12 or 20 (second series) questions with Clare Goulet

Clare Goulet is a British-Québécoise hybrid raised in Nova Scotia. Essays, fiction, reviews, and poems have been published in journals and books in Canada and abroad including The Fiddlehead, Grain, Room, Dalhousie Review, TAR, Collateral, and Listening to the Heartbeat of Being (MQUP). With Mark Dickinson, she co-edited the anthology Lyric Ecology (Cormorant) on the work of Jan Zwicky; she's given papers for various scholarly associations on metaphor in science, polyphony, manuscript editing, machine-generated poems, and writing pedagogy. Graphis scripta / writing lichen (Gaspereau) was released May 2024. She lives a few steps from woods and ocean at the edge of Halifax, where she teaches and directs the Writing Centre at MSVU.

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

Graphis scripta snuck up between an anthology of essays on Jan Zwicky, far behind me, and a novel just ahead: between those slower, thicker books, this one deked through like a breakaway kid chasing the puck for the slapshot & through sheer luck landing it. After decades collecting lichen and slow walks, plus a daily whirl of work and parenting, the book itself happened fast—had to—and was a sneaky joy to make.  I thought that would be the end, didn’t realize that a book can generate its own life once it’s out, and now it’s me chasing after it—readings in unexpected places, lichen walks, scientists getting in touch about poetry, connecting with ecopoets in other countries, new projects. New life.

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

Oh I’ve written all three always – particularly essays about metaphor and science and looking, and small fiction-poetry hybrids, and I can feel fiction for better or worse tugging at some of these poems – the 2 boys of Hypogymnia (H in the Index of names, power-headed tube lichen) —they popped out of nowhere as main characters and took over with plastic 80s tampon applicators flapping on their fingers.  And Acharius in his garden bent over specimens, and the pre-war northern British street kids of hammered shield lichen.  Fortunately the whole point of the Index was, in a way, to character-ize lichen, unpack the metaphoric names.  Way back when I was agonizing over genre as you do in your 20s, Don McKay penciled a marginal quip: “Poetry has always had the hots for prose, and vice versa. As lovers they are much more interesting than as categories.” It’s still pinned to my wall. The novel ahead, allegedly fiction, has a prose-poem and non-fiction threads running alongside the story—so perhaps I’ve found the form for me at last!

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?

A quick idea—seeing it all in a flash —then slow and painful and dread and masses of overthinking—then (usually, though not with this book) forcing myself to the table, until the relief of revision. But this one was fun—an idea sketched in 2010 on the back of an envelope, then I raised a kid, then found the envelope in the pandemic and went for it.

I was heartened by Joel Plaskett’s song-a-week project and built weekly deadlines for 26 pieces into its Canada Council Research & Creation grant, and made the game-changing rule for myself that writing had to happen alongside the research, not after. To always be writing, to have the thing always cooking on the front burner. Thank god for that and for Pavia café in Herring Cove and its excellent window ledge for scribbling those first drafts.

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 write lots of one-offs in the moment, most in my drawer, be glad, but I love reading books with a tiny focus—could be structural, thematic, conceptual—as they tend to take you everywhere, and that’s what happened here.  After a couple of early lichen poems and essays on metaphor, the idea of a science-art poetic field guide with an Index of Names came at once, sketched, grounded in walks for local species, after years of silent looking.  Graphis scripta was always a book.

As for the poems themselves – most begin with looking and a phrase that arrives unbidden —like a line of music—the notes and the vibe all there – and for me the work is to see if there’s more there, a whole song.  Often what comes first is an end that I then write towards (chasing after the puck again). What to me are the four or five truest poems in the book arrived entire like that, whole, one draft, it was like taking dictation. Elf-ear, mushroom, the diva Cladonia, a couple others. Maybe some writers can access that sphere often or easily or all the time. I’m not 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’m more used to creating and hosting and organizing and applauding other writers at readings; I prefer to be offstage and tend to disappear if a camera’s pulled out. But I know that public readings and hearing poems in the moment, together,  matters, and so far they’ve each been unexpectedly fun, particularly with this book. I’m so passionate about lichen that it overrides shyness, people ask hard, fantastic questions, and it’s the poems out there, not me.  Maybe improper, but I discovered that readings (and Brian Bartlett says it’s ok!) are where you can keep revising your poems after publication or try out different versions—I’ve rarely read a poem exactly as published in the book.  Taking different ones out for a spin, or in different combinations for different venues—mini-curating—is also fun and changes my own perception of what I thought I knew.  

Readings underscore how place matters:  I’m half British, and some poems have turns of phrase that worked fully only in Ireland and the UK, whereas other poems  couldn’t go over at all! (When writer Clare Pollard was looking at a couple in revision, I had to explain a ‘cakewalk’—which by the way sounds super-odd as a custom to non-initiates). Here in Halifax local audiences know the landscape at Herring Cove so I can’t get away with bullshit. Last month, reading pieces on 1810 Irish botanist Ellen Hutchins in her landscape of West Cork, Ireland to her family descendants became suddenly high-stakes – I felt a responsibility of care that probably should always be there.

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?

John Berger famously switched from painting to writing to meet his own particular 20^th-century moment. Here in the 21^st, at this tipping point, I’m not sure that writing meets the current questions.   I do seem to trace over the same concerns; failure of language, failure to connect, seeing and mis-seeing things as they are.   

In this case I wanted to read a field guide to lichen that explored the nature of metaphor and couldn’t find one, so I wrote one. At one stage it had a Preface for the concept, deleted last minute: Metaphor and lichen each about two or more wholes sharing the same space; lichen isn’t a plant, it’s a relationship, alliance of fungus and at least one photosynthetic partner (alga, cyanobacterium)—as well as other elements we’re only beginning to see.  A metaphor, too, associates one thing with another: something is like but not the same as, not literally, something else, changing our minds in ways that we’re just beginning to understand. The main move is that in a metaphor, as in a lichen, each partner remains whole, yet their conjunction creates something that wasn’t there before. I gave a talk in 2006 on this and encountered the analogy twice since, Don McKay in an essay and Brenda Hillman in a recent interview (so hey it must be true!). We each saw different points of congruity, took different paths to the same clearing.   

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?

Oh god, I remember interviewing Karen Connelly back in the ’90s – she was just back to Canada from Greece and Thailand and  had an articulate impassioned despairing rant on the lack of role in the culture, here in Canada, compared to elsewhere, back in that golden era when something like the state of writing seemed like a serious problem. 

I do think—for any art—stitching together disparate fragments into a piece of wholecloth of some kind—integrating what appears separate, illuminating a relationship of this to that, connecting—is of immense value at a time when other interests seek to break us apart and see us as pieces more than wholes, for the purpose of control.  I think this kind of art-making of whole paintings, poems, books, jokes, photographs, bread loaves etc is of value not only (or even primarily) for the culture but for the person doing it, the maker. Whole persons can make whole cultures that are resistant and resilient to forces of destruction and control. Putin and his Kremlin cohort know this: there’s a reason missiles are targeting theatres, libraries, schools, galleries, and cafés where influential writers like Victoria Amelina were known to congregate. Ukrainians know this and rescued books when the Dnipro dam broke, drying  them page by page in the sun. The last thing Maksym Kryvtsov did the day before he was killed defending Ukraine from invasion—expecting he might be killed—was to write a poem in the company of his cat. You can read it here.

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

Essential and wildly enjoyable—putting a book out means to me the poems have to aim to work for others, as a hospitable gesture, to point and look with someone at something, together.  But as a working parent-writer of a younger child For this book, it was impossible to access the standard Banff editorial programs  that glimmered and beckoned; like many parents, I couldn’t at the time turn the key and leave for a month, or stop working. Thankfully Andrew Steeves at Gaspereau gave a lucid sensitive read, plus time, and I invented an editorial development project with a UK writer for a half-dozen poems over Zoom, with the Canada Council’s professional development grant and the brilliant Clare Pollard.

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

Margaret Laurence, in an interview with her I found when I was 16: “You’d be a fool to be an optimist in this world. But you gotta have hope.”

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

Over a life I’m noticing the reverse direction—critical prose to poetry—though I still flip back and forth. I used to love the flip and how each fed the other, but now, moving into  complex stories I can feel myself wanting to leave analysis behind—having a bit of a break-up with it. It hogged the mic for way too long.

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?

The day begins with the dog needing something, continues with the dog and amazing child needing something, then my wonderful students, returns to the dog and family, and in between I write. For anything complex, I use long stretches pre-dawn before the dog or the world is awake.  (The dog has a great routine though; too bad he doesn’t write.) 

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

I take the problem into the woods and walk a circular trail and let my brain solve it sideways, without trying to. Or just embrace the stall and sit in granite cliffs by the Atlantic, big ocean, and aim to be empty of words—to let language, to quote Don, “fray back into air” and just breathe.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Coal.  It conjures 1970s Staffordshire where I lived with my grandmother and went to school briefly as a child – coal in the grate to heat the tiny house, coaldust in the bricks, in the air, in your mouth. Here in Nova Scotia it’s the stink of seaweed at low tide: it fills you.

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?

Yeah this book feels built from and for a lifetime of books, in a way. Other art forms? Music!  Virginia Woolf once said she always conceived of her books as music before she wrote them. I think certain pieces of music can respond to and also shape the rhythms of what you write, or offer complex polyphonic structures that help you build other complex structures. The novel to come has one thread that’s entirely music, a score composed for and built into the story. Without music how can you articulate loss?

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

Fairy tales and Atwood’s Cat’s Eye and the 1986 reprint of Eli Mandel’s Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960-1970—one of those 5-dollar McClelland & Stewart NCL paperbacks. In college Jan Zwicky’s Lyric Philosophy changed my life in the full Rilkean sense. Don McKay’s “Baler Twine,” ditto, and not only his essays and poems (Birding, Or Desire and Apparatus and Vis à Vis and Paradoxides) but the marginalia, jazz collection, postcards, quips and asides, with Don it’s all gold and of a piece. Sue Sinclair, Elizabeth Hay, Anne Simpson, Helen Humphreys. Ilya Kaminsky. In the UK Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage speak to my north-midland English soul, as does Kate Atkinson, whose stories somehow permit serious fun.

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

Write a mystery. It’s inescapable, like cultural genetic code. See: Atkinson, above.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be?

It was hands down a cello-playing marine biologist for saltwater plants until I realized there was such a thing as a lichenologist.

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

Probably lack of ability to do something else. I read and wrote freakishly early so I have no memory of learning to do them, or of not doing them; it’s a hard question to answer as there was never in memory a ‘before’ books time.

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

Film: the slow intense Banel & Adama by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, with my daughter over the summer, and watching her watch it.  Great pleasure books are always for my greatly pleasurable book-club, currently Emily Wilson’s Iliad and Speedboat, a wild 1976 novel by Renata Adler, and I’m behind on both. For poems a recent slip of a thing that lingered is Slant Light by Sarah Westcott.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Fiction and poetry at the same time, god help me! Small steps into a new thing, Loan Words, more language stuff, and a long poem/recording, Subliminal, using 1810 letters of an Irish botanist from the other side of the Atlantic, which forever pulls. Basically whatever I can make at dawn before the rest of the house wakes up.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Daniel Goodwin

Daniel Goodwin is the author of two previous novels – Sons and Fathers and The Art of Being Lewis – and the award-winning poetry collection Catullus’s Soldiers. His new novel The Great Goldbergs is being published in September 2023. He lives in Ottawa with his wife Kara and their lovely, rambunctious 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?

My first book proved that I could write a novel. My new book is, I hope, better, in the sense that it’s deeper and more resonant and more skilled, but it shares some similarities to my first and second books. All three are set in Montreal, take boys from childhood to middle age, and are about male friendship and relationships between fathers and sons. Most of all, like all my novels, the new one is about becoming who you are, or being true to yourself. It feels different in that I’m going in knowing that the most important part of writing a book is not what comes after it’s published but the journey that’s come before.

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

I wrote – or dictated – my first poem when I was two. I was lying on my mother’s lap, we were somewhere above the Atlantic flying back from a family summer in Greece. I apparently recited a poem I made up and my mother wrote it down. It went like this: “Stars are in the night / And snow is on top of the buildings / And between the pillars of Parthenon. / And sometimes it comes down in big balls / And lands on the ground.” Sometimes I think it’s my best poem! Greece obviously made an impression on me.

Poetry was all around me growing up. Many of my parents’ friends were writers – mostly poets – or visual artists. Nobody seems to have heard of him anymore, but Irving Layton was a great uncle who was very close friends with his nephew, my father. Poetry felt natural from the beginning.

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 writing comes both quickly and slow. It takes months to start. First drafts are very rough. I usually start with a page or a chapter built around a character in a tough situation. Then lots of notes. Then writing bits and pieces interspersed with lots of notes. It took me a while to be comfortable with the idea that making notes, writing down questions, writing snippets, reading what I’d written the day or week before, revising, and so on, all qualified as writing. That was a revelation for me.

It takes me a long time to figure out what I’m really writing about. I’ve tried being one of those writers who does a great outline and knows exactly what he or she is setting out to do. But it kills the spark of the thing for me. I also have to rewrite. A lot. If I start thinking about trying to write a perfect or close-to-perfect sentence or paragraph or page the first time around, it’s paralyzing. I have to spit it out as fast as I can type it, not worrying about spelling or grammar or sentence structure or even always the right word.

Then I go back and revise many times. The whole process for me is like an oyster covering that grain of sand with nacre, the same substance that goes into making its shell, its home and protection, until it has a pearl to show for it.

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?

It’s a cliché as most sports analogies are, but writing a poem for me is like a hundred-yard dash. I sit down and fifteen minutes later I have a first draft. I can put it away and come back to it later and refine it. Writing a novel is like running a series of marathons every day for three or four years. It’s a brutal, exhausting process. Fun of course, too.

Whenever I write a novel, I know I’m writing a book. I’ve tried writing short stories but have never had one published. I assume because they’re not very good. But my novel writing is never linear. In the early days, I started a novel and got stuck on a chapter for months. I just didn’t know what came next. As I began to get better at it and understand myself and my process, I realized I could write novels the way movies are filmed: out of sequence. Sometimes I’ll write the last line first, or the middle chapter second, or the first line last. And so on. Each day I work on what I’m passionate about.

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

I don’t mind public speaking but really hate doing readings although I know I should feel more positive about them. But I feel so self-conscious reading my own stuff. I’ve gotten to the point where I like talking about my book and other books in relation to it, about its themes, and even my process or journey as a writer, but I usually stay away from reading directly from my work. I don’t know why this is. It might have to do with the fact I think writing and reading is such a solitary, intimate act, it feels strange to be doing it up in front of a crowd, even if that crowd is just a small group of people.

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?

My poetry is about many things, often art, often relationships with my parents, my wife, my children. And the usual clichés: love and death.

In my fiction I am always trying to explore one theme: how you become yourself. How you resist all the fears and temptation – money, power, wanting to belong – and how you break free of all your constraints – your upbringing, your past, your character – to become who you are, as Nietzsche says, and pursue your truth. This might not be the most interesting question to everyone but it is to me.

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 writing – and reading for that matter – are two of the most important and rebellious acts in this culture that is too occupied with speed, technology, materialism, and everything that is trivial and superficial. Writing, like all real art, plays many roles. It bears witness. It brings pleasure. But most importantly, art reminds us that human beings are not a means to an end – as may organizations and governments would have us believe. We are an end in ourselves.

As our culture moves through a dark period, even with all the flashing screens, real writing becomes more important than ever before.

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

Always essential, difficult at first, now just essential and pleasurable. I’m very fortunate to have a superb editor in Marc Côté at Cormorant Books. He has taught me a lot. A good editor is like a very skilled reader who knows how to write. You always learn so much about your writing from good readers and editors.

Marc once described the role of the editor to me as being like a midwife: there at the delivery but not at the conception.

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

Hands down, it’s Somerset Maugham’s quip: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

This gets at the essentially creative, original, and individualistic nature of art. It also gets at the fact you are always in undiscovered country. There are no paths to take. You’re literally making it up as you go along.

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

It’s getting harder as I get older. One of the best compliments someone ever paid me was that my fiction was like poetry and my poetry was like fiction. I started off as a poet and it came naturally to me. I had to teach myself how to write fiction. But the funny thing is, I realized I was more suited to fiction because as I went along, I started to become more conscious of what I was doing and so was able to get better. Whereas poetry just came. I still have trouble knowing which poems of mine are good vs. not so good.

Increasingly, I can only write poems if I’m very moved to. I wrote one about the death of my mother last year. It’s one of my favourite poems. But fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re a poet) you don’t lose a mother every week. It’s taken me a while, but I have come to the conclusion that the way I can best express myself is in fiction.

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 wake up, meditate for about ten minutes, then I write. As noted above, writing for me can involve many things. Then I walk, come back home and shower, and go to work. I can only do the really heavy lifting, the making up of stuff, in the morning when my mind is clear and fresh, and I haven’t become stressed or tired from the day. I almost never write outside the morning.

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

I walk. I relax. I read. I try not to worry about it. I remind myself I’ve done it before, I will do it again, that this too shall pass.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Chicken soup reminds me of my childhood home. The smell of my wife’s skin reminds me of my adult 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?

I’ve written a few poems describing paintings. I think they are called ekphrastic poems. I find nature absolutely essential to my happiness and creative life although I rarely write about it. McFadden is obviously right in the sense that good books carry echoes of many other good books. But for me, books come less out of books and more out of life. Experience.

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

Mordecai Richler. Kazuo Ishiguro. John le Carré. Churchill. Auden. The Old Testament. Shakespeare. Well-written mysteries.

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

I’m not sure. I’m either very content or unambitious! I guess I’d like to keep doing more of what I’ve already done. Spending time with my family. Writing. Living. Understanding. Paying homage.

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 don’t know. I do have another occupation. I think that unless you’re writing unabashedly commercial fiction, you don’t choose to be a writer. You just do it. It’s not a conscious choice. 

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

I write to understand. I want to understand myself and others and the world. I want to pay homage to that understanding. I can only ever truly understand something by writing about it.

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

I recently read Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, about the US conflict that claimed 600,000 lives. I never get tired of reading about Lincoln bringing his moral stature, courage, political instincts, thoughtfulness, and oratory to bear on combatting the evil of slavery.

As for films, it wasn’t a great film in the conventional understanding of the term, but I enjoyed The Lost King, the recent feature film about the improbable search by an amateur archaeologist for the mortal remains of Richard III and the rehabilitation of his eternal reputation. I saw it at the lovely ByTowne Cinema here in Ottawa with my wife and our two children who are still at home. I think I liked the film so much because books featured so heavily in its story. I like it when books have roles in movies.

20 - What are you currently working on?

My new novel. A very loose updating of the Adam and Eve story.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sheila Murray

Sheila Murray’s articles and short fiction have appeared in Canadian magazines and journals including Refuge Journal, Descant, The Dalhousie Review, Exile, White Wall Review, TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Room and The New Quarterly. Finding Edward is her first novel. Sheila’s writing has been supported by the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council.

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

Finding Edward is my first book, and although I can’t say that it’s changed my life, it sure has been fun. My previous work has been short fiction published in literary journals. They’ve never drawn much attention. But I’m hearing about the novel from all sorts of people, some whom I’d never have imagined would be so engaged with my characters, Cyril, and Edward, and their stories.

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

I studied literary journalism in university for my Journalism degree. I rediscovered my love for writing there. After that I took a couple of creative writing courses, and started to explore short fiction. Fiction just came naturally. I’ve never written poetry, but have the greatest admiration for poets.

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 can say that the writing comes fairly easily once the idea is there. I don’t work from an outline, but head off exploring with the central character. I often have no idea what will happen until I’ve actually written it down. I rewrite a lot, but find that lots of what’s written in a first draft is generally fairly together, it just needs lots of editing — usually removing extraneous information and verbiage.

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 knew that I was writing a novel from its first pages. It had to be a long story because it was largely about one young character’s search for the history of a much older man. Lots had to happen over an extended period of time.

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 pubic readings. I prefer to read shorter pieces, and I love it when people ask questions. In fact, readings have been central to getting Finding Edward published. I’d given up on ever finding a publisher who’d take it. But a literary friend, who’d seen me read from the manuscript at least a couple of times, liked what she heard. So when my editor, Marc Cote, at Cormorant Books, met her for lunch and asked whether she had any writer leads, she told him about my book. The rest is my happy history with long form publishing!

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 do have a number of concerns about the questions I’m asking, and how my characters’ experiences will be perceived by different audiences. Central to my novel is an exploration of what it means to be racialized in Canadian society. Race is a social construct. That’s a concept that’s hugely challenging for all sorts of people. Both Finding Edward’s main characters are mixed race, Black and white. I’m challenging the fundamentals of systemic racism and revealing the Black histories that have been deliberately hidden from Canadian mainstream knowledge.

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?

I think writers should do their best work, whatever it is. They should be as honest as they can be about what they know and how they feel.

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

I don’t have so much experience working with outside editors. But I do think that it’s essential. Having the work reviewed by someone who is fresh to your writing and story is such a privilege. And, of course, an editor is also invested in getting the best story that you as a writer can tell. My editor, Marc Cote, asked me to give him more: more from the minor characters, more history, more Edward, more Cyril. It was in writing the ‘more’ that I found the depth that I believe the novel now contains and delivers. 

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

If you’re having trouble writing, just set aside a few minutes to write one line; or one paragraph. Get something down, more will follow.

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

It was relatively easy to move from short fiction to the novel. It’s true that the business of plot and character development needs a lot more attention. Timelines and other ‘minor’ details can really trip you up. I wrote the first draft of the novel when I was with a terrific writers’ group. Most of us had published short stories and were trying long form for the first time. So that helped a lot. One challenge is that it can seem a very long way to the end of a novel, but it’s certainly most rewarding once you get there!

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’ve been out of any writing routine for so long that I can honestly say I don’t have one. I do my best work in the mornings, so when I do get back to routines, I’ll start with that. And if things are going really well, I might work for as long as four hours. I think I’m pretty much done for the day after that.

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

If I’m feeling stuck I start reading. Only very good work by great writers.  And I walk. A lot. Ideally in settings with lots of trees, or open spaces. And I listen, to the wind, birds, and overheard conversations

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I wasn’t born in Jamaica, and I’ve never worked there. But I have spent many years going back and forth to spend time stretches of quality time with my parents. I love the scent that is immediately there in the hot, tropical air when you get off the plane and walk across the tarmac. It’s extraordinary: a spicy, fragrant, warm deliciousness that makes me feel immediately at 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?

I think stories come from many places and inspirations. I wrote a short story after seeing a contemporary art exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. My character was an artist who made giant installations of organic materials. That was a really good story! I love writing about the process of creating art. One or two others of my short stories are structured around the enterprise of gathering and shaping materials into visual art forms.

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

These days, I’m particularly drawn to nature writing in all forms. I want to know lots about our natural world. It’s so full of miracles and tragedy and magic.

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

So many things. I have an endless list. What’s truly amazing is that some of those things will probably, actually, happen!

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 haven’t really been a writer. I’ve made a living doing other things, some in film and television production. Some in the non-profit world, particularly around social justice issues. These days I’m pretty much focused on climate change projects. But now that I can call myself a writer — you get to do that when you’re a published novelist, I think — I’ll stay being a writer for the foreseeable future.

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

I love the writing process. Somebody said, writing is a conversation that you have with yourself. That’s what it feels like to me. A lovely, long, rich conversation that tells me about my concerns and preoccupations, state of mind, fears and hopes. It often surprises me. When I’ve finished a piece  I sometimes wonder where all of that character and story came from. But I know that it is a part of me.

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

The last great book I read is The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn. It’s a memoir, a truly incredible story that had me from the start. When I finished the book I went straight to YouTube to find an interview with her. I needed to know more. That’s the first time I’ve had that experience.

It’s been a long stretch of pandemic and I haven’t been in a cinema for far too long. Toronto’s Hot Docs festival is one of my favourite experiences. Maybe next year.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am working on ideas for the next novel. Now that I’ve had such a great response to Finding Edward, I’m pretty confident that I can write another. I’d started a couple of things over the past few years, and a new idea has recently come to mind. I need to decide which to spend my time on, and get started. Back to that morning routine with long walks in the afternoons!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;