12 or 20 (second series) questions with Aaron Cully Drake

Aaron Cully Drake was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his debut novel Do You Think This Is Strange? (Brindle & Glass, 2015). Drake is a former newspaper reporter and editor. He lives in Coquitlam, BC, with his wife and two children

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

It didn’t. It carried me along for a while, it was fun for a while, but life moved forward with or without it. I was surprised. I thought that the first book was supposed to mark the beginning of your new life. Turns out it was just a signpost on your real life.

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

Probably happenstance, although very few children come to non-fiction first.

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?

Starting isn’t the problem. It’s always the finishing that kills me. Things come fast, the words fall all over the table, and then I spend the next year rearranging them.

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?

I like working on the idea of a book. It’s sort of reverse sculpting. I begin with the rough, unpolished form of what the story could be. It’s the sculpture of an elevator pitch. Then I write scenes, characters, and ideas on clay blobs and throw them at the sculpture to see what sticks. Eventually, after I’ve thrown enough blobs that I see the form of something else, I go to work on it. I will spend the next year rewriting it, usually by changing the tense.

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

Right before a reading, I’ll curse myself for not writing any scenes tailored for public reading. I promise myself I’ll do it next time. And here we are all over again.

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 don’t know the answer until after I’ve finished the book, and someone else tells me what it was about. I’m always mildly surprised that they’re right.

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?

To finish the book and not know what it’s about. Those books are a product of that primal part of us that doesn’t speak in words but in symbols. It tends to speak greater truths than we can. The role of the writer is make the primal part heard, so that someone can point out what the book was really about.

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

It’s always nice to have two parents raising a child. The book isn’t complete until the editor finishes.

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

Always put the toilet paper in the toilet paper holder. You can’t do great things if you don’t do the mundane things first.

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

I was a mediocre journalist, so I found it quite easy to transition to a mediocre writer.

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 routine is a multi-step process: I plan what I want to write in a year so I know how much I need to write in a month. Once I know that, I will know how much I need to write in a week. Each weeknight, I set my alarm to get up at 5:30 AM and to write for two hours before breakfast.

A typical day is a one-step process: sleep in.

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

Hemingway knew the answer to this one. I like his writing.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Fresh earth turned over by a bulldozer. My father was a heavy equipment operator. The smell of pasture earth, and a sweet scent of diesel. I’m a child again, and it’s summer again, and I can run barefoot, and it doesn’t hurt.

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 think books come from disagreements with other books. The primal part of you disagrees with something the primal part of someone else said, and your story is its rebuttal. When you think of it that way, you have a duty to write the book and keep the conversation going.

That kind of dispute comes more easily between books because everything else expresses itself so clearly and vividly, unlike a story made of 80,000 words, which you have to read sequentially. With the latter, your inner self is quite engaged. With the former, it’s just wowed by the pretty colours.

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

Stephen King had the biggest impact on my life because I read him voraciously in my childhood, when I first thought I wanted to be a writer. I’m not sure how it’s affected me because it’s so deep in the code. But I could have had worse influences. History will count him as one of the greatest writers of all time. I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

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

Ride a motorbike across Canada. It will never happen because I know that I’ll hate it after the first day when my back starts to hurt.

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 been much more successful if I had not been a writer, because I would have poured that energy into my career. Writing was always a counterweight to my job. They both suffered from the other.

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

As a child, I was a very good daydreamer. I wove great, vivid fantasies and, one day, I thought to myself, “I should write this down.” So I did, and then I read it, and I thought, “I really like reading what I’ve written.” We’ve been married ever since.

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

Shogun by James Clavell. Every decade or so, I find myself returning to it.

The Creator, directed by Gareth Edwards. The baby AI knew all along, and she planned it that way.

20 - What are you currently working on?

A too-ambitious project. 1984ish. Where Big Brother is us. Sort of an Orwellian society regulated by upvotes and likes. A world where the rich live in the Inner City and everyone else is outside the tall black walls that keep them out. The only way into the Inner City is a fiercely competitive, unpaid internship, and our hero, Winston Smith, must find a way to get in to the In.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Leesa Dean

Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guelph’s creative Writing MFA program and a full-time Creative Writing and English instructor at Selkirk College in Nelson, BC. Her short story collection, Waiting for the Cyclone, was published by Brindle and Glass this October.

How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Waiting for the Cyclone is my first book so it’s difficult to compare with previous work unless I consider the “Allie the Alien” series I self-published at age 8. Actually, let’s compare that for fun. At age 8, I was really into drastic narrative arcs, action and fanfare. Someone needed to save the world or be a hero, otherwise there was no story. Now I’m interested in the other end of the spectrum. I don’t want to call the women in my collection anti-heroes, because they’re not, but they certainly aren’t heroes, and they’re definitely not saving the world.

This book is both a beginning and an end—it’s coming at the end of a string of important life events for me that include finishing a Master’s degree, moving across the country, starting a teaching career in Creative Writing and committing to a geographical location for the first time. But actually finishing a project, something I’ve traditionally struggled with, gives me confidence that this is the beginning of what I hope will be a long writing career.

Perhaps the biggest shift, though, is having an audience. I mean, it’s still small—a handful of friends and reviewers—but on October 4th, this book becomes public domain. In certain ways, I feel like I’m waiting for the cyclone. Will people like it? Will I care if they don’t? I generally subscribe to an “I don’t give a f*#k” attitude, but for some reason, this feels different.

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 writing life is an untameable beast. I have basically no control over it. Certain stories take three hours to be almost fully formed and others take seven years. I wish I could wrangle that aspect of my existence into some sort of coherent, predictable form, but I suppose the chaos balances out my more structured life as a full-time professor.

Where does a work of fiction or non-fiction 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?

This particular book is a pastiche of well thought out plots and absolute flukes. Some of the stories come from my life—I did have an aunt, one I loved, who was stealing pharmaceuticals and shooting them at night while upholding her façade as a wonderful mother, and my own mother had a heart attack just like the woman in the story titled One Last Time. I’ve travelled to all the places I wrote about, and a lot of these stories began with the town/city as the main character. But other plot elements and characters came to me unannounced, unexpectedly. In the book’s title story, for example, there’s a deaf woman who looks like a German soldier and her deaf husband, a thin black man with brassy curls and one pierced ear. Every time I read that story, I think, where did they come from? I’ve never met anyone like them in my life.

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 absolutely have theoretical concerns. As a writer and a woman, I’m very interested in how certain women are rebelling against traditional gender roles. I grew up in a nuclear family, created from two nuclear families, with the unspoken expectation that I should one day grow up and have my own nuclear family. My mother had a job for a while, but a lot of her life was spent being a housewife. She didn’t have any of her own money and spent so much of her time indoors, cooking and cleaning. She is emblematic of so many women from too many eras.

My mother was rebellious in her own way—she was mouthy and liked to yell at my father. She loved him, yes. She loved being a mother. But I’m not convinced she loved all the constrictions that came with the lifestyle. The women in my collection are engaged in similar struggles, but overall, they take more drastic actions. They lie. They cheat. They abandon their children to do yoga retreats in India or fake volunteer work to go on romantic rendez-vous behind their husband’s backs. They leave their unwanted babies on church doorsteps. Are they terrible people? Yes. A lot of them are. My characters have often been called “unlikeable.” One reviewer called them “unworthy of sympathy,” which kind of broke my heart. I have a lot of empathy for these women because so many of them are trapped in a system, a type of romance that is gender-biased and potentially damaging, and the only way they know how to rebel is to lash out.

What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think that writers individually determine what role they will play in the larger culture. I’m thinking now of George Orwell’s essay, “Why I Write,” in which he identifies four reasons why people write—sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. The essay is from 1946, but these categories still make sense to me. We need aestheticians, historicists, and rabble rousers. I have so much respect for writers who make an effort to question norms and challenge antiquated systems of thought like patriarchy and racism, whether they do so through fiction or creative non-fiction or journalism, but I also appreciate lighter books that I can, say, read on a beach or before bed without crying myself to sleep because of all the hard things they unearth.

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

A few years ago, while eating Chinese food on Christmas Day in Toronto, I received this fortune in my cookie: trust your intuition. I still carry the message in my wallet.

How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I love moving between genres! Seriously, it’s one of my favourite sensations, and it’s something I always try to teach my students, that form is fluid. Sometimes I’ll start writing a story and realize it’s too wordy and would be just fabulous as a narrative poem. I’ve also written poems and felt a story pushing at the boundaries, at which point I take out the line breaks and see where things go. You just have to trust your intuition and let the work be what it wants to be.

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 day definitely does not begin with writing. It never has. My imagination starts to come alive around 8 PM, and my very best writing hours are from 10 PM until 2 AM, which drives the man I live with crazy—he’s a Chinese medicine practitioner and says my organs are trying to regenerate during that time and I am doomed to forever be scatterbrained if I keep staying up so late.  Typically my day begins when I hear this same man boiling the kettle downstairs. My bedroom is a loft with no walls—I hear everything, and it’s a good thing most of the time. It gets me out of bed and reminds me that I’m part of a larger community. It helps me stay human.

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

Whenever I’m writing, I have four or five books around me that I know I can count on for inspiration. Two of them never change. I always have Bronwen Wallace’s poetry collection Common Magic open as well as Denis Johnson’s short story collection Jesus’Son. More often than not, there will also be a Lisa Moore book. The other books vary depending on what I’m working on. What Denis Johnson and Bronwen Wallace have in common is they both write/wrote fiction as well as poetry. I don’t know how I would get anything done without those books. They sit on my desk, radiating their power.

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?

Travel has been a huge influence—seeing new colours, people, problems, eating new food, standing on new mountains and shorelines. Music is a wonderful influence as well, which will become obvious when reading my book. There are lots of music references in the stories and what I like to think of as the traces of a certain musicality, living inside my words. Film is also an influence, which is why I decided to make a promotional book trailer that is more like a very short film than anything else. You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJlUxCrCaQs

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

So many things! Build a cabin. Live on a sailboat. Cycle through France. Hike the Appalachian Trail. Learn to play the sitar. I could go on and on.

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

Honestly? I’m happiest when I’m writing, so in the spirit of hedonism, I choose to pursue that which brings me the most pleasure.

What are you currently working on?

At the moment, I am working on a poetry project called Manuelzinho. I started the collection six years ago, almost seven now, while completing my undergraduate degree at Concordia University in Montreal. The first poem I ever published was from that project, and you blogged about it, rob. While in grad school I focused mostly on fiction and I forgot about the Manuelzinho poems completely until Vicki Zeigler posted a link to your blog on Twitter earlier this year as part of her “poem of the day” project.

My reunion with the manuscript has been a happy one. I’m totally in love with the character, Manuelzinho, who is a totally fucked Brazilian man who does things like set his house on fire because he thinks it’s possessed by a cucaracha with moth-like wings. His entire world is strange, and his family too—his father’s out of his mind and wears shirts with buttons made of hound teeth. They are both such train wrecks, even worse behaved than the rowdiest women in Waiting for the Cyclone.

12 or 20 (second series)questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Julie Paul

Julie Paul has published two collections of short stories, The Jealousy Bone (Emdash, 2008), and The Pull of the Moon (Brindle & Glass, 2014—listed on The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 of 2014). Stories, poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals, including The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Event, PRISM International, Grain and Canadian Literature. Julie has taught creative writing for beginners through Camosun College’s Continuing Ed department for many years, was part of the Malahat Fiction Editorial board for two years, and spent two years as one of the artistic directors of The Victoria Writers Festival. She lives in Victoria, BC and at www.juliepaul.ca.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I’ve published two books of short stories, and a bunch of poems in lit mags and anthologies, plus a few CNF pieces here and there. My first book was a real confirmation, a physical thing that made the passion tangible. My second book is further confirmation, and it’s reaching a wider audience because it’s with a bigger small press, and available as an e-book, too… so that feels different, and rather good. And even though six years separate their pub. dates, both are filled with character-driven stories about people struggling with change.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Although my two published books are collections of stories, I actually did begin writing with poetry, as a kid. The first time I even thought of writing as something I might want to do was when I won the Royal Canadian Legion’s Remembrance Day poetry contest. I was twelve, and my poem made someone cry.

I think a big influence on my creativity was pop music, when I was a teenager. I wrote lyrics from U2 and The Smiths on my pull-down blind, alongside Shakespeare and Roethke. But I also had a copy of 20th Century Poetics (2nd edition, I think), that belonged to my late uncle John, from his Queen’s University days, and a modern Can Lit course in high school that introduced me to poets such as Joy Kogawa, Tom Wayman, Margaret Atwood and so on.

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?
It does depend on the project, but most of my stories come quite quickly. Occasionally they come out close to the final draft, but more often, I whittle. I’ve written a novel too, and that needed notes, and charts on the wall. I don’t plan stories, though, not in their first drafts. I let the story come and then I go back in and shape. As for poems, I let the first drafts come quickly, all at once if possible.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction 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?
With my story collections, I did not begin by saying, oh, now I’m writing a book of stories about jealousy or the sway of the moon. I wrote a bunch of stories and then said, oh, maybe I have enough for a collection. I tried writing a story about jealousy, once I realized that theme was running through a lot of stories for my first collection, and wow, what a disaster. I’m attempting to write some poems about a certain subject now, so we’ll see if that works or not.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy readings; they’re a chance to connect with people in a way that’s different from on the page, and they help to build community, which is a good thing to me. The Leo in me doesn’t mind a little spotlight from time to time, although the rest of me loves a quiet house with a notebook, pen and latte for company.

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?
No, no concerns, on a conscious level. I wait and see what my work says about my inner me… my stories and poems can be like postcards from my deeper self. Or not. They can also just be me, playing around. But in general I tend to return to questions around human nature: I like to explore our behaviour and quirks, and sometimes I ask questions in my work but don’t provide the answers.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
This is something I try not to think about when writing, otherwise it makes my brain believe that it’s supposed to come up with something important, something politically or artistically necessary. I can’t really write with a monster of that sort breathing down my back. But the role of the writer, as with any artist, is to observe and absorb the world around her, and then, share it. 

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Editors of all types are important; the women in my critique group have helped me out so much, esp. helping me to get the prose the heck out of my poems (except in prose poems—they’re good with those). I’ve worked with some amazing mentors and editors, and their suggestions have really been pivotal. If you can excise some of your ego attachment from the work, then the process generally goes more smoothly. So, difficult, sometimes, and essential, yes. And I get my husband to read all my work—he tells it like it is, for which I am very grateful.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
My parents have always been supportive of my writing, and also rather grounded in the realities of living in the real world, too (parenting four kids, for example). My father—a bass player—encouraged me to write, and also find to work that supports that art. It was great advice, and I became a registered massage therapist, writing all the while.  

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I’m a nomad and a neophile at heart, so having the liberty to move from fiction to poetry to CNF is really quite important for me. Easy, I’m not so sure. Going from stories to a novel was a challenging leap, and, well, the novel isn’t published yet…

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 do try to write every day; one thing that helps this immensely is something I do with a couple of other writers that we call “writamins.” We email a word every day, taking turns, and then we all write using that word and then email what we’ve written back to each other. It’s all about accountability, not critiquing, and the new word is a place to jump in. I have two dedicated writing days a week now, so those are spent immersed in words—reading, writing, editing. If the house is empty, that’s where I am. If not, I go to a coffee shop with my notebook. I write all first drafts by hand.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Reading poetry always gets me going; Sharon Olds, in particular. For some reason her confessions spur me into doing some confessing of my own, whether in a real or fictional way. I think it’s her tone that does it. Also, walking. I think there’s a natural resistance inherent in the writing process; battling, when there’s time, against the idea of doing something more tangible, productive, etc. A walk breaks that resistance down, or maybe it’s the wind… in any case, when the muscles move, the mind often follows.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Birth home: Lilacs, French fries (we ran a takeout food joint every summer), lake breezes. West Coast home: creosoted logs on the beach, fir needles, good coffee.

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’d say that books are first on my list, too, but photography often influences me, too, both taking photos and looking at others’ work, esp. archival photos. And I try to take at least one little writing retreat a year, away from the city, usually on the ocean, so yes to nature, too. And if people can be considered art forms, which they are, to me, then there’s another big influence. Others: being a mother. Being in the world.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
As for other writers, the women in my two writing groups are very important; we’ve been meeting for many years, and in one, we write together, while the other is all about helpful critique and often prosecco. Everything I read is important, too, whether I realize it at the time or not. But a list? Alice Munro. George Saunders. Tony Hoagland. Lorrie Moore. Sharon Olds.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’ve travelled some, but I want to do much more, and live in other countries if possible. I love immersing myself in new cultures.

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 do have another occupation, as a massage therapist. This career has allowed me to be a writer, too, without as much pressure on making money from my art. In other words, it’s been my key to freedom.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
As a child, I was a lover of spelling bees and also a voracious reader. I think I just love words and what one is able to do with them. 

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Books: Bark by Lorrie Moore. Tony Hoagland’s What Narcissism Means to Me. Alison Pick’s Between Gods.

Film: I’m no film buff, but maybe Whiplash for its intensity, a portrayal of both passion and self-absorption. 

20 - What are you currently working on?
I’m writing poems towards a collection, many of them about the village I grew up in, Lanark Village, in Eastern ON. Most deal with the construct of “home” in general and how we find it (or try to) in various ways/places. Also, more stories. Always, the stories seem to come. I’m glad of that.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jessica Kluthe

Jessica Kluthe’s first book, Rosina, The Midwife was released in March, and since then has been on the Edmonton Journal’s list of best sellers for eight weeks. Two chapters of Rosina were recognized before publication: in 2012, her story “Scattered” won Other Voices’ creative nonfiction contest, and in 2011, her story “Traces” was nominated by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta for the James H. Gray award for nonfiction. Her work has also appeared in journals and magazines such as The Malahat Review, Other Voices, and Little Fiction. After earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing from the University of Victoria, Jessica moved back to Edmonton to teach writing full-time at MacEwan University in the Bachelor of Communications Studies program. Jessica believes in promoting literature in Canada; she reviews for Canadian Review of Materials and has recently created a promotion project called Snap Scene to feature images from Canadian books. Jessica lives in a character house in the Highlands with her partner Reid and her cat Finnegan. She has just finished writing a children’s book and is at work on a YA novel. www.jessicakluthe.com

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Writing Rosina, The Midwife taught me a lot. For instance, I discovered, through the researching process, that those stories placed outside of traditional records, and those stories that often go unrecorded, are just as important, and just as full, as those more traditional narratives (for instance, traditional stories of migration). I knew this at a gut-level before I started writing, but this process provided proof for me. For me, Rosina’s story demanded recording and I think it’s important to uncover and bring to the fore those stories that we see somewhere in our periphery.

Rosina, The Midwife has changed my life in some really direct ways as well: I think publishing has afforded me relevant and meaningful employment in teaching writing (something I had always wanted to do). Rosina, The Midwife has helped me join a community of writers, and encouraged me to keep writing…

Rosina is my first book-length work; I was preoccupied by the boundary zone between fact and fiction and by the intersections between memory and imagination. This is something I’ve explored in my short creative non-fiction and fiction as well. Having the length of a book to really inhabit that boundary zone gave me the space to explore these ideas. With Rosina, I allowed myself to write in the voice that was most comfortable (something I’d struggled with in shorter work), and that’s because, while resisting that voice, Lorna Crozier suggested that instead I use that poetic, lyrical voice. And who wouldn’t trust Lorna Crozier’s advice? I even added a short poem at the end of my book.

2 - How did you come to creative non-fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or fiction?
I started writing Rosina as my thesis for my Master of Fine Arts degree, and that was my focus as a part of that program. I came to that degree with those ideas about genre and the intersections between genres, and had intended to explore them from the outset. While I am writing a novel right now, I think I’ll always have an interest in telling true stories in a way that extends beyond mere documentation—record making—and instead makes meaning out of the events of our lives and the things happening around us.  As a reader, I love reading non-fiction books that elevate the personal. And I came to writing first as a reader (and I hope it always stays that way).

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 often tell my students that writing is hard work, and that at any given point in a project they may find me star-fished out, sighing on my living room floor. Writing is usually a slow process for me. I tend to line edit and be unable to move forward until I am (temporarily) happy with the state of each sentence, then each paragraph, then each page. When I have time on my side, I aim to write a scene or two each day.

If something has to get done though, I will make that happen. There’s a magic that happens for me when I’ve been writing for a long time and have to meet a deadline: when I’ve found that voice, and understand the structure, I do my best writing.

4 - Where does 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 am in a new zone right now. I am writing a novel. I’ve been writing a novel since the first sentence. I think the experience of writing Rosina, and what I learned about structure and mapping, has made it possible to try this approach. When I started Rosina, I wrote the beginning, the middle, and the end into the first chapter. After realizing that, I used these three chunks as my guide—and while things ended up changing a lot, as I discovered new stories while researching and interviewing, it was useful to be writing to something. I’ve done that again with this new novel. I am still on the first half of the first draft, but I have a scene in mind for the end of the book… how I arrive there… no clue…

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I view promotion as a necessary component of publishing. I feel I would be doing a disservice to the project I spent years working on, and to the publisher that has taken a chance on me, to wait on the sidelines. That’s not to say that I find it easy; it can be uncomfortable. I view readings as a necessary part of that promotion, but more than that, they provide a chance to have meaningful conversations. On the other side of that, since I’ve written non-fiction, I’ve also been asked some questions that I thought were too personal, and have had to say so.

As a reader, I love attending readings to hear what passages authors share, and the stories behind the text. This is part of my creative process; talking about writing makes me want to write.

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?

The why behind my writing of Rosina gets at this question. 

As an undergrad, I had read in Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction that creative non-fiction was a genre with a rich boundary zone between memory and imagination for the writer to explore (39). But I was unsure how to explore. Memory is unstable. The entry and exit points of the moments that people remember don’t necessarily create an engaging narrative arc. I felt like I wasn’t maintaining the pact with the reader to tell the Truth as it was too easy to cross the border entirely and enter into the world of fiction…

As someone who had never lived in nor even visited the place of my forbearers, my family’s oral migrant history occupied that same space, that same boundary zone. And within that migrant history, this space was, for me, where Rosina existed. The stories I had heard about Rosina were worn by time, while they included some facts: who her husband was, when she died… the stories of her were also shaped by whosever memory she was contained within—they were shaped by the teller of the story.

While I set out to explore the genre of creative non-fiction, the symbiotic relationship between the form and content of this work supported a dual-exploration: an exploration of genre, yes, but also an exploration of the story being told within it—this migrant history. This migrant story built by fact and imagination supplied me with a means to explore the genre of creative non-fiction.

Rosina, lived in a farmhouse in Maione, Calabria with her son, his wife and all of their children. These three generations were separated as over time everyone left for Edmonton. After they left, Rosina had to leave the house she had been in for so many years and she eventually ended up in this house with her niece Sisina in Grimaldi. Standing on this doorstep brought me as close as I would get to crossing that line from imagination to artifact. I could only make it as far as the doorstep—a space between outside and in that I feel is representative of that boundary zone. Even if I had been able to go inside, I would not actually be making it any further into her world—so much time had gone by, and everything had been cleared out, moved out, and someone else now inhabited that house.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Simply, storytelling is culture building. I think that a writer needs to ask this question each time they start a new work; I think the answer will change depending on the project, and that it should. With Rosina, I felt compelled to explore this story because I anticipated that within the Canadian context comprised of so many citizens with immigrant and refuges histories, I was not the only person who felt a disconnect from their forebearers. While I don’t think that my family history could stand in for those distinct migrant experiences from across the globe, I do think it can provide a counter-narrative: writing across time and borders in spite of diaspora. A dominant cultural narrative in a relatively young country is one of histories elsewhere, but in bringing together people, in this case, a line of women, across time and place, it is my hope that that those elsewhere histories can become more central in the story of a multi-cultural Canada and as part of the Canadian literary landscape.

In a more overarching way, storytelling is culture and economy building. At the Words in 3D conference in Edmonton, Kieran LeBlanc, executive director of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, said that, “books are a different kind of pipeline.” How powerful is that? I read a report on literacy that said that if we were to raise the literacy level in Canada by a mere 1%, we would see a lasting increase of 18 billion in our GDP.

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

Essential! I know that certain people, including my editor Linda Goyette (who is brilliant, thoughtful, and someone who I trust completely), helped shape my manuscript. Linda asked me questions that I couldn’t have asked myself after staring at the same pages for so long. Linda showed me how much she cared about Rosina, at times more than I did, and this relationship helped me to try things I may not have otherwise. And, I will always think of Linda’s careful first words about my manuscript, when it was still in need of a lot of revision work, and ensure I use that constructive, thoughtful voice when I’m providing feedback to my students. I can’t say enough about how important I think this writer-editor relationship is.

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

There are two pieces of advice that I have been thinking of while working on my novel.

1)    Trust the process.

2)    Take it bird by bird (or, you know, sentence by sentence, page by page).

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (creative non-fiction to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

With creative non-fiction, since I’m working with a true story, there are existing plot points that I can use. I find that comforting. I write to each point. But with fiction, I’ve needed to map things out a little more than I’m used to, and of course, invent a little more. I still find myself writing a lot of real things into my work (for instance, I was out picking rhubarb in my garden and came in and made my main character, Rebecca, have it for lunch). I’m feeling a lot more freedom with fiction, and I’m also less worried about the audience (for now), since my characters are invented and not people in my life.

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?

It all depends on the time of year, and what else I have going on since I teach full time. I can’t write in little spurts, so I chunk out time to write. I need at least a few hours to shrug off everything else on my mind and get into a writing space. When I don’t have a lot of time, I’ll write scene by scene. Even if I go a while without writing, I am constantly thinking about it, and I’ll keep notes.

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

There are two things I need to do when I’m stuck: read more, talk to writing friends.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I start Rosina with a scene at my parents’ house in the fall. Autumn smells, like fallen leaves and cinnamon, remind me of 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?

The main influence for me is silence. I feel like I have a lot of things (that I put into my life) competing for my attention. When I can actually just slow down for a few minutes, and tune out everything else (which is perhaps why I like to write late at night), I can start to listen to that really quite voice that gives me images, words, places to start. I can write once I can hear that voice.

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

A book I read again and again, because the writing style makes me want to write, is Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. It’s achingly beautiful.

I read a lot of writing guides: Tell it Slant, Bird-by-Bird, Good Prose. It’s not that I find that every piece of advice works for me, it’s just that often there are one or two things that stick and that’s enough to get me thinking and then writing.

Perl’s Guidelines for Composing is a generative writing exercise that brings me to that silence, that space where I can listen to my voice, and this is so important for my first drafts.

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

How much time do I have? Write children’s books (this is a huge goal for me), write a YA novel (which I think I’m doing right now), take some poetry courses, learn Italian and have access to more adjectives…

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’ve always wanted to be a teacher. I think I would have ended up teaching high school English had I not pursued an MFA. I feel really fortunate to be able to teach and write now.

I’ve been so focused on school and writing/publishing that this summer I decided I needed to expand my skills. I am happy to report, I now offer gardening advice to neighbors (seriously, they ask me for advice because I finally figured out things like the difference between a weed and a flower, and how to prune), baking (three successful pies), and I’m this week I am learning to make jam. I’m sure all of these things will make their way into my writing.

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

I can’t remember a time that I didn’t write.

It wasn’t ever really a question of will I or won’t I write, but it was a will I or won’t I ever be published.

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

My favorite summer read so far has been Theresa Shea’s The Unfinished Child. This book prompted a few serious discussions in my house, and I think a good book does just that. This book continually resists simplifying complicated, emotional topics: abortion, Down Syndrome, infertility.

Instead of film, I am going to say TV show: I watched the entire season of Orange is the New Black in two days. The show is based on a true story (you can read a letter that one of the main characters wrote for The New Yorker online: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/fashion/28Love.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&), and I like that real life element. If I had known there was going to be so much reading going on, I would have jotted down the list of books the prisoners were reading when I started watching. And, like Teresa Shea’s book that offers us complex views of female identities, my friend, and writer, Amanda Jardine wrote an interesting post about Orange is the New Black and its complex identities: http://fetchandfemme.blogspot.ca/2013/07/orange-is-new-lesbian.html.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I recently wrote a children’s book that is in search of a home, and I’m knee-deep in a first draft of what I think is a YA novel (though that may change) about a foundling. The novel is set in the present in Alberta.

I’m also currently preparing materials to teach a new course in the fall called Writing and Publishing Prose at MacEwan University. I’m looking forward to having Little Fiction’s editor Troy Palmer, Amanda Leduc author of The Miracles of Ordinary Men, and Diana Davidson author of the forthcoming novel Pilgrimage come to speak to my class.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;