Author Spotlights

Marjorie Simmins is the author of two books of non-fiction, Coastal Lives (Pottersfield Press, 2014) and Year of the Horse (Pottersfield Press, 2016). A freelance journalist, she has published across Canada with major daily newspapers, as well as numerous magazines, such as Halifax Magazine, Progress, United Church Observer, Atlantic Books Today, and Saltscapes. In the following post, she talks about the writing life, teaching, and what participants can expect from her upcoming workshop, Writing the Stories of Our Lives.  

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and creative non-fiction in particular? 

It’s hard to remember when I didn’t write. I wrote letters from six or seven on (thousands over a lifetime, mostly to family, still on-going), and started journals at age 12 (at least 25 hard-bound journals in as many years). I published my first professional article in 1990 and have been a working journalist and teacher ever since. It was a natural transition from letter and journal writing, to personal essays. It took no time at all to understand that the pronoun “I” had greatest interest and biggest heart if connected to “we,” or the universal experience. I loved the idea of talking to the world and sharing experiences and thoughts. As for what I call my “straight journalism” (hard news), it seemed easiest to start my career writing about what I knew and loved. So I jumped in with commercial and sport fishing; commercial and sailing boats; horses; city and country life; etc. Confidence gained, I went on to become a generalist journalist. But I am always happiest writing essays or profiles, because they help me to puzzle out the world, and my emotional and intellectual terrain.

In addition to being a writer, you also teach writing. Do you see a connection between the practice of writing and the practice of teaching? 

Teaching is an eye-opening experience. I learn so much every time I have the privilege of talking with people about writing and communications. I find that a teacher needs to be emotionally nimble and observant when leading a group of people in discussions about writing generally, and personal stories particularly. I most often teach memoir writing. When you talk about the stories of people’s lives, you have to be respectful and kind, and hope—insist—others are as well. You also need to keep everyone on track. I am interactive and always seek to give people enough to have an epiphany or two about their project, but I still want to get through my own teaching agenda. So a balancing act, really. The connections I see between the practices of writing and teaching are: practice makes you better; writing feeds teaching because you are constantly learning more about your craft; and teaching writers is a two-way learning process.

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

I love Nova Scotia dearly. I love its crazy weather and generous, heart-full people. I love having settler history all around me, and learning more about Atlantic Canada’s First Nations. I love my horse and writer communities here. I enjoy every region in this province: industrial Cape Breton; the Cape Breton Highlands; enchanting Mabou, Port Hood, Inverness, and every coastal community along Route 19; the Annapolis Valley; the South Shore; the North Shore, with its wonderful farms and strong writing community; the Truro/Old Barns area, with its gorgeous historic barns, silos, the Agricultural College, and horse farms, modest and lavish; and hugely, the entire coastal area of Southwest Nova, which includes Yarmouth and the French-speaking district of Clare, and cosy, cosmopolitan, charming Halifax, which I wear like my favourite jean jacket, whenever we spend time there. I love the art of the region, and the music of the region. I am in awe of my Acadian friends and their ability to sing-song their ancestors for eight to 10 generations back, and their many life and homemaking skills. I love the food here in NS, and the wines, and the rums. Think I’ve covered it all now!

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer? 

That a writer can wait until the Muse comes along with an idea. Real (professional/committed) writers write every day, and often, all day (or night, whatever works for you). Another misconception might be the glory and excitement of it all. 🙂 Very little glory and money, and not a lot of excitement, either. Of course there are wonderful moments, and some years, even, that are much more satisfying and productive than others. You gotta love your own company. And you gotta love—or be taken with—your own visions of this world, or others. You have to enjoy seeing word after word stretch across the page. Similarly, you have to be ruthless when it comes to editing. Overall, divas need not apply. Writing will humble you nearly every day of your life.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Write. Read. Watch movies. Think about what genre really grabs you—and why. Write and read more. Try new stuff. Try a new genre. Fail. Fail again. Try again.

What’s the best part about writing in your part of Nova Scotia? 

Working at home with my husband, Silver Donald Cameron, who is one of the finest stylists this country or any other one has ever produced. The steps on the staircase between our offices are worn with footsteps back and forth.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

I like sweets too much. A batch of homemade brownies is good, or that Nova Scotia speciality, “Hoof-prints” ice cream. I also read “trash” magazines, as I am fascinated by other people’s lives, along with fashion and lifestyles.

What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

Very rarely happens. If it does, then I try to re-focus on the aspect of the story/book/article that had me excited to write about a certain subject or person in the first place. 

What are you working on right now? 

After two non-fiction books, I just finished my first novel. It took a year of my life and was one of the hardest bits of writing I have ever done. I learned a ton. It will be fun to teach a writing course after this experience. 

What can participants in your upcoming memoir workshop expect? 

To have some fun, I hope!  Memoir is a serious business in some ways, but there’s also lots of opportunity for fun and laughter with the genre, as so many gifted writers show us. Even the most tragic subject needs moments of lightness to keep the reader from straying. What I really love to see with these workshops is for a person to arrive with an idea, tweak and re-assess it with any new knowledge or tips or support they receive, and leave ready to write, or re-write, or even make an entirely new start, that suits heart and mind better. Collectively, the groups always turn out to be stellar, so individuals learn from each other, and sometimes even stay in touch or form writing groups of their own. Come prepared for magic, I’d say. If you can find your subject, your structure, and your motivation to write a life story—you’re off and writing.

Anne Simpson is the author of seven books of poetry, fiction, and essays. Her collection Loop won the prestigious Griffin Prize in 2004. She has a new collection of poetry, Strange Attractor, due out in 2019, and a new novel coming out the following year. In the following post, she talks about her beginnings as a writer, what she likes about living in Nova Scotia, and what participants can expect from her fall workshop, Discovering Strangeness: An Exploration of Wild Poetry.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and poetry and fiction in particular? 

I’ve been writing since I was a child, when I’d make little “books” with illustrations. I was also a voracious reader, as most writers are—how can we be writers otherwise? To tell the truth, I always thought I’d be an artist, because I also paint. I studied Fine Arts at what is now OCAD University in Toronto. I’m visual, so that helps me to “film” what I imagine. If an event is clear to me in my imagination, then it’s easy to put it in words, in a novel, for instance. But if things are cloudy—if I can’t see them, then it’s much more difficult to put it in words.

I was drawn to working much more intently as a writer after I came to Nova Scotia many years ago. At the time, with small children, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had an inkling that it had to do with writing, but I wasn’t sure how it could be done when being a mother was so consuming. Then I read about a writer living in New Hampshire. She wanted to write, and she simply decided to get rid of all distractions and do it. She got rid of her television, and she wrote. I thought to myself, “I could do that.” New Hampshire seemed similar to Nova Scotia, and if a writer could do her work there, I could do it in Antigonish. In the times when I wasn’t with the kids (mornings and naptimes), I wrote short stories and poems. I used the brief snatches of time that I had very well; I was much better then at time management than I am now. When the kids grew up, I started on my first novel, since the longer form requires more time.

I love fiction and poetry, but they are like the sun and the moon—vastly different. To write a novel, you have to immerse yourself in a world, and you are still involved in that world as you go to the grocery store or the bank, whether you’re writing or not. I’ve finished a third novel that took about ten years, given all the revision, and I’m still not done. But I’m already imagining the next one, which will be set centuries ago in New Brunswick. Poetry is utterly different. It’s as if I am working another part of my brain. I try to drive through the ideas in the poem by way of the images. For instance, I recently worked on a sequence having to do with the test that was often given to people suspected of having dementia. That particular test gave me the structure to imagine a woman being asked questions, and of having her answer the questions. Yet even these two forms—fiction and poetry—are not enough. I love the form of the essay too, especially when I can wind in and out of a kind of thinking that allows me a lot of scope.

In addition to being a writer, you also teach writing. Do you see a connection between the practice of writing and the practice of teaching? 

I really love teaching. I have worked at St. Francis Xavier University, teaching literature courses and creative writing courses, but what I really enjoy is teaching informally. It’s partly because I don’t like marking! I like working with people around a kitchen table, or a table in a library or church basement. I’ve been working with a small group of poets in Ontario twice a year for about five years, and this does give my own writing impetus. Something happens in my own work through the stimulation of these informal workshops. And mentoring on a one-to-one basis is really exciting for me too; I just finished working with someone in Ontario who had a Chalmers Professional Development grant, which allowed her to work with a mentor. Her interest in learning helped me to explore new avenues too. The two occasions when I was a mentor for the Writers Federation of NS were also invaluable.

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

There is much to be said for living off the beaten track. I have time to think and work. But it’s not just that; Nova Scotia is a paradise. I hike, cycle, run, and kayak, and I have lots of friends who do the same thing. There is nothing like going out to Pomquet Beach on a midsummer morning and having a quick swim. This is really the place where I became a writer. When I started to write seriously, I knew that it was partly because of the place where I found myself. Nova Scotia taught me a lot about inventiveness, not just resilience. You have to be innovative if you want to live here. You don’t have everything at your fingertips. And for me—and for my writing—this is a very good thing. I don’t want to live in a suburb or in an apartment building in a city; I want to live in the woods where I can see water glinting through the trees.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer? 

I think that those who don’t write haven’t got a clear sense of what it entails. Writing a book, from beginning to end, is just plain hard work. There are the gifts, when a poem is given to you out of the blue, or when you write a chapter in one fell swoop, but there is also the day-to-day work in the rock quarry of making a manuscript. I learned how to weightlift when I was having trouble with a novel, and now, when I deadlift, I think of that novel, and how it felt easier to weightlift than it did to revise it. The mental focus needed to do both is similar. And many days I’d still rather deadlift than write.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? 

I think every aspiring writer should learn how to do deadlifts. I’m not serious, but it helps to have something you can turn to that doesn’t have to do with writing. Anyone who wants to see something through to fruition will probably do all right as a writer, because two of the greatest assets are discipline and patience. But the third asset is the ability to go for broke, to take risks, to have courage.

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

When I go someplace outside Nova Scotia and I’m wandering the streets, I love eating a hot dog at a hot dog stand. 

What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

I do something kind of foolish when I have writer’s block. I keep writing, but I go around and around in circles because I don’t know what I want to write. I should just stop writing and go walk the beach with my dog and sometimes—no, often—I do.

What would you do if you weren’t a writer? 

This year I was asked if I wanted to be a personal trainer. There was a voice inside: “Sure, okay—I could do that.” The thought was as compelling as running off to join the circus. I had to laugh at myself for that thirty seconds of wanting to ditch the writing, because I could never ditch the writing.

What are you working on right now? 

I’m writing a book of essays right now, and my essays are a hodgepodge of different things. But the essay form allows me to think things through in a way that nothing else can. We are so fortunate to have Gaspereau Press in Nova Scotia, because they publish essays, among many other things. My essays have found a home there; and it’s a wonderful fit.

What can participants in your upcoming poetry workshop expect?

This will be a four-session workshop next fall called “Discovering Strangeness: An Exploration of Wild Poetry” to be held in Antigonish. Really, it’s a workshop about discovering and exploring poetry in terms of its wildness—and how to make poems wilder. The participants will use mapping to think about what they’re writing, and invent forms to shape new work. Through de-familiarizing themselves with a way of writing they’ve grown comfortable with, splicing other writing into it, and cutting and shaping poems in ways they might not have considered, they can find what they didn’t know they wanted to say. It’ll be a lot of fun to do.

Jaime Forsythe is the author of two collections of poetry, Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press, 2012) and I Heard Something (Anvil Press, 2018). Her work has appeared in publications across Canada including This Magazine, The Puritan, Matrix, and Lemon Hound. In the following post, she answers our questions about writing, her work as a mentor, what she loves about life in Nova Scotia, and more.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and poetry in particular?

I’ve felt compelled to write for as far back as I can remember, filling tiny spiral notebooks, Hilroy scribblers, and photocopied zines. As an older teenager/young adult, I was obsessed with short stories and thought that was the form I most wanted to write in and figure out. During my graduate degree, I had to take a workshop in a genre outside of my primary genre (which was fiction) as a graduation requirement. I warily took a poetry workshop and was like: oh. OH. Maybe all my plotless short stories were actually trying to be poems. I still love reading fiction, but poetry is the form that resonates with me as a writer, and that I feel most excited about continuing to explore and push myself in. 

In addition to being a writer, you have also worked as a mentor as part of the WFNS mentorship program. Do you find that mentorship is an activity that feeds or informs your approach to writing?  

Yes! I loved working in the mentorship program, and I no doubt learned as much, if not more, from the writers I was paired with as they learned from me. I find it really helpful to have to articulate aspects of craft, or pinpoint what makes a piece work or not work, in a way that is clear and useful to another person. It helps me to be more precise about my own goals and philosophies. I’ve also facilitated writing workshops for teens, younger children, and university students, and in all of these cases I come away from different kinds of in-depth conversations about writing feeling refreshed and motivated.

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

I love that I live downtown, but can be at Point Pleasant Park in five minutes, where I can walk in the trees for an hour and both my dog and kid can wear themselves out. I love being close to lakes and the ocean, and that a 45-minute drive takes me to visit my relatives in the small community where my mom grew up, Cheverie, right on the Minas Basin, where my family spends a lot of time in the summer. Also: lupins, Moon Mist, lots of art and music weirdos.  

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer? 

That being a writer means writing full-time. Most writers I know juggle multiple roles and jobs; I will never make a living from writing poetry and that’s OK.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? 

I recommend reading lots, both within and outside of your comfort zone. Connect with other like-minded writers, in-real-life if possible. Give yourself space and time to experiment. Take and consider criticism that resonates with you, and discard what doesn’t. 

Where do you like to write? 

Anywhere, but if I have a choice and the time, finding a corner in the Central Library for a couple of hours works well. I like the idea of writing alone in a cabin by the ocean somewhere, but the cabin (or the solitude?) has yet to materialize.

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

I don’t know that I really feel guilty about any of my pleasures currently. Stuff I do that I’m probably supposed to feel guilty about: keeping up with my horoscope, watching reality shows like Terrace House and The Bachelorette, looking at photos of dogs up for adoption even though I have a dog and absolutely do not want another one. I could go on! 

What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

Finding time is the bigger challenge for me – the upside to this is that when I do carve out that time, it feels precious and urgent, so I don’t experience writer’s block, exactly. By the time I sit down, I usually have a backlog of notes and fragments I want to work with.  If I’m stuck on a particular piece, I walk around, pull books off the shelf and flip until I find something that spurs me on again. If I’m feeling empty of new ideas, that usually means I’ve been neglecting to read. 

What’s something you’ve done that many others probably haven’t? 

I don’t think I have many life experiences that are all that unique, except maybe attending a ventriloquism convention in Kentucky when I was working as a speech researcher at Queen’s University. I was there to collect video data of people speaking without moving their lips. As a result, there’s a ventriloquist poem in my first book.

What are you working on right now? 

Fragments, notes and blocks of text that exist handwritten in notebooks or as memos on my phone. These may eventually turn into new poems, or may not.

Gloria Ann Wesley is an award-winning writer and a retired teacher. She is the author of several books of poetry, children’s literature, and young adult fiction, including Chasing Freedom (Fernwood Publishing, 2011), which was listed as a Grade Nine and African Canadian Studies resource by the Nova Scotia Department of Education and was shortlisted for the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2012 (Atlantic Book Awards), and If This Is Freedom (Fernwood Publishing, 2013), which was selected for One Book Nova Scotia in 2017. Her latest book, Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Africville, will be published by Lorimer this fall. Read on to learn more about Wesley’s writing, the inspiration behind her historical fiction, her guilty pleasures, and what she loves about life in Nova Scotia.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and poetry and fiction particular?

It seems I’ve been writing forever, but I started playing with words long before I committed them to paper in any type of format until I won a class writing competition about the local museum. My teachers’ praise and having it published in the local paper was a wonderful incentive.

I was drawn to poetry, at first, because I saw things so vividly and felt so passionate about the American Civil Rights Movement. Writing was the only avenue through which I could express all my opinions and get rid of pent-up frustrations about what was happening. 

Fiction came much later when I realized one way to have Nova Scotian Black history appreciated was through novels. Since there weren’t any, I decided someone had to write them and why not me. Besides, I was so tired of the one Black book, Raisin in the Sun, as a teaching resource.

In addition to being a writer, you’re also an educator. Do you see a connection between these two practices? What similarities or differences do you note?

Being a writer and an educator is similar. In both, you have to be an entertainer and draw on others’ thoughts and imaginations as well as your own. Teaching opened my eyes to see how students varied in their relationship to reading and how hard it is to accommodate the many learning styles and genders in the classroom. Novels and short stories I discovered had the potential to cross over the divide and get all students engaged, talking and sometimes re-enacting or rewriting scenes. The difference is a writer has to do far more research and be far more engaged with the content than a teacher. 

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia?

I love Nova Scotian water, air and seafood, all moist and permeated with salt. No matter where I go, I can’t wait to get back home to experience the constant changes in the topography and weather.

Your young adult novels, Chasing Freedom and If This Is Freedom, are works of historical fiction. What inspired you to write historical fiction? What was challenging about the process?

I began writing Black historical fiction, maybe unconscientiously at the time, and because of its omission in the Nova Scotian publishing arena. The process, though long and arduous, is not as difficult as the challenge to change mindsets as to the value of historical fiction and that of Black writers because by embracing diversity, things get a whole lot more interesting.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

My advice is that if you have a special interest or something you really want to say—write about it. Aspire to please yourself first and then others may follow.

What’s great about writing in your part of Nova Scotia?

In Nova Scotia, there are so many untold stories waiting to be discovered.  

What’s your guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is Lay’s plain potato chips with a Snickers bar and a Pepsi or peanut butter and strawberry jam on crackers. 

What do you do when you have writer’s block?

When my brain freezes, I go to bed early, then wake up at one a.m. and write for an hour or two, then sleep in. It’s great to be retired. 

What are you working on right now?

I’m in the final stage of Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Africville, due out in September. Also, editing a YA novel on the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

If I wasn’t a writer, I’d like to be an Inspirational/Motivational Speaker or Lecturer.

Elaine McCluskey is a fiction writer who has authored three collections of short stories and two novels. Her most recent book, The Most Heartless Town in Canada, was published by Anvil in 2016. In the following post, she shares the story of her beginnings as a fiction writer, her advice for aspiring writers, and an update on her most recent projects.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and fiction in particular? 

I always wanted to be a fiction writer but I didn’t know how to go about it. Where do you even start? So I went into journalism where I acquired discipline and some useful skills. I became economical in my writing and I learned to look for the telling details.

When I went on maternity leave with my daughter, I decided to write a novel based loosely on my father’s life in boxing, a sport of outliers and outlaws, and I did. It won the WFNS’ Bill Percy award, and that gave me the confidence to dive headfirst into fiction, which I love. In fiction, you can do anything you want to people: plant them in the woods, have them eaten by a bear. I find that both subversive and liberating.

In addition to being a writer, you’re also an editor for Nimbus Publishing. Do you see a connection between these two practices? 

I edit non-fiction, and I am constantly learning something new about our history, our geography, and our people. Nimbus writers know a lot of stuff.  They make me think about where I am and why it is the way it is.

Some stories also inspire me. This season, I am editing a book entitled The Blind Mechanic, the story of a man who lost both eyes in the Halifax Explosion as a child and taught himself to become a professional auto mechanic. The book is written by his daughter. If it was not true, you would not believe it. 

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia?

The fact that I can hop in a car in Dartmouth and be on a beach in Lockeport before lunch. I can walk down a hill and watch kayak races on Lake Banook. You can go pretty much anywhere you like in Nova Scotia and people will let you be. Plus, people here have good manners compared to some places. Nobody is in your face, asking you how much you make or, “Is that your real hair?”

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer? 

That it is easy work.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Just write. And write from the deepest place you can write from—go down that extra layer until you find something that actually scares you: a feeling or a truth. Write about places and human dilemmas that matter to you. If something matters to you—it could be your grandparents’ village on the Eastern Shore, it could be lost friendships—you have the ability to make it real, to make it unique. And do not get discouraged if your work is not accepted right away. It happens to all of us. And, for God’s sake, do not get uber emotional and phone the editor who declined your work to berate her and furiously demand an explanation—I’d like a meeting to discuss this!!—because nothing good will ever come from that.

What’s great about writing in your part of Nova Scotia?

Nobody knows what I am doing. Or if they do, they pretend that they don’t.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Vanity Fair. Livestreams of amateur sporting events in Szeged, Hungary, at 4 a.m.. Walking at night in a park in winter with my husband, Andrew, while wearing headlamps. 

What do you do when you have writer’s block?

I always have more than one story on the go, so if I get stuck on one, I shift to another. I tend to alternate between novels and short-story collections, and I keep files of notes I can dip into.

What are you working on right now?

It is short-story time, and I have almost completed a collection. Some of the stories have appeared in journals such as The Antigonish Review and The Nashwaak Review; a couple have made lists. I am quietly pumped about it. I get to go some weird places.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? 

Journalism worked for me. I was good at getting strangers to tell me stuff: “I hear that you are marrying [serial killer] Allan Legere. Congratulations!!! When is the big day?”

At this stage, I also wouldn’t mind being one of those guys on the homemade gas-powered bicycles. They all look the same in their black hoodies, and they all seem to have contempt for societal norms, which is admirable.

Anna Quon is a novelist and poet who lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She has published two novels with Invisible Publishing, Migration Songs  (2009) and Low (2013), and has also self-published a number of poetry collections. In the following post, she talks about her writing, her experience teaching creative writing, guilty pleasures, and more.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and fiction and poetry in particular? 

I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I remember writing and illustrating stories for the mimeographed school newsletter when I was six. I loved to read storybooks and nursery rhymes, and later novels and poetry. I remember reading books having to run outside to burn off the excitement. It was reading that made me want to write. And I guess I gravitated toward poetry and novels because that is what I liked to read the most. I like being able to see characters develop, or at least to follow them around, and I like to play with words, so novels and poetry. But also I admit I had this romantic notion of novelists and poets, which is still hard to shake!

Before I wrote my first novel I was a freelance writer which I loved and did ok at but I burned out of it after a few years. I only wrote a novel when I felt I had nothing left to lose 

In addition to being a writer, you also offer writing and creative expression workshops. Do you see a connection between teaching and writing? What similarities or differences do you note in the two practices? 

I have facilitated a number of workshops in writing, arts and crafts and digital storytelling, mostly for people living with mental health issues. I don’t see myself as a teacher because I really don’t have the kind of mastery of a body of knowledge or skill that I think you need to teach, or that I like to believe good teachers have. So I facilitate learning maybe, hopefully by offering opportunities for learners to explore a medium, by giving them a writing prompt, for example, as a springboard to jump off into their own thing, and by giving them examples of other people’s writing that seems excellent to me and helping them think about and discuss it. But really I am facilitating a creative experience.

A lot of people living with mental health and illness issues want to express their feelings, thoughts and beliefs, tell their stories, celebrate their okayness and fight prejudice and discrimination against them and their diagnoses, history of medical treatment, symptoms and side effects, etc. They also want to just write about everything else anybody wants to write about. And at a long standing writing group I facilitated, the participants most enjoyed playing—with words, images, dialogue, puppets. Just having a good time—and that’s what I tried to facilitate.

I’ve learned about being clear with instructions, which is humbling because I like to think I am clear in my writing and words but I am not always. I think being a facilitator of writing workshops in particular has helped me loosen up a little as a writer, but mostly it has helped me appreciate the diversity of people who love to write and read and how excellence comes in many forms.

I want people to have fun, to take pleasure in their writing. I take pleasure in mine but it is not the pleasure of free flowing creative expression usually. When I take pleasure in it it is because I am able to apply some control to the free flow of my imagination and expression. It’s about feeling like I am using a precision tool well.

Whoops, I don’t think I’ve answered your question!

You’ve self-published a number of poetry zines. What led you to self-publish this work, in lieu of seeking out more traditional avenues for publishing? 

I don’t read poetry journals very often. I like zines, and find them interesting and fun. So is making your own books. Someone suggested making a zine to sell, and I enjoyed the process so I decided to make another and my brother wanted to help me with the design and layout. After that I made a few more and sold them at a shop or two and also at markets—I like selling—but I also have a thin skin and didn’t want to face rejection letters from journals! I really wrestle with my ego sometimes.

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

Oh, Nova Scotia is where I have lived all my life, and my Dad, who was born in China and moved to Canada more than 60 years ago, had a job here. I love living in the Halifax-Dartmouth area in particular because it’s a big small place and is beautiful and temperate. Really I love it here for the usual reasons everyone has.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? 

I guess I would say take a time machine back to your birth and look around a lot and read a lot and write a lot when you get old enough to. Failing that, do it now. Also take a course from a writer who has been around the block. I loved the courses I took at the Writers’ Federation of NS.

What’s great about writing in your part of Nova Scotia? 

Um. There are lots of coffee shops? I like Two if By Sea because it’s noisy but I can’t hear other people’s conversations, so it’s white noise to me. I like that there are amazing writers who live here and do their own thing but it feels like they respect and are friendly and supportive of each other.  That’s the impression I get anyway.

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

I have taken up swearing in my head. I sometimes eat cake for breakfast and cereal for supper. I wish I could say I was hatred free but sometimes I indulge that part of me. 

What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

I don’t think I write enough to have it. That’s sad but it hasn’t been a problem for a while so maybe it’s working.

What are you working on right now? 

I am working on a series of poems called “Body Parts” and also making a little animated film of a poem I wrote some years ago called “The day I stopped talking” which is somewhat autobiographical. And waiting to hear if my third novel will be accepted for publication.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? 

That’s actually a hard question. Once I thought I might be a plumber, but I am physically disabled by a back condition so I think I’d be a burned-out grade school teacher by now.

Nicola Davison is writer and photographer living in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. A past participant of the Writers’ Federation Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, she is now a member of the WFNS Board of Directors. Her first novel, In the Wake, is forthcoming with Nimbus Publishing (fall 2018). In the following post, she talks about craft, her new projects, and life in Nova Scotia.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and fiction in particular? 

I’ve always been better at writing to people than speaking to them. I suppose I need more time to sort out my thoughts than speech allows. So, I’ve kept journals since I was a teenager, written long-winded letters, emails and maintained a personal blog. Occasionally, things surface in my writing that I didn’t know were there. I’m not sure what weird magic is at work when that happens but I’ve discovered things about myself that way, as well as my fictional characters.

Nothing is more comforting to me than getting wrapped up in a good novel. So, I knew I wanted to write fiction. Ideas were brewing, I just didn’t know where to start. It wasn’t until my forties that I took a creative writing workshop and it’s as if a dam burst. In the past five years I’ve written loads of short stories, a children’s story and three novels (including the one coming out this fall, In the Wake, with Vagrant Press).

In addition to being a writer, you’re a photographer. Do you see a connection between these two practices? What similarities or differences do you note in the two practices?

Other writers tell me that my work is quite visual. I wonder if that’s their gentle way of prodding me to use the other four senses. But yes, I think there’s a strong connection to photography. I prefer a documentary style of photos, where my subject is not looking at the camera. That allows me to tell a story with a series of images and capture genuine relationships with people.

The writing of In the Wake began with an image of a modern house, a wall of glass overlooking the sea. It was all monochrome, awaiting color. When I write a scene, I see it like a movie. I can turn the lens in any direction and fill in the details. It’s much the same as my practice as a photographer. I walk into a space and see it from all angles, watch how the light touches my subjects and then I find the composition that makes me feel something.

The difference with writing is I have this frightening omnipotence to change anything. I’m often overwhelmed by that, preferring to be given boundaries for creativity. But with a story, I can bring in multiple characters. They can say and do things that I’d never do. It’s a dizzying power. I’m still learning how to free my mind of the barriers. 

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

Life seems less rushed here than in other places that I’ve lived. There’s a lot of spontaneous conversation that pops up in grocery lines. It often takes me ages to walk my dog because we get into lengthy chats with strangers. As a writer, I can feed on these snippets of life from the perspective of others.

And let’s not forget, the beach. We moved back to Nova Scotia in 2013, after being in Alberta for about fifteen years. Every summer we’d flock to a lake, along with the rest of the population. It didn’t have the same atmosphere as a Maritime coastline where you can get lost in your thoughts watching the waves, or spend hours poking around for beach glass. We go to the beach in every month of the year and I never get tired of it. 

And, of course, in the Maritimes people call you love.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer?

You’re not done after draft one (or two or three or four). People are often surprised at how much time goes into creating a book. It’s years. Then the publisher gets involved and there is still more editing before it’s on a shelf. When I signed the publishing contract for In the Wake, I made the mistake of telling everyone I met about it. How could I not? My first book! So, for the past year people have been asking where they can buy this mysterious book of mine.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Join your local Writers’ Federation and take workshops. In Nova Scotia we have a wonderfully supportive writing community, so tap into it. If there’s a common denominator amongst creative people, it is self-doubt. Knowing that everyone else is just as anxious about sharing their work as you, makes it a tiny bit easier. You’ll learn about your writing by listening to others’ words. You get to hear if your story works when you’re reading it aloud. Even before your audience comments, you’ll find the lulls and the parts that might confuse a reader. It’s terrifying and invaluable. But it will push you forward. 

What’s great about writing in your part of Nova Scotia? 

Fog. We used to own a sailboat, and we liked to go out on multi-day trips so, inevitably, we’d have a full spectrum of weather conditions. Fog was a frequent visitor. It can settle around your boat, blinding you and distorting noises. Although, I hated it in reality, I love it for story-telling. That veil drawn between you and whatever is looming out there, really stirs the bowels imagination. Could it be a seal, a dorsal fin, a container ship or a body?

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

I read lots of literary fiction because the writing is so good. I learn a lot from it. But last year I read three books in a row that explored depression and suicide. It coincided with the daughter of a close friend committing suicide. I just couldn’t read it for entertainment. So, I picked up Neil Gaiman’s books, then Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass series. I suppose escapist stories are my true love. Anything that pulls me out of my own experience. I love humour writing too. The Feathertale Review never disappoints. I always have David Sedaris’s books at the ready because no one makes me laugh out loud like him.

My son is now at an age that I can read him novels. We’ve read all of Philip Roy’s Submarine OutlawSeries and we’ve just finished the books that Stephen Hawking wrote with his daughter, Lucy Hawking. Children’s books have some challenging themes. It gives us a chance to talk about difficult things – like war and racism – in a quiet, thoughtful state. We both learn a lot about the world and the universe this way. I’m not sure which one of us enjoys the bedtime stories more, but I suspect it’s me.

As for non-literary guilty pleasures? Copious amounts of chocolate are always on hand at my house, popcorn (which I will not share) and red wine (which I will share, sometimes). Don’t tell my doctor.

What do you do when you have writer’s block?

If the words won’t come, I work on another project. Lucky for me, I have photography and motherhood to distract me, so it feels like a gift when I can get the time to focus on writing. But, if the story stalls out, I have something else I can turn to, like a short story or another book. However, if I need to get the story going, I go for a long walk with a notepad & pen and force myself to think of only the characters. It might be as simple as a pivotal sentence or just an image but something always comes.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on two projects. The first is a novel set in Nova Scotia about a girl who works at a local animal shelter. Frustrated by the constraints of the legal system, she and a few other misfits decide to turn to vigilante justice to deal with an animal abuser. The other is a children’s book set in Shubie Park (a magical spot, here in Dartmouth) where a young boy discovers who really makes use of all those tiny birdhouses in the forest.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? 

I can only imagine that I’d be someone who learned to communicate well with my fellow human beings, probably earning a steady income at a bona fide job. But I’d still scribble bad poetry when no one was looking.

Sarah Faber’s debut novel, All is Beauty Now (McClelland & Stewart, 2017), recently won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Fiction at the 2018 Atlantic Book Awards. In the following post, she talks about the art of fiction, what she loves about living in her part of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton), and her strategies for combatting writer’s block.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and fiction in particular?

I’ve been writing for almost twenty years, but more seriously for the last ten years. I started writing because I felt compelled to. I’ve always had a ‘narrator’ in my head, a voice that arranges word into sentences, whether it want it there or not! Writing it all down was the only way to keep it from driving me mad, frankly. While I do love reading non-fiction as well as fiction, I write fiction because it feels freer—you’re not held to account in the same way as a non-fiction writer is. As Dumbledore says, just because something exists in your mind doesn’t mean it’s not real.

What do you think is changing in fiction these days? 

Well, I do sometimes worry that mainstream fiction is becoming more narrow, and that the books that get a lot of attention tend to be more concerned with plot than form and language, whereas I think both bring their own pleasures. Of course there are many exceptions to that, many ‘successful’ books that are beautifully written, or that challenge certain conventions. And smaller, independent presses are so important for continuing to publish really interesting, formally innovative works.   

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

Everything! (Except February, March and April.) I love living in the woods but also being minutes from the ocean and the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. I love being removed from a lot of the anxiety and the sense of ‘hustle’ that, for me, often accompanied living in a big city. I love the sense of community, that people really do help one another and are generous with their time and knowledge. But I also love that I can be an introvert when I need to be. The sense of space, the variation in the landscape, the intense physical beauty of this place.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer? 

That it’s romantic! It’s just so many hours alone, with your own thoughts, wracked by self-doubt, but also punctuated by moments of sheer exhilaration when you break though and get it ‘right’. 

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? 

Wow—I have no secrets. Just keep writing. Try not to let the self-doubt win. Push past the voices—both internal and external—that tell you can’t. Try to find a few writers (or passionate readers) who you trust and show them your work and be open to feedback. But also know that you’ll never please everyone, nor should you try to. It’s a weird balancing act between learning to consider the reader without losing your particular voice or trying to shape yourself to someone else’s aesthetic. If you can, find a teacher or mentor or fellow writer who will listen to what you’re trying to achieve and help you realize that, rather than shape your writing to their particular tastes and preferences.

What’s great about writing in your part of Nova Scotia? 

It’s extremely beautiful and quiet here in a way that distills something in me that is essential to the focus I need to write. I also feel like people around here are less concerned with wealth and status and so you don’t feel the pressure to ‘keep up’ or to prove anything. I don’t feel like I’m in competition with anyone, or with an idea of what it means to be successful.

What’s your guilty pleasure? 

Vanity Fair. Martha Stewart’s Living Magazine. Watching Nikki Swift videos on Youtube (that’s a big one—I’ve never admitted that to anyone before!).

What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

I read something I love, copy down a few of the most interesting words from a particular passage, then try to write something using all of those words. I often end up cutting many of the original words, but it’s a good exercise. Or, if I’m stuck for a particular scene, I’ll take a simple activity in a scene I love from a book (a character arranging flowers, people on horseback, a car crash) and put my characters in that scenario, then see what happens. Even if the activity itself doesn’t make sense for the characters I’m writing, something interesting might arise—a bit of dialogue, or they might then transition into doing something that does make sense for them.

What are you working on right now? 

I’m not ready to say too much about it. But I’ll say that it’s set in the near future and has a detective element, but with a twist on the conventional detective genre. It’s not sci-fi, but is set in a somewhat altered world.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? 

A gardener or horticultural therapist. I love gardening so much, and I think it can be so therapeutic. I’m also a pretty good editor!

Matt Robinson is the author of five full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks. His latest collection, a chapbook entitled AGAINST, will be released by Gaspereau Press in the fall of 2018. In the following post, he talks about his first publication, life in Halifax, and his advice to aspiring writers.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and poetry in particular?

I’ve been writing in a meaningful way with an eye to showing others my poems or trying to publish poems since the last year or so of my undergrad at Saint Mary’s, in one way or another. My first real publication was a short poem in the SMU Undergrad English Society’s annual anthology (in about 1995, if I remember correctly).

That said, I was writing poems if only as a form of creative expression and a hobby throughout high school as well. (That stuff—looking back and cringing—was pretty bad, though, by what I’d call my present standards. It was more or less bad rock n’ roll lyrics slapped together by one of the least musical people in the world. Basically unremarkable teenage-boy stuff about sports and girls and fitting in and being happy or sad or whatever. I like to think I’ve made some strides in honing my craft since then. Hopefully.) And, of course, I remember the poetry / writing exercises that we did in junior high or even elementary school where you would write little poems about the seasons or specific holidays and the like.

As for poetry, while I can be longwinded in many ways among friends, in terms of creative expression, I’ve always, as far as I can remember, been drawn to brevity and intensity; figurative language, metaphor and comparison; and music or sonic qualities (even though I can’t play anything at all instrument-wise). Poetry seemed a natural fit for that sort of thing. In the past, when I attempted short fiction (which I adore as a reader), things always ended up reduced to a kind of prose poem, if not straight lyric poetry. It’s where I want to be genre-wise. Period. It’s really all I can write, no matter what I try (aside from policy documents and such for my day job).

What do you think is changing in poetry these days?

As I think has always been the case, as far as poetry goes—and I should clarify that in this instance poetry in English (or that’s been translated into English) is what I’m referencing, as I won’t pretend to be well-versed in poetic traditions across other languages—certain aspects or elements or dynamics are always in flux.

For me, what seems most evident or important at present is the influx of disparate and traditionally under-represented voices. This increase in vibrancy and diversity of poetic voice—as well as how those voices and poems (new and old) are being shared and amplified (not just through traditional journals and trade publications, but also via various electronic and social media platforms, through a vigorous revival of chapbooks here in Canada, through various presses and publishers doing things like broadsides and other letterpressed media)—is exciting and is clearly invigorating poets and readers.

Your most recent full-length collection, Some Nights It’s Entertainment; Some Other Nights Just Work (Gaspereau Press, 2016), is a book of love poems. In your opinion, what makes a good love poem?

To my mind, what makes a good love poem is—in many ways—what makes a good poem, in general. I keep returning to a poetic process in which a poem is really an idea or argument or a hypothesis of sorts that gets explored, interrogated and worked through, primarily via metaphor and sound and rhythm. There’s a kind of visual component, for me as well, though that’s mostly to do with line-breaking and enjambment and setting up the poem to work as both a collection of both grammatical / syntactic units and individual line units. I’m not a particularly visual or concrete poet, otherwise.

I suppose the other thing is that in terms of love poems specifically, I’m partial to avoiding or at least challenging (or trying to challenge) the overly sentimental or traditionally sentimental as a necessary aspect of things. I’m not likely to write a straight on love poem, if I can help it. My preference is to come at the thing aslant or indirectly.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a writer?

As someone who—to be fair—has always approached poetry and its writing as something other than the main way I planned to support myself in an everyday way and put proverbial bread on the table, for me it’s probably the notion that being a poet or a writer is something that’s inherently different, more or less challenging, rewarding, important, or more or less glamourous / exciting / romantic than any other job or hobby or human endeavour.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? 

First off: read. Some folks say reading widely is the best approach; others suggest reading in a very strategically narrow way. At this point, I believe simply reading in some way is all that is important.

Then, maybe: try as much as you can to write for yourself and without particular wider readership or audience or reward or external validation in mind. If you are writing primarily in the hopes of an audience or of praise or fame, you’re likely to spend a lot of time on self-doubt and feeling poorly about things. But if you’re writing for yourself and a sense of what you want to produce, you may find yourself doing some interesting things and end up happier.

What’s great about (writing in) your part of Nova Scotia? 

Halifax is a great city in so many ways: it’s a gorgeous physical location with a sense of history and an energy that seems future-driven, too. And it has, if you choose to engage, a pretty vibrant mix of people. And expanding diversity. There that mix of universities and government and military and other industries. That means a mix of people and personalities that I’ve realized, having visited other places, I often take for granted unknowingly. So, all that, and then being by the Atlantic Ocean, is pretty great.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Fish and chips? British docu-series or reality TV on Netflix, maybe? Definitely cat and dog and wombat videos I can rustle up via Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or elsewhere. And goalie gear. Though I’m not really all that guilty about them. I just realize these things may not be for everyone.

What do you do when you have writer’s block?

At the best of times, I write in fits and starts, so writer’s block in the sense of not being able to produce anything during regular / scheduled writing sessions doesn’t really apply for me and isn’t really something with which I struggle. I’m content to write in the bursts that I have and do.

That said, I find that I go through periods of three main sorts of creative endeavour: 1. Drafting / writing new pieces and honing them, 2. Editing or re-working older pieces (including poems that have already been published in one form or another), and 3. Reading. Basically, while I am always reading in one way or another, I’m usually doing only #3, or a combo of #1 and #3 or #2 and #3.

What are you working on right now?

Right now I’m doing a lot or reading, mostly short fiction and some poetry. I’m also in the process of beginning what will hopefully develop into a full length manuscript of poems that follow a full year / season of beer league hockey from registration, through a draft, the weekly games, and the end of the season through playoffs (or not) and a banquet. I’ve written plenty of hockey poems in the past, and I even had a full collection of them published by ECW Press back in 2005 (no cage contains a stare that well). But now I want to delve into the particular beer league I’ve been involved for years here in Halifax at Centennial Arena. I feel there’s an un-tapped poetry there.

Alice Burdick is a widely published poet and co-owner of the independent bookstore Lexicon Books, which is located in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. In the following post, she talks about writing, collaborating, and what she loves about living on the South Shore. A selection of Burdick’s poems, Deportment: The Poetry of Alice Burdick, will be published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in the fall of 2018.

How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and poetry in particular? 

I’ve been writing since I learned how to read, really. I wrote plays and stories and poems as a kid. I grew up in a very arty house—my mother was a professional artist and I was used to abstract ideas being articulated and normalized. My dad is still a secret poet and translator of ancient languages. There were always a lot of books of various kinds around. I was specifically drawn to poetry as my primary form when I attended the Dream Class, an extra-curricular writing class through the school system, when I was around 16. It presented many forms of exciting poetry, and that was irresistible. 

What do you think is changing in poetry these days?

I am never sure if there is change, or if there are trends. Stylistically, more openly “confessional” or openly autobiographical narratives seem to be popular. But then this is a wave that we’ve seen before. Definitely there is an encouraging trend in the publishing world to actively publish and promote people of colour, LGBTQIA, and people with disabilities. I am hopeful that this is becoming a cumulative, structural reality. 

What do you love about living in Nova Scotia? 

It’s gorgeous here. I live in a part of NS where I can get to water within minutes, and there is a lot of personal space because there aren’t a lot of people. Even though I am busy with children and running a bookstore, there is still a very humane pace of life. People take time to talk to each other.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a poet? 

One of the funniest things I see regularly, and in print, by national publications on down, is a differentiation between “author” and “poet”. I have four full-length books and a selected on the way, and I am referred to as a poet but not an author. Obviously I am both—but novelists and non-fiction authors are more specifically referred to as authors. That’s a small thing but it makes me laugh, and feel a bit annoyed. I think it comes down to poetry being a marginal activity and labour of love rather than a money-maker. And also there’s an assumption that when you write poetry, it’s not all that much work because the lines are smaller than in a novel. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I also really like scarves but I’m pretty down to earth.

What advice do you have for aspiring poets?

I think it would be similar advice that I’d have for any writer, which is to read widely, including other genres and types of writing, and also to read work you think you might not like. There’s no point in pigeonholing yourself as a particular “type” of poet. Write often, read every day, and play with words. Have fun. Try different writing exercises to take you out of a singular stream. Accept editorial advice (within reason) and understand that although language itself is precious—a precious gift and resource—writing is infinitely malleable. Read journals and submit to them, but don’t get too fixated on publication. Focus on writing and editing well. Collaborate with other poets and artists.

What’s great about writing and bookselling in your part of Nova Scotia? 

I love living out here on the South Shore. I have written in big cities, small towns, and the country. There’s a different feel to all these places, and they inform the writing somewhat. I love the space around me here. It’s quite quiet so that has encouraged a focus on more introspective work. There’s a very cool community of artists here doing amazing things, almost anonymously as they’re scattered and not centralized—except there are events and publications that pop up and remind me that we’re seeded along the shore. People are very enthusiastic about supporting the bookstore. They value the work we’re doing, and come out to events at the store. I think that Lexicon Books is one of the only places in Nova Scotia that has a salon (in collaboration with suddenlyLISTEN Music) where poetry and music are combined and improvised, as an actual series. That’s pretty cool! Especially for such a tiny place.

What’s the last great book you read? 

Don’t get me started! There have been so many! I was at Knife/Fork/Book, an all-poetry bookstore in Toronto in April, and I got Kathryn Mockler’s book Some Theories, with these wonderful line drawings by David Poolman. Excellent poetry! 

What’s the last great movie you saw? 

Get Out was the last great movie I saw. I also really enjoyed Thor Ragnarok. I don’t see a lot of movies but I enjoy a good spectacle.

What are you working on right now? 

I have a body of poems that I’m working on, and adding to. It’s not an active “manuscript” as yet, just a bunch of work. I am collaborating with artist Drew Klassen on a folio, where he’s interpreting a poem of mine with 28 different drawings. Fellow poet and pal Alison Smith and I are working on starting up a micro press called Gaffe Point. 

If you weren’t a poet, what would you be? 

I am a poet and other things already! I’m a mother, a business owner etc., and have worked many jobs—including catering and foreign exchange. But I have always enjoyed theatre and I could be an actor (I am making no claims that I’d be a good actor). I love to walk everywhere. I would love to walk all over North America, but I don’t know if that’s a job description. 

Alice Burdick lives and writes in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. She is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Book of Short Sentences (Mansfield Press, 2016). A selected works, Deportment, is forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier University Press, November 2018. She has been involved in the small press community since 1990. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (Mercury Press, 2004), and in many magazines. She co-owns Lexicon Books, an independent bookstore in Lunenburg.