1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
A Lovely Gutting (McGill-Queen’s 2012) changed my life in a myriad of ways. It came out six months after my son was born (there’s a photo of him somewhere in his baby swing with a copy placed somewhat inappropriately in his lap for PR purposes). This was a couple of months after I had taken up my first academic post at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University and a year after I had eloped to Savannah, Georgia with my husband. In that very small part of the world—western Newfoundland—it made a bit of a splash. We had a fancy launch with so many people we had to change venues at the last minute. I went on tour. We sent the book to Seamus Heaney on the Strand in Dublin (this was just a year before he died) and he immediately wrote back to me with some encouraging and now very precious words. I felt like I had the world by the tail and in a way I did. I had finally published a book—a book of poetry no less.
At Beckett’s Grave (McGill-Queen’s 2025) came thirteen years and four books later. I now live in Montreal. People are still getting to know me here, to know my story, but I feel like in some ways the release of Beckett’s Grave is even more special. This time my teenage son could actually come to the intimate launch I had with friends, true believers, and poetry lovers at Librairie Pulp Books & Café in Verdun. I felt at home. I realized on that night that poetry has become my home.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
The story I always tell is about doing poetry readings into a hairbrush like a pop star as I read out loud from the old Norton Anthology that had been lying around the house since I was a child or my mom finding bits of poetry on scraps of paper around my bedroom—or under the bed or under the pillow or in a shoe—after some boy broke up with me when I was a teenager. But the real story (although these other stories are also true) is a little more tragic. My dad died suddenly one day in 2004. I started working through the trauma rather poetically in a notebook I kept with me all that first summer on the island after he died. This became the basis for my first book, but I threw out the first 100 poems. It took that long for me to start writing anything good—poems that anyone else would want to read. My first ‘publication’ was some lines I wrote for my father’s grave:
Once again you dwell beneath the waves/
On the other side of surfaces we hear you laughing still…
(These words now form the inscription for a memoir I have written called Breach: A Story of Grief in Five Whales.)
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?
My process has changed a lot over the years, but then in some ways it hasn’t changed at all. I usually start with an idea for a book—a controlling metaphor or emotional current, if you will, and go from there. With A Lovely Gutting, the metaphor was—rather stereotypically—fish, specifically the gutted fish; Half Rock (Gaspereau 2016) was into ideas of cleavage, hybridity, and mixedness of identity as I played with the image of the sedimentary rock I grew up with and became fascinated by; the fog of grief in Fog of the Outport (Jackpine 2013); the gaps in time and identity as I worked through my relationship with my own gap tooth in Gaptoothed (Gaspereau 2020); and Beckett’s existentialism and my rather foolishly getting lost trying to find his grave at a cemetery in Paris for At Beckett’s Grave.
My one rule is that I never stick too tightly to the focus and even let myself wander off a bit because I never want the poetry to feel contrived or forced. For it to work, for me, the metaphor should emerge naturally from my life as helpful and poignant in some way—as a spine for the collection rather than a cudgel.
In general, I write discreet poetic drafts that I call little poetic slabs that I then carve and sculpt and refine into shape. I’ve gotten better and better at it over the years, and I find these days the poems sometimes come nearly fully formed, but I also think it feels that way because I trust myself more. I know what I am looking for, and I am better at recognizing a poem when it comes.
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?
A poem usually begins with… honestly? I have no idea. An emotion. An image. A trace of memory. A voice. It can be anything. I just sit within my own quietness, if I can get it, and see what comes up. Sometimes a spark will come from reading. Certain poets and writers can be quite generative for me, others not so much. It feels a bit random.
The answer to the second part of this question is both: I start with short pieces that I stitch together into a book, but I usually end up throwing a bunch away in a reality TV show-like elimination game of poetry survivor.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love doing readings. From the very beginning I loved reading poetry to an audience and can’t get enough of it really. I would read to one person or a room of thousands. I just love the sound of words and the way words make music on the tongue, and I think I am good at this very elemental thing—connecting humans to the vital sound of words rolling or roaring off the page. I also love hearing other poets read whether it be my friends in Montreal or recordings of Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney. For some reason I think it’s very important that humans get up to this—especially now.
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 think the theoretical concern behind my poetry these days is to have no theoretical concerns—to let the poems feel and to help others feel what it means to be human and alive and complicated and lovely, to really speak to and connect to other humans in a way that lets them know it’s okay—it’s okay to be us and to not know and to just experience ourselves and the world as it is—not as you are told things ‘should’ be. (I have rather pretentiously thought of this recent stance of mine—this letting go—as a sort of New Humanism).
On the other hand, I started out with a lot of theoretical ‘chips’ on my shoulder—class, marginalized linguistic identity (in terms of my Newfoundland accent/dialect), feminism, giving voice to grief and trauma at a time (twenty years ago) when Canadians seemed scared of being real about all that.
I still feel strongly about the Newfoundland accent. I want to be able to read and write in my own distinctive voice. I feel that my voice should not be flattened into Canadian conformity and blandness either (as I was pressured to do early in my career). I feel the vibrancy of the accent can sometimes make the poems come alive on and off the page, and this should be celebrated.
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?
At Banff in 2025 I was lucky enough to workshop a new prose manuscript (a memoir called Breach) with the incredible Omar El Akkad (American War; One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This). I admire him so much and the way he carries himself as a writer in the world. He tells the truth as he sees it. He responds passionately to the moment even at some risk to himself. I want to follow that model in my own small way. This is nothing new, of course, but I think writers should be truth-tellers. Anti-propagandists, if you will. I think they should be on the side of the human—the ordinary human against the powerful systems that oppress and harm them, the forces of violence, etc. I teach Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis every year and I have thought of that book every day since the Iran War started. Her little human story is the story of that whole country now—and I grieved for her on the first day when the girl’s school got bombed in Minab.
It’s our job to be human, to remind people what it means to be human, to express that humanity, to tell stories, turn emotions into words that can be articulated and responded to.
This is crucial work in the world. It is more crucial than ever right now.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I love editors. I wish there were more of them and they got paid better. I think writers NEED editors especially now. Yes, I love working with editors especially when they share your vision and believe in your work. I had only one bad experience with an editor, and I think it was because they didn’t share my vision. They wanted to make my work more ‘accessible’ which is a word I actually hate (when it comes to writing) and there aren’t many words I hate.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard as a writer comes from Seamus Heaney: Don’t listen to anybody who has not produced good work. The second piece of advice comes from Doris Lessing: The conditions for writing will always be impossible (so don’t let that stop you). And the third piece of advice comes from me (she says arrogantly): Even when it comes to our precious writing—and we can be precious about it!—actual humans come first but so does the truth, and that’s a delicate balance sometimes. Also, be nice. There’s really no need to be a dick in this life. (Another piece of advice was said to me directly from the former poet laureate of Wales: There are assholes everywhere.)
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
It is pretty easy for me although almost everything comes out first (or best) as poetry. Still, I started out as a journalist. I come from a storytelling culture. Sometimes you just have to tell the story.
That’s what happened to me a few years ago. I got a little tired of ‘telling my story’ in fragments or bits and pieces of poetry and just wanted the whole narrative laid out there plainly for everyone to see: death of my father, ‘scandalous’ marriage, birth of my son, becoming a poet and this became Breach (see above), a work of creative non-fiction. I’m working on a novel now (called Thaw) that goes over some of the same events but from a different angle.
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?
These days I can’t keep much of a routine as I work full-time at the college (John Abbott College in Montreal). I am one of those people, I’m afraid, who people make fun of for getting up a 5 am, but I have to. I live on the Plateau Mont Royal, so I feel the need to get up before the city does in order to get some quiet and even then! I try to get between one and four hours of writing time in during the mornings depending on my schedule and the day and who needs what and when. It doesn’t always work. I often work weekends to make up for lost time during the week. I barely ever work in the evenings because I am too tired and my brain generally stops functioning after supper. I got my work ethic from my late father who grew up in poverty, had three kids, and built a business from the ground up.
The typical day begins with coffee—exactly three cups—and going over my schedule and then a poem or two and some sort of lefty political podcast.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
When my writing gets stalled, I return to my desk or notebook and keep going. I re-read, I remember, I try not to judge (oh, but I judge), I try to believe if a book is supposed to be it will be. I follow my intuition, annoying I know, but if a project is really stuck, I just move on to a new project at least for a while and hope for the best. I often have multiple projects going at once. Reading also helps.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Cedar. I grew up in a cedar house. Plaster and glue. My father was a prosthetist and built legs for people. The sea.
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?
All of the above really, with perhaps some particular affection for visual art. I’ve collaborated with visual artists, dancers, and musicians and I love it. I would also add fashion and gossip. Yellow journalism. Tabloids. Scandal.
Also: the ocean and its rhythms + moods—mainly the North Atlantic but also the Pacific; whales, fish, lately cats. Glenn Gould.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Some poems come to mind: Sylvia Plath’s “Point Shirley”; Seamus Heaney’s “Mossbawn: Sunlight” and “Casualty”; Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses,” Frank O’Hara’s “Having aCoke with You” (the most romantic poem ever written); and Dylan Thomas’s, “In my craft or sullen art.” Louise Glück’s collected works. e.e. cummings’s “my father moved through dooms of love.” Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (this is a novel) and Traplines (short stories). Louise Erdrich’s short story “The Shawl” (this one is actually magic). Marilyn Dumont’s “The Devil’s Language.” The Picture of Dorian Gray because it still feels dangerous. Anything by Louise Bernice Halfe. Mahmoud Darwish. The careers of Michael Crummey and Lisa Moore and Mary Dalton (bless them). Omar El Akkad. Danez Smith. Octavia Butler. Salman Rushdie. James Baldwin. Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. Ursula K LeGuin. Haruki Murakami. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Kafka. Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Joyce. Freud. Lacan. The psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster (On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe). Now looking into Bachelard (The Psychoanalysis of Fire).
And well, my last collection of poetry was an homage to Samuel Beckett, so definitely that wonderful anti-fascist Samuel Beckett.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Travel to the middle east (as we say in the west). One day, hopefully soon (I’m a little too chicken right now), when the dust settles and the world is different, I would like to go to Egypt and do the tourist thing. I want to take my son to the pyramids as I promised him when he was little, but I would also like to travel beyond that. Anywhere it’s safe. Oman. I would definitely like to see Oman. I would like to go to Japan and sing karaoke with my brother-in-law who has lived there for decades. I would like to attend a fancy ball (maybe a fancy writer’s prize!) in a designer dress. I would like to go to the islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon (and maybe the Îles de la Madeleine and Anticosti Island) and visit the Torngat Mountains in Labrador. I would like to do a poetry reading in the cathedral at the very top of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. I would like to own a corgi, a dachshund, or an Irish setter. I would like to go to Jean Talon market and buy flowers with a toy dog in my purse.
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?
It says in my high school yearbook that I wanted to be a war correspondent, so I’ll go with that.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Boring answer: I had to. There was no something else for me. I am obsessed and have been obsessed with the written word my entire life except for a brief moment when I was a teenager and became obsessed with boys.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Books: Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This; Lucy Grealy’s amazing Autobiography of a Face
Film: No Other Land
20 - What are you currently working on?
As mentioned, a novel called Thaw: The Unfreezing of a Family in which three siblings look back on the traumatic death of their father—and the image of their living father—with different eyes. The story starts with a family crisis that brings them together rather reluctantly. In this horrible moment, they finally realize that healing will only come when they melt the freeze that has come between them in order to put a coherent story together that will help them make their peace with each other, with the family, with their father.
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