Author spotlight: Sue Goyette

Sue Goyette is a poet and educator living in Kjipuktuk. She is the author of nine collections of poetry and one novel and was the Poet Laureate of Halifax Regional Municipality from 2020 to 2024. During her laureateship, she worked with HRM to establish the Youth Poet Laureate program as her legacy project, making space for young voices in public forums.

Dea Toivonen, Program Officer (Arts Education): I want to ask about your term as Poet Laureate and how it felt to be in this role. Did you have ambitions or expectations for your term? Were they met? Was there anything that surprised you about the development in your role?

Sue Goyette: I was really interested in being in the role and bringing in an aspect of young people, so the Youth Poet Laureate was really important to my mandate. Prior to becoming Poet Laureate, I was going to those Friday climate protests that were organized by young students, and often, they would have the mic and speak poetry. I was really interested in how they were responding to their own bewilderment and frustration through poems. You know, I think everyone should have a mentor who is, like, twenty or younger—people who are responding to the conditions that have been created for them.

Then I got the position, and two weeks later, there was the total meltdown of Covid, so it was interesting how that changed the dynamic. I am really active on social media, sharing writing prompts and poems by other people. I just felt like I should be a presence representing poetry at that time because we were all so blown away and afraid.

You entered this role at a politically interesting and devastating time, ranging from the earlier days of the Covid-19 pandemic to recently. In this period, it feels like there has been an escalation of overlapping political failures and reckonings. As a poet and representative of the literary arts and spoken word, you were not given an ‘easy’ time to respond to. You have also been a beacon of consistency and perseverance, as you have continued to stay connected to the present realities and keep an open heart. This is one of the things I remember the most distinctly from the first poetry course I took with you—that you ended the class with a call for us, as poets, as humans alive today, to keep our hearts open, no matter how devastating and difficult that might feel. So firstly, thank you for that reminder, which I recall again and again when I can feel the impulse to protect myself by disengaging. Relatedly, do you have any advice for people struggling to keep an open heart or people who have closed off from feeling, given the vast grief of the world today?

What we are seeing is like when the sea monster finally breaches the water. Before, we had only just seen a tip of it. And then it’s like, Oh my God!, the system of oppression: white-bodied supremacy, late capitalist, neoliberal systems, the violence of colonization. And what happened in the summer of 2021—there was George Floyd and a string of murders by the police—and the next summer was an intensifying of the homelessness crisis here, with the tents at Halifax’s old library, and the city called in the police. We saw police using bicycles to thrash people down, pepper-spraying a 12-year-old. The violence was intense. And later that summer, there were police in Superstore because the price of food got so high that people were running with food. So yeah, cognitive dissonance—oh boy, like upper case. Like, how does this make any sense?

And yet, the most righteous and wondrous, dastardly thing we can do in the face of that oppressive, genius system is embrace our humanity, switching from a transactional way of being to a more relational way of being and caring for each other. I mean, if we just did that in little hives of community, gradually those communities would connect—and we are seeing it! You know, in encampments, in how some people are protecting the tents of people who don’t want to live in shelters or were promised places that weren’t yet finished but were still evicted. We are seeing the care and mutual aid that is coming up and the spaces for people to connect, to make art, and to pray, to protest, to learn about Palestine.

The climate crisis meanwhile is on a rampage, and I think keeping an open heart is a radical act, and it might feel hard. I think it’s okay to turn up with a wobbly voice, or to be in tears or to need someone to hold your hand. I think this is immense what we are living through, and I worry that not enough people are acknowledging it. I go to these events, like music events, and I always want to leave if people start as if everything is okay. I just want someone to stand, if they have a microphone, and at least say, “Wow, this is messed up, and I hope you are okay.”

Your poetry and the expanse of topics and approaches in your writing is vast, spanning from personal memoir to the local natural world to integrating feminist theory and ecocriticism. I get the sense, reading your work, of the poet as a jack of all trades, knowing a little bit about a lot of things and being able to trace new paths between and through these things to illuminate something new about their relations. Can you speak to the relationship between your poetic practice and knowledge—or, more specifically, what are the forms of inquiry that you interact with, and how do these inflect your craft?

I don’t see myself as a jack of all trades, I guess, but I am deeply curious about a lot of things—and I know that when I let my curiosity lead me, I land in places that feel like exactly where I need to be at that time. And the relational aspect in my work comes from a way of being, which makes its own way in how it connects, that I have nothing to do with but which I am always so grateful for. So it’s kind of like trusting a way of being to make meaning from, and the method is the creative act, if that makes sense.

It seems like you are inverting a lot of common ways of living—turning those on their head and totally reprioritizing.

Yeah. Like I have chosen to live in a gift economy. I do things for people and don’t charge. I just understand that it’s going to come back around, and I put faith in that. When I am asked to give talks, I give them a lot of thought and I walk around with it, but I turn up without notes because I trust that being in that space and talking from my heart will create an experience and an adventure for all of us that might be exactly what we all need. I have let that happen often enough that I am okay with it now and not as afraid, but I like that I am afraid: that means that there is something at stake.

Your approach to poetry is often speculative in that it seems to respond to a ‘what if?’ question. It conjures possible near futures, as in Monocultures (Gaspereau Press, 2022), or employs speculative strategies for reinventing personal memoir, as in Anthesis: A Memoir (Gaspereau Press, 2020). Do you think ‘speculative’ is an accurate term for your approach to poetics? How do you think poetry and the speculative commingle? What are some of the strengths of a speculative approach to writing?

I think the imagination kicks in when an old way of being is dying. How this is going isn’t sustainable, and everyone I know who is living with an invigorated creative practice is writing just past their knowing—and I think just past the edge of knowledge is speculative. I’d much rather be writing in an open system where I don’t know what is going to happen than a closed system where I arrive already knowing how it is going to end.

So, the speculative is activating the creative process as a methodology, as a way of being in this trouble that we are finding ourselves in, and that keeps me open. It is like a practice that I am trying to embody all the time, so that if something happens in the world, I can respond in a way that is open and unexpected and can maybe change something in the way a poem does. The fact that we are able to take creative risks and act without knowing the outcome, I think, is one of our superpowers. And right now we need that kind of engagement. Also,stakes are low in a poem: you are just writing and can be like, “What happens if this happens!? Ok, that didn’t work out. Ok, I’ll try something else.” It’s a good way to taste the future. Because it’s just a poem, you know. Very few people read them.

Speculating and improvising are so key for being agile and being willing to change and try something new. Just because we have done something a certain way so many times before doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it that way. Being able to shift into a new way of being is so crucial right now, and it’s crucial for our humanity and it’s a good way to be with each other. What if the creative process and creating and how we feel after we have been creative is the best thing for the world right now? What if that is the radical act? I think people are writing and reading past the edge because something significant is changing. Everyone I admire says, ‘stay with the trouble’ and ‘you need a bit of the past for the future.’ It’s a great time to be an artist! It’s very invigorating, if the world doesn’t get you too down.

Your poetic practice is often grounded in a commitment to observation over time. You visited an aloe vera plant daily for almost 200 days. You archived the days of December, 2020, leading up to the Solstice in poems that were published in The Coast. Can you speak to how these sorts of durational practices affect you and your work?

I think our brains really like discipline and there is a freedom to discipline. So durational practice, to me, is a number of things. It is a part of my discipline, which involves turning up. And I have been turning up to writing for so many years that I don’t feel like I’m breathing when I don’t. But it’s also about slowing down. We are so hurried, and there is something so remarkable to slowing down and watching something become itself. When you show up you see the emergence, and the manifestation of things. Bearing witness or with-ness to something as it is becoming is like being in the company of something else’s creative act, which in turn fortifies and recharges mine. It’s a way of being, and it’s kind of the way I am. Like when the magnolia is on the verge of opening, I want to watch every day, because woah, what a class act, first of all, and second of all, what a mystery! Like, why?! What?! Who thought of this!? So, this durational practice is relational and usually land-based. I think so much of what we know of the land is dying off. You know, people report that they don’t see half as many bugs as they used to. There are so many little things not turning up in the way we are used to, and I just want to be here for it while it’s still here.

Are there any writers or artists right now that you are inspired and excited by? Who are you reading?

I read widely. I am reading poets talking about poetry. I am reading a book about how animals communicate and the multispecies relationships and the history of those relationships that I am fascinated by. I am reading a book that I am really excited about called Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. And I am reading a book by the Dalai Lama on the Heart Sutra because I am very interested in this, as my heart is just a mess all the time. I am always reading like eight to ten books at once, which is gross. But I am also trying to change my language around that and see that as part of my natural curiosity and being a lifelong learner and not my ADHD (which it probably is too). It’s more of a curiosity-led way of being. You know, I land on things that connect to other things and it’s really exciting! When the texts start shimmering together in unexpected ways, it really reminds me that I am right where I need to be.

What are you working on now? What strategies or experiences are most informing your current approach to writing?

I am working on essays that are poetic in form. I am also working on poems about tents, which seems to be in the zeitgeist right now, and I am very interested in the transitionary, the crucial need for housing and for safe-enough places, like encampments. And weirdly, I am writing in the company of a live-cam on two endangered red wolves. So, all those things. And it depends on how I feel every morning. I was commissioned a lot in the last few months, so I wrote an essay about happiness and an essay about someone’s art show that I think is going to come to town soon. For that, I had to think beyond what I am interested in, which was really good to do, but now I am just feasting on what I am interested in.

Scroll to Top

Simultaneous Submissions

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) administers some programs (and special projects) that involve print and/or digital publication of ‘selected’ or ‘winning’ entries. In most cases, writing submitted to these programs and projects must not be previously published and must not be simultaneously under consideration for publication by another organization. Why? Because our assessment and selection processes depends on all submitted writing being available for first publication. If writing selected for publication by WFNS has already been published or is published by another organization firstcopyright issues will likely make it impossible for WFNS to (re-)publish that writing.

When simultaneous submissions to a WFNS program are not permitted, it means the following:

  • You may not submit writing that has been accepted for future publication by another organization.
  • You may not submit writing that is currently being considered for publication by another organization—or for another prize that includes publication.
  • The writing submitted to WFNS may not be submitted for publication to another organization until the WFNS program results are communicated. Results will be communicated directly to you by email and often also through the public announcement of a shortlist or list of winners. Once your writing is no longer being considered for the WFNS program, you are free to submit it elsewhere.
    • If you wish to submit your entry elsewhere before WFNS program results have been announced, you must first contact WFNS to withdraw your entry. Any entry fee cannot be refunded.

Prohibitions on simultaneous submission do not apply to multiple WFNS programs. You are always permitted to submit the same unpublished writing to multiple WFNS programs (and special projects) at the same time, such as the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, the Emerging Writers Prizes, the Jampolis Cottage Residency Program, the Message on a Bottle contest, the Nova Writes Competition, and any WFNS projects involving one-time or recurring special publications.

Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that participants in any given workshop have similar levels of creative writing and / or publication experience. This ensures that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions used by WFNS.

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and writing for children and young adults) provides you with a unique set of experiences and skills, so you might consider yourself an ‘established author’ in one form but a ‘new writer’ in another.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing workshops, which provide more opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed closely.

For all other workshops, the recommended experience level is just that—a recommendation—and we encourage potential participants to follow their own judgment when registering.

If you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca