Six Questions interview #97 : Pamela Mosher

Pamela Mosher was born and raised in rural Nova Scotia and now calls Ottawa home. She works as a technical writer, and lives in the west end with her wife and young children. Pamela’s poetry was recently shortlisted for The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, and appears in Best Canadian Poetry 2021 (Biblioasis).

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? 

I moved to Ottawa just over 10 years ago, on Canada Day, with my now-wife. We rented a U-haul and put everything we owned in it; including our cats. We didn’t really have a good reason for choosing Ottawa, other than that we’d visited once for a long weekend, and really liked the vibe here. We’d been living in Halifax and I wanted a change – I wanted to try living outside of the Maritimes, and Ottawa was just big enough to feel exciting, but still manageable. We also liked the idea of being close enough to Montreal and to Toronto (where my in-laws live) to travel there for weekends if we wanted to.

So we chose Ottawa first, found an apartment in Mechanicsville, and then my wife found a job and I found a school program. We haven’t thought about leaving since! It’s been an awesome town to spend the last of our 20s in, and it’s also been great for being our 30s and starting a family, too.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here? 

So I’ve always been interested in poetry, as far back as I can remember. I used to sit alone in my bedroom as a child and work on creative pieces, before I even knew what poetry was. I studied literature for my undergrad, and went to a few events and readings in Halifax, and had a few poems published in online journals and a local print publication, before I moved to Ottawa.

But then the summer we moved here, I remember being very excited to be in a town that produced its own print literary journal. I think we’d been here about a month, and on a blistering hot summer day, I took the bus downtown so that I could go to The Manx for the launch of a combined issue, with a science theme, put together by Arc and by The New Quarterly. It just seemed so amazing to me that there were people at that event, and published in that journal, that I’d been reading work by for years…. It was almost surreal to me, when I was fresh from the east coast.

I also used to go to Collected Works for readings there, and that was phenomenal. I sought out workshops, and went to events at VerseFest and the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

I don’t know that I’d describe myself as ‘involved’ in the writing community in Ottawa, but I know a handful of other writers and always find someone to talk to at events. I can be somewhat shy, and often feel nervous about attending events on my own, but I have tried to get out to all the different reading series this city offers/offered – Tree, Sawdust, Voices of Venus, etc. Though that slowed down a little once I had babies, and then of course with COVID, it stopped for everyone. 

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?  

I think the effect was two-fold. Initially, and when I was younger, it made me feel inspired and excited… to see “real” writers out in the real world, and to get to meet them, but it also made me feel intimidated – it was overwhelming to see these other successful writers, and to admit I wanted a slice of what they had. It should have been encouraging, but it made me feel vulnerable to admit my own interest in poetry, as a nobody.

Now I think my response to it is a little more positive/productive – I love knowing there are others out there, working on their own writing, with something to say and to contribute. Even though I don’t have a regular writing group, or feel especially involved in the community (again – babies and then COVID), I do appreciate knowing how many writers are here in Ottawa, committed to their craft and eager to build a writing community.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow? 

Oh man, my finger isn’t on the pulse at all, so I don’t know that I can comment on what’s happening here in Ottawa… hopefully once we get through the pandemic phase of COVID, I’ll be back out at readings and events, and engaging a little more.

But it does seem that there are a lot of small presses locally. A lot of encouragement for younger/newer writers, and there are many chapbooks and similar mini pubs produced here. I used to love going to the small press book fair every year (or maybe it was twice a year?).

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work? 

It’s too hard to say if Ottawa specifically has had much of an impact on my writing! It’s tough to separate place from all the other considerations in my life … if I’d stayed in Halifax, would I still be writing about the same things? I think so. I think the bigger factors impacting my writing are how I live my life. And taking on a 9-5 office job, starting a career, getting married, having babies… those are the bigger influences on my writing, at least for now.

Though I will say that I sometimes worry that my writing is boring, and I think that concern stems from the feelings of pushback I have when I think about Ottawa’s reputation as a dull place to live. It’s just so infuriating – Ottawa is great! I’ve been to some excellent parties here! I’ve made life-long friends. I love the restaurants, the live music, the festivals, the green space and bike paths, the local breweries, and of course all the literary events.

Q: What are you working on now? 

Right now I have about a dozen new-ish poems in various states of completion that I’m revising, and two pieces of short fiction I’m working on. I don’t have any big central piece of work on the go, though I’d like to put together a poetry collection at some point.