?
My writing routine varies according to the seasonal demands of our one-acre homestead. Ideally, I work on the manuscript for one or two hours before breakfast. Afterward I do chores, meditate and exercise, then continue writing for two to three hours. I’ll often wake in the night thinking of the novel. There’s no cure for it, so I embrace the opportunity to get up and write. Some of my best ideas have come to me at such times.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Writers block isn’t something I experience. I say this with relief, not arrogance. If I’m unsure of a story event or a character’s next move, I list all the possibilities, no matter how outrageous, on a paper. Then I whittle down the list until I decide on the most plausible option for the circumstances. As writers, we have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We may not have the answer right now, but we trust that it’ll come to us. A plot problem is not really a “problem”. It’s an opportunity to interject the story with an unexpected solution that’s superior to our original plan. The work is always elevated as a result.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Smells I associate with home include: fresh bread baked by my husband, wafts of woodstove smoke, rich soil after a rain, and cattle from a neighbouring farm.
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?
I sometimes listen to instrumental music that captures a dramatic mood present in a scene I’m writing. Also, once I develop the characters in my story, I’ll search for paintings or vintage photographs of people who embody their energy. Because I’m drawn to write about rural or small-town settings in past eras, walking our rural sideroads or hiking trails helps me visualize aspects of my stories. I’ve amassed a collection of antique books that help me see into the past as well.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
There are so many marvelous writers whose books I enjoy. These are authors whose work nourishes my writing life: Lauren Groff, Louise Erdrich, Alissa York, Maggie O’Farrell, Michael Crummey, Elif Shafak, Alix Hawley, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Margaret Atwood, Heather O’Neill, and Zadie Smith.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Writing my next book will always be the answer to that question. The opportunity to inhabit another era and lives of new characters will open my mind further to the experiences of women before me. I can’t wait to get started.
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’m so married to writing that it pains me to think of doing something else. But if pressed, I’d have continued as an educator.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I came to writing in my 40s, so I did other things first like fulltime parenting, clerical work and teaching. Once my children were in school every day, I returned to university where I studied psychology and became a teacher. Through it all, I loved the transporting possibilities of reading. It was through an experience in my teaching days, as mentioned earlier, that I came to writing. So, in a strange way, the writing life chose me. Regardless, there’s no other professional pursuit I’d prefer.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I’d have to choose the novel There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak and the film Women Talking which was based on Miriam Toews novel of the same name and directed by Sarah Polley.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’m currently writing a new historical novel set against the backdrop of Canada’s past.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
[GT1]Scratched lines: The honest answer is, I say this with a smile, that I don’t know what a “theoretical concern behind my writing” is. I’m happy about that. I’d rather not paralyse my creativity by thinking about what it might be.
sophie anne edwards is an environmental artist and writer who works on and off the page, at her desk and in the bush. Her first collection of visual and text-based poetry, Conversations with the Kagawong River (Talonbooks) was recommended by CBC as an October 'must read', and made both CBC's and Quill & Quire's most anticipated fall release lists. Her work has appeared in Empty Mirror, The Capilano Review, CNQ, and the Pi Review among others. A graduate of the Humber College creative writing certificate program, she was longlisted for the 2021 CBC poetry prize, as well as Arc Poetry Magazine's 2019 Poem of the Year. Recently, she was long-listed for Omnidawn's 1st/2nd book prize. She's been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council. Born and raised in Northern Ontario, she lives on Manitoulin Island with her dog Bea and a roster of other Woofers who help in the garden.
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?
Seeing my debut book of poetry out in the world is wonderful, but really, it’s the writing itself that changed my life, not the book itself. Writing after wanting to write for so very long has been very healing and fulfilling for me, confidence- and community-building. In the process of writing the book I connected with so many incredible writers and had the opportunity to attend a number of writing residencies. I remember people in the upper years of my literature program being very competitive, so I think I was half expecting something similar in the writing community, but instead I’ve found that writers have been generous, thoughtful, and supportive, which has been so uplifting.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’d say it came to me. I didn’t aim to write a book, and not a book of poetry when I started spending time at the River. I followed the process and found my way to what became a very interdisciplinary, multi-tributary book.
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?
Thirty-five years? Almost forty? I was seven when I decided I wanted to write books. But childhood aside, I’ve had a number of books floating in my head for many years. Some of the writing happens in my head – it floats around, gathers threads, forms and reforms itself – and comes out on the page ‘quickly’ once I get started, then I build it up, or edit it down. Other stuff is very slow – I start something and it just doesn't gel, so I leave it. I’m obsessed with notebooks. I don’t journal anymore, but I have loads of sketch- and notebooks in which I jot thoughts, gather quotes and references. I’ve learned to number the pages, and keep a reference at the back of each notebook so I can find various thoughts later when I sit down to write. My work feels like research. I think of my poetry as non-fiction, so I tend to approach the process in a field research way, probably influenced by my time working on a Geography PhD. I often work in analogue ways, as with the notebooks. I use my typewriters a lot. I write drafts in them, or build up notes as I type, then I eventually transcribe those to the computer and rework or edit them on the computer. I create visual maps of what I’m thinking, and spread stuff around. So, the short answer is it sometimes comes out in a way that might seem quick after a long, slow, thinking and gathering process.
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’m pretty new to all this, but I’m finding each ‘thing’ has its own demands, its own energy and process. My second book, coming out in the fall, is an experimental novel. The first twenty pages ‘just’ came out of me (again, after some of the words circulating in my brain for twenty or so years). The text of those pages have pretty much not changed since (although their order has). Those pages defined the shape of the book, the energy of it, the style – I just followed those first pages and wrote the rest. The hardest part was finding the order as it’s not a traditional novel with an arc, more of a twining narrative. For another project – non-fiction – that I’m mid-way on, the concept came first in combination with some note-taking that didn’t know it was note-taking for a project. This one needs more development to find its shape, which isn’t quite there yet.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I didn’t know I would enjoy readings. I live in a pretty rural place, so readings are a rarity. The Talon launch in Vancouver was my first public reading (apart from reading stuff in workshops and at residencies). So now, as a seasoned (ha) reader after four or five events, I’m finding that I enjoy reading the work aloud. The voice does something with the work that isn’t found on the page, and I love the quiet vibe when folks are really into it.
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?
Underneath a lot of my writing are my attempts to situate and to understand my love of this place as a settler, and to not be complacent about, nostalgic with, or to romanticize that love. I’m also very interested in form, and work that challenges the dominance of the page in terms of size, shape, and scale, and what that means for language, form, and reading.
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 love Naropa’s slogan – Making the World Safe for Poetry – and what Anne Waldman says about that slogan: that if the world is safe for poetry it's safe for many other things. I think poetry can also make poetry safe for all kinds of ideas, people, histories and make them visible too. Words do work in the world, and I think we need to take that seriously. We’ve imagined and constructed a very particular kind of world, and I hope writers and poets can help us re-imagine a different one.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
My limited experience so far shows me it’s kinda like working with a really good therapist who’ll call you on your shit, redirect you, and push you to work on stuff between sessions. Writing seems to find itself on/through the page, and sometimes I don’t quite see the connections, the ribbons, the tangles that are either working for me, or tripping me up. My readers have been like good therapists, helping me to see what I need to see more clearly, and also reminding me to not be so hard on myself, and encouraging me to go out in the world.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
There is so much stuff out there about being disciplined, getting up early and staying up late to get a certain number of words written a day, to be productive and focused. I’ve found that quite debilitating and difficult given what I have to balance and needing to work within my very variable capacity. Chris Turnbull encouraged me with writing slowly, in my head, to not be burdened by productivity. My own best advice, which I always tell the writers I support, is to keep the best hour of each day for myself – whether that’s reading or writing, or thinking about either.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?
In my River book, prose, poetry and photography are interconnected. I was working on site-specific, or installation-based poetry as the base, so documentation (photography) went hand-in-hand with that process. The prose was part of my reflection process and just happened as I went. I am always reflecting upon the work I do, it’s just part of the process. I suppose the poetry bit – the text-based poetry bits – were the hardest part, in terms of requiring more research, more thought, more pen to paper thoughtfulness.
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 love it when I spend an hour or so writing or thinking about writing or reading and taking notes in the morning. But that doesn’t happen regularly, as life and those in my life have their own demands and rhythms. I also have to go by my energy as I have a couple of chronic conditions that mean I never know how I’ll feel in a day.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The bush. Water. Books. Quiet. I really need quiet and rest to be creative.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Juniper bushes, pine, lake breeze.
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?
Books come from (out of) life and its traumas and inspirations, and for me are also entwined with visual art, particularly drawing, installation, and site-specific work. They resonate and speak with everything, really.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
That’s a hard one to answer. I have a continually shifting stack(s) of books beside my bed, my desk, the couch … a lot of it is poetry (particularly experimental and/or visual), but also novels, gardening books. I really love The Capilano Review, Brick, and TNQ. I love spending time with those each time they come out.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Writing’s kinda the thing I hadn’t been doing until my 50’s. So I just want to write. I am saddened that there is so little time left (certainly the dial is on the shorter side of my life at this point), certainly not enough to write all the books in my head. I’ve done all kinds of things before this: curator, waitress, houseplant manager, tomato picker, grant-writer, executive director, organizer, facilitator, after-school art teacher, co-operative sector educator … I would like to write a novel, but I’m not sure I have that kind of steam in me.
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?
Same answer at #16. I guess if I wasn’t writing now, I’d probably be doing more work with the early learning community. I would have liked to have been a biologist/ecologist. I’d love to be a full time gardener.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Couldn’t not do it anymore.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I took a class with Hoa Nguyen recently, and read her A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure. So good. Through her, I read a number of books that just floored me, including Alice Notley’s Being Reflected Upon, Wanda Coleman’s, Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s, A Treatise on Stars (I’ll be rereading that one several times for sure), and Cecilia Vicuña’s, Spit Temple.
I haven't watched a great film in a while. I have a fond memory of cuddling with a friend; we watched a black and white Japanese film that she picked (I can’t remember the name of the film, sadly). It was slow and gorgeous. Just like our evening.
20 - What are you currently working on?
...
A couple of early learning books that extend my thinking in the early two. I’m in the editing process of an experimental novel, and am about mid-way on a non-fiction project.
Today is a snow day. Each school sends an email, and Christine forwards, to make sure I saw. She is in Edmonton all this week running courses for work. Edmonton, far warmer than here, at least this week. Above zero, she says. Yesterday, we were minus twelve, which was an improvement over the prior few days. Once again, I pick up Etel Adnan, her Surge (2018):
I also hear the air flowing with it, its unbroken surface leading one’s imagination to more water, more destabilization, more wind.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gone through four drafts of proofs for my collection Snow day (2025), a book out as soon as we clear all corrections. A sequence of sequences, held by the title sequence, one composed at the prompt of another snow day, back in 2019. The snow fell and it fell and both children remained home.
I’m all for a snow day. I’m tempted to return to the extended prose poem, as I did for the original “snow day” poem, six years ago. How different or similar I might play with the form. Where might this go.
Our young ladies in their corners, on their devices. They are eight and eleven years old. The snow, falls. Outside, the snowplow. If everything, seasons. The snowplow, attends. The ground, and the groundless. A stellar cold. For why, the lament. Alta Vista: snow descends in straight lines. These shadows, blue. The rules of the game. Nothing rests. What the tides don’t permit.
Yesterday, a cluster of birds.
Rose is attending a craft. If anyone, to witness. Can I have this box. I want to make something out of this box. Yes, you can have that box.
*
A temporality. Emails, from both of their schools, from the snowplow company. It is here, it is coming. Snow. How many words for it. Remain in your homes, they say. Our young ladies, relieved. Blizzard, onding. An outcrop of flurries.
The air, a crispness. A sharp edge. I brush layers from the car, abandon sentences. Return to the house.
Mid-morning, I tell the young ladies to put away their devices. They spend the rest of the day taking turns coming in to request things or register their complaints of the other. By early afternoon, a silence. They are in the dining room, quietly playing a card game.
As I wrote on social media, responding to another: my poems these days seem to be composed through me stepping directly into the middle of the poem and pushing out in every direction, until I am finally able to free myself.
I used to write poems that began at the beginning and moved their ways forward until finding the end. It seems I do something else, now.
*
Jeff Weingarten prods me via email, reminding me that I agreed to write a blurb for the collected letters of John Newlove, which he’s been working on for more years than he would probably wish to consider. Apparently the collection is due to land in print this year. After a few back-and-forths, we agree on this as my blurb for the back cover:
It is good to hear John’s voice again through these letters, back from those days when letters (well before the advent of emails, text messages) were a stronger means of communication between writers, between poets. As Weingarten offers in his detailed introduction, this is where battles were fought, shots were lobbied, generosities offered and questions answered, all of which John composed in thoughtful detail. Every gesture was for the sake of the work. Weingarten puts the spotlight on an important Canadian poet and the context in which he existed, across a wide-ranging literature.
Winnipeg poet and lawyer Chimwemwe Undi is announced as Canada’s 11th Parliamentary Poet Laureate. From her Scientific Marvel (2024): “All that distance, / built.”
*
The snowfall eases, drifts. By mid-afternoon, the streets and sidewalks plowed, some more than once. More than a few times. I convince the young ladies to get dressed, and we prepare to head out for Aoife’s ukulele lesson. Our first and only outing.
