Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?
I first came to Ottawa in 2004 after graduating high school in Michigan. I needed a change, so I went on an adventure and Ottawa happened to be my destination. The city was good to me, so after taking a year off from school to explore the city, I ended up completing a BA in English and Classics at the University of Ottawa. I moved back to the US after receiving my degree, but I’m back now, and grateful to be here.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I have been writing in one form or another since I was a kid, and I fell in love with poetry when I was 14 after discovering a collection of T.S. Eliot poems at my high school library. I started writing poetry when I was 16, and it’s kept me alive since. The first publication to ever accept a poem of mine was Ottawa’s Bywords, under editor and talented writer Amanda Earl, and the first open mics I attended were hosted at Café Nostalgica on the University of Ottawa campus.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since?
In my last year at the University of Ottawa, I was fortunate enough to be part of a creative writing workshop taught by poet and professor Seymour Mayne. Our class was a small group of eleven poets, many of whom remain good friends today. It was wonderful to share poetry with this group in a focused setting, and Professor Mayne gave me very helpful advice on my work. He also taught me a lot about the intricacy of crafting verse, line flow and tone, and self-editing.
Q: What did you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What did Ottawa provide, or allow?
There is a quiet, warm, creative energy here which I find inspiring. The gathering spaces and venues are great for open mics and other creative events. The atmosphere is vibrant and people are generally attentive and open to new types of work. I was very nervous to read before my first open mic performance, but the kind response I received at Café Nostalgica encouraged me.
Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How had the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?
The live poetry performances I experienced in Ottawa definitely made me want to read poems aloud more instead of only reading them off the page. This has added another dimension to both performing my own work and reading poetry by others.
Q: What are you working on now?
I am putting together a book called “ghost fractals,” a collection of wisps, fragments, and poems I’ve left in various corners over the past several years. The ghosts operate the labyrinth and show me where the stairs are hidden, so I’m taking my time and letting each piece steep into the whole. I’ve also been making a lot of sharpie spiral art and handwritten note poems (some illustrated), which I want to eventually arrange into vispo collections.
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