Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
I’ve been in Ottawa for six years. I came here to be close to family and to start my legal career.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I’ve always been a writer. Even as a small kid I would write and gift my family short stories. My grade two teacher would actually “bind” and “publish” my work. I still have many of those “published” stories.
For the past fifteen years, most of my writing has been in the academic and legal realms. My legal career has been writing heavy, and over the past few years I have primarily written contracts. Writing contracts lends itself surprisingly well to writing poetry, as both disciplines consider the impact of every word and comma. You have to decide whether you want your particular phrase or word choice to bring greater clarity or strategic ambiguity. Often strategic ambiguity is the more interesting (and easier to negotiate) choice.
I only started publishing my poetry within the last year. Despite my status as a newbie, I’ve found the community in Ottawa to be encouraging. Bywords.ca was one of the first places my poems were published.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
I learned how to write for an audience during my legal training and first few years as a lawyer. It felt like learning how to turn words into paint, and then that paint into a compelling painting. I learned from lawyers who were excellent writers and, for better or worse, thought ad nauseum about word and sentence choice. These influences have forever shaped how I approach writing. I’ve spent an embarrassing number of hours opining on the nuanced differences between “states,” “represents,” and “certifies.”
It took me longer than it should have to realize my legal writing skills were translatable to writing poetry. Since joining this writing community, the biggest change in my poetry is simply the idea that I could learn how to turn my poems into something other people want to read. It was a new way of turning paint into paintings. It has been an enjoyable journey.
Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Ottawa, generally speaking, values the arts more than other cities. It was part of why I wanted to move to Ottawa in the first place. There is an abundance of talented writers in Ottawa, despite being a relatively small city. Ottawa also provides quick access to politics and nature, which are great writing inspirations.
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?
Most of my writing is set in Ottawa, either implicitly or explicitly. Most recently, the occupation in downtown Ottawa, and the local and national conversations around that occupation, brought me inspiration.
Q: What are you working on now?
I am working towards my first chapbook. And, as always, I’m trying to learn how to write better poems.
I am also searching for other poets writing about early parenthood. Becoming a parent has been one of the most transformative times in my life and the inspiration for much of my writing. It’s a weird, wild, and wonderful life transition. I am hungry for reading more poetry on this transition, and in connecting with other poets who are also writing about it.
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