12 or 20 (second series) questions with Cathy Stonehouse

Cathy Stonehouse (she/they) is a poet, writer, teacher and visual artist in Vancouver, BC. The author of a novel, The Causes, a collection of short fiction, Something About the Animal, and two previous collections of poetry—Grace Shiver and The Words I Know. Stonehouse co-edited the ground-breaking anthology Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood and is a former editor of EVENT magazine. They teach creative writing and interdisciplinary expressive arts at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

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

My first book didn't change my life in the ways I naively expected it might (i.e. entirely positively!). It was amazing, but also emotionally complicated. In fact, being published freaked me out so much I went silent for 15 years, and I've been trying to reduce this effect with each book since. I'm getting there. My most recent work, as a whole, is very different from my previous work, in that I'm moving toward a more comfortably capacious and interdisciplinary voice. I'm finally getting into my stride. A bit late, but hey ho.

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

Poetry has always been my first love. Sound, rhythm and musicality are everything to me, even in prose. As a child I liked to read poems aloud even if I didn't understand what they meant. Writing poems can feel like how I imagine being able to sing really well might feel (an experience I only have in dreams, then wake up). Whenever I write prose I look forward to the stage when I can relate to the words and sentences as music again, i.e. when editing. I also start prose like this, but in the middle it's a heck of a lot of other work.

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 can take a very long time for me to finish a project, although I have new ideas constantly. Work is often in my brain and/or notebooks for years before I have the space & time to manifest it, and sometimes revisions come after decades. This new book's main spine, the section called Dream House, came very fast one summer (2018) after returning home from the UK having rapidly emptied my mother's house. The rest of the book took a lot longer.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I work more and more in a long form--the sequence, the book-length work--even with poetry and short stories. I get a kind of "feeling" of the work as a whole, then figure out the components.

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

I love giving readings and would love to do more of them. As a neurodivergent introvert I get very nervous but once I read and listen to others read it's quite exhilarating.

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?

It changes from book to book. With the new book (Dream House) I'm trying to use metaphor and other figurative language to render experiences of embodiment. How to address the trickiness of language which supposedly mediates isolation, yet so rapidly becomes cliché, and which, shortly after naming something, often begins to mean something else? The interiority and exteriority of language, of structure, and of the poem. The difference between a home and a house. Are these questions current? I don't know.

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 believe that consciously making language new, or using it in new and precise ways, is critically important right now, as is tracking and recording the experience of human consciousness--because these are all practices which cannot be carried out by AI. Humans may be on the verge of losing or downloading their capacity to think and imagine, both in pictures and in language, if we are not careful (and we generally aren't). For these ancient practices to continue to emerge from the individual and collective human body we need artists, poets, musicians, dancers and thinkers. We also need arts funding, education and mentoring.

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

Both. Essential, if I had to choose--being well edited is a deeply affirming if chastening experience.

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

Don't get too attached to how the work is received, positively, negatively or not at all. Just keep doing the work and delivering it up, even if it's just to yourself.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short stories to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?

Too easy, perhaps. It's very bad for building a career because you dodge the branding process and can appear to be starting over each time, even if the work is all very connected. But for me each genre provides a particular challenge and opportunity, and they feed each other. Also, I'm a Gemini.

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 have no real routine when I'm working (teaching) and even just living (parenting, dog-parenting, being a person in the world) but when I can I work best first thing in the morning. That's the magical time.

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

I've been doing a lot of painting and drawing in the past few years and I find this tremendously helpful as a way to keep my creative practice alive when language and the literary feel too hard to enter. Painting is incredibly hard but in a completely different way so it's very refreshing. Life drawing is also great because there's no time to think, just do.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Warm toast, fresh ink and wet, slightly mildewy clothing.

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?

Lately science has been inspirational to me. When I say science I really mean nature, humility, looking, and in particular the work of Indigenous and other scholars and artists whose worldview is based on reciprocity and relationship.  Madhur Anand, Leanne Simpson, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Suzanne Simard, Timothy Morton ...

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

Leslie Marmon Silko--especially the novels, Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead. All kinds of poets especially those working in longer forms. Lately, any amount of Will Alexander. Trans writing, writing about neurodivergence--anything that troubles the edges and binaries, undoes the commodification of art or identity. Tove Jansson's Moominvalley in November. I reread it once every year.

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

I'm working on writing and illustrating a graphic memoir, so that would be one thing.

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 may have begun in visual art and drifted into writing instead of vice versa. Once upon a time I wanted to cross the Atlantic single-handed but I have terrible motion sickness; I also wanted to be an activist but I'm no good on committees.

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

Being silenced as a child.

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

Film: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about photographer Nan Goldin. Book: Was It for This by Hannah Sullivan.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Aforementioned graphic memoir; a collection of linked short stories I've been working on for a decade; some very "challenging" essays; a speculative novel set in the English Civil War; another poetry-ish book about the nervous system and the ecosystem. A painting of elephants.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 questions (second series) with Cathy Stonehouse

Cathy Stonehouse (photo credit: Daniel Henshaw) is the author of a collection of short fiction, Something About the Animal (Biblioasis, 2011) and two collections of poetry, Grace Shiver (Inanna Publications, 2011) and The Words I Know (Press Gang Publishers, 1994). Co-editor of the creative nonfiction anthology Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a wide range of journals and anthologies including Best Canadian Stories 2010 (Oberon), White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Mothering (Demeter, 2008) and Beyond the Small Circle: Dropped Threads 3 (Random House, 2005). Cathy emigrated to Canada from the UK in 1988 and currently lives in East Vancouver, where she writes, edits and teaches creative writing at various Lower Mainland colleges. Check out her website for more information: www.cathystonehouse.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?

My first book, The Words I Know, taught me that publishing a book does not necessarily change your life; it came and went, and I still had the same work to do--start over again! My recent work, especially the fiction is very different. Less innocent.

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

Poetry always felt like my first language. It was also easier to hide inside. I wrote poetry (bad, of course) at a very early age and never stopped. But there were always stories waiting to get out. Eventually poems started to feel claustrophobic, so I flung open the door.

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 write my initial draft quickly, but usually abandon most of it as the work begins to take shape, and end up writing "the real thing" very slowly. The work takes shape on the page, sentence by sentence; I have to get each sentence "right," or somewhat right, before I move on.

4 - Where does fiction or 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 get very big, ambitious ideas that I mostly can't execute, so I have to write all those out and then return to the particular piece at hand, which usually begins with a sentence or an image. Quite often, ironically, the seed sentence or image has to be taken out of the final work. I have several "book" ideas in my head, on the go, but which will come to fruition depends on how the groundwork goes.

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

I hardly ever read, because I am quite a hermit, but in fact I love reading, and find the live experience very energizing and inspiring. I get very anxious beforehand, but high afterwards.

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?

How do the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world break down in the face of crisis, and what is left to notice when everything seems to have been destroyed--these are the moments I have been charting lately, partly to see how the dreaming, imagistic mind can be thus revealed. I guess I'm interested in the unconscious, its poetic qualities. My own unconscious does a lot of my writing, and there is a language there I want to protect. What is the unconscious of our culture? What and who do we refuse to acknowledge as real?

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?

The writer/artist these days is pressured to provide entertainment, diversion, and reassurance, in the sense that this is what's often rewarded; the writer/artist is also pressured to be a personality or celebrity. I hope there is still a place for writers/artists who function more shamanistically, monastic fools, and visit wild places to bring back important messages for the larger culture.

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

I had a great experience working with John Metcalf, a gift of ruthless precision operating simulaneously with unconditional acceptance. If the editor "gets' your work, what you are doing, it's essential and tremendous. If the editor does not, and is trying to impose their own agenda, it can be a disaster.

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

Poet Suniti Namjoshi once told me to take praise and criticism equally lightly, and to not take either personally. That is a great help.

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

Different truths emerge in different ways, and moving between registers allows for a variety of entry points into the larger culture. Nevertheless I tend to spread myself too thinly in most aspects of my life, and something can get lost in the cracks. I admire writers with a steely focus. I also appreciate that genre differences are often oddly superficial, and enjoy exploring this.

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?

Right now I am too busy to have a routine; I just take pen and paper everywhere and write copious notes on the bus. In my dreams I* inhabit a timeless, gorgeous place in the woods where I spend all my time working up to writing incredible fiction, usually at night, but in life I'm an overcommitted, urban working parent with about two hours a week to "write;" weirdly enough, I seem to get almost as much done when I'm busy and conditions are terrible as when conditions are apparently perfect. I get a lot of ideas while running or in the bath.

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

I am extremely self-critical and tend to abandon projects that don't meet my standards; I also get bogged down by ambitious ideas I can't carry out. I therefore lower my expectations. I draw and make collages. I also read.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Dead leaves: a British woodland in the autumn.

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?

Visual art especially. I have often drawn my way into a poem. I also find the work and working processes of visual artists, land artists & sculptors very inspiring.

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

Paul Celan; W. S. Graham; Alice Notley; Ingeborg Bachmann; John Clare; Olga Broumas; Lydia Davis; Jane Bowles; Edward St. Aubyn; Tove Jansson. An eclectic mix. Every year, usually in the depths of winter, I reread John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps. I've read it about 30 times.

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

Something useful, e.g. build a school, conserve some land or alleviate human suffering in some tiny way.  Creatively speaking, I feel like I've barely begun. I need to live until I'm 90 just to get through the first two or three items on my list.

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 currently training to be an expressive arts therapist, which is basically about exploring the power of metaphor. That feels right. I'm also a closet visual artist. If I had not been a writer I may have been a criminal, a mental patient or a statistic. If I didn't need to write so badly I would love to be a biologist or a farmer.

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

I have always been compelled to write, it's a kind of burden really. Earlier it was a way to have a secret, glorious life, and to be disembodied. It ended up bringing me into my body and the world, though, which is fortunate. I have at times wished to have the urge surgically removed, or to be healed out of it. But the urge passes. I write because I love to read and wish to enter the conversation.

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

Book: At Last, by Edward St. Aubyn. Film: Mary Poppins. My 7-year-old watches it about once a week.

20 - What are you currently working on?

New stories and a novel; floating pieces of personal narrative. Trying to organize my life so I can write again. Drawing horses.

Cathy Stonehouse reads in Ottawa on Thursday, October 6 at Collected Works Bookstore as part of an Ontario Biblioasis tour with Rebecca Rosenblum and Laura Boudreau..

12 or 20 (second series) questions;