Six Questions interview #107 : Sonia Saikaley

Sonia Saikaley was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada to a big Lebanese family. The daughter of a shopkeeper, she had access to all the treats she wanted. Her first book, The Lebanese Dishwasher, co-won the 2012 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest. She has two poetry collections Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter and A Samurai’s Pink House. Her novel The Allspice Bath was the 2020 IPPY Gold Medal winner and the 2020 International Book Awards winner for Multicultural Fiction and a finalist in the 2020 Ottawa Book Awards. She is a graduate of the University of Ottawa and the Humber School for Writers. Her first children’s picture book Samantha’s Sandwich Stand was published by Renaissance Press in 2021. Many years ago she belly-danced her way across Northern Japan and taught English there too.

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

I have lived in Ottawa my whole life with a one year sabbatical in Shiogama, Japan. I was born at the Grace Hospital and I am the youngest of four daughters. My entire family is here, so Ottawa is my home no matter where life may take me in the future. I grew up in a big Lebanese family and my dad owned a corner store in centretown for over 30 years. Since we didn’t have a backyard, we were the family who would hold barbecues out front and feed any neighbour who passed by, wanting a bite to eat. I love the city for its many beautiful pathways and other things.

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

When I was a child, I loved drawing and painting but I wasn’t very good at it. Instead, I turned my attention to writing and started writing poetry when I was in Grade 6. I wrote mostly funny and rhyming poems for my friends. It was only after I graduated from university that I took my writing seriously. I mostly wrote short stories and managed to get a few published but many were rejected. I wish I had been part of the writing community in my twenties but I had only become more involved with the writing community when my first book The Lebanese Dishwasher was published in 2012. I was forty at the time and a little nervous about doing readings and joining the writing community but then I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone. I reached out to the wonderful rob mclennan to take part in the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair and he kindly invited me to do one of my first readings at The Factory Reading Series. He made it a fun event. I met a lot of kind writers at the reading and the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair. I am a bit of a loner so I don’t have a writing group but I am always open to chatting one-on-one with other writers or meeting new people at literary events taking place in the city. I have had the honour to be a juror with the City of Ottawa Arts Funding Program so that is a lovely way to be part of the writing community though it is tough to choose among the great submissions. We have an excellent group of writers in this city.  

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

Since I’m a person who occasionally joins the writing community in Ottawa, I don’t find being part of such a community has shifted my way of thinking about writing. I don’t brainstorm about a work-in-progress with my fellow writers. I usually work with an editor for that. I might sometimes ask for advice about promoting a book but when it comes to the act of writing, I am pretty much alone in that regard. However, I am always willing to support other writers by promoting their works on social media, providing encouragement and celebrating those joyous occasions when a book gets published.

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

I think there is a great poetry community in Ottawa and I love the fact that we have the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair, Tree Reading Series, VERSeFest, the Ottawa International Writers Festival and other venues where writers can share their ideas and stories with an audience, an audience that is often warm and supportive. We also have amazing independent bookstores like Perfect Books and Octopus Books to name a few that are so welcoming in promoting local authors, including providing venues for book launches and book signings.

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?

My novel The Allspice Bath is set in Ottawa, Toronto and Lebanon and it was wonderful including some of my favourite parts of Ottawa like the Rideau Canal, the Golden Triangle with its heritage homes and the large Lebanese community here.  Lately, though, my work is set in other parts of the world. Of course, I find much inspiration for my writing when I take my long walks around Ottawa.

Q: What are you working on now?

I am currently working on the sequel to my novel The Allspice Bath. It has the main character Adele and the man she had met when she was in Lebanon. Adele and Elias are both older in this story. It also includes Adele’s husband and Elias’s girlfriend who is an ER doctor. Elias always wanted to be a professor of Arabic Literature in France so the work-in-progress is set in Paris and will touch upon post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I am also thinking about doing another children’s picture book with Samantha and her friends (my latest book is “Samantha’s Sandwich Stand” and it features a diverse group of friends helping Samantha sell her Lebanese cream cheese and cucumber pita sandwiches).

Thank you so much, rob, for all your support and for always helping others get their name out there!