Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
When I was around ten, my family moved to the Gatineau Valley, just across
the river from Ottawa on the Quebec side. We lived in the countryside but were
only about a twenty-five-minute drive into the city, so I spent lots of time in
Ottawa throughout my teenage years. After moving away for university, I returned
to the area and found myself an apartment in downtown Ottawa. I have been
living properly in the city now for about three years, but have always
considered Ottawa and the surrounding valley to be home.
Q:
How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing
community here?
I have always been interested in writing, but I
began writing seriously in 2018 during my final year of undergraduate at
Queen’s. That year, I was able to take a creative writing, and was fortunate to
be taught by Carolyn Smart before she retired. Carolyn was so encouraging, particularly
to newer writers like myself, and really helped us to understand that
persistence is just as, if not more important than, talent when it comes to writing.
The next year, after I moved back to Ottawa, I
continued writing, mainly poetry and some short fiction. Much of the writing I
have done in Ottawa has been done in isolation under lockdown or public health
precautions. However, towards the end of 2022, we began returning to in-person
writing events, and I have only recently had the joy of attending readings and
meeting folks in the Ottawa writing community. This community is incredibly
welcoming and supportive. I held my own book launch this fall and was so
touched by the number of local poets who came. I’ve attended some really
special readings and launches since, and have met some brilliant writers,
including Frances Boyle, Conyer Clayton, Ellen Chang-Richardson, and David
O’Meara (who is also an excellent emcee!!).
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
I
have received gracious support and mentorship from the broader writing
community over the past few years, and from the Ottawa writing community more
recently. There is a generosity to this community that I hadn’t expected, and
which has compelled me to reframe writing as a communal endeavor, rather than a
solo one. In a ‘profession’ where it is very easy – and normal – to fall into
feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt, having a community of mutual
support has been grounding. Through this community, I have also discovered some
wonderful poetry and writing that I might not have found otherwise.
Q:
What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does
Ottawa provide, or allow?
Whether it is because I grew up around here, or because it is a small
city, or because the writing community is so cohesive, I find that there are
fewer degrees of separation between people in Ottawa than I’ve experienced
elsewhere. It is easy to feel part of community here, and oftentimes, different
communities – science, art, music – overlap in unexpected ways in this city.
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?
I grew up in the Gatineau Valley during the days when the steam train
still ran up to Wakefield. So much of my early work drew upon my memories of
growing up here, and of the Gatineau River in the summertime. Those early works
helped me to get started with poetry, and in that way, Ottawa and the
surrounding area gave me a bit of a push into writing.
In a more direct sense, after I finished the manuscript for my first
poetry collection, I was feeling really overwhelmed by the submissions process.
I had just begun my master’s at the University of Ottawa and on a whim, I
reached out to the university’s writer-in-residence at the time, Stuart Ross.
We met over Zoom and he gave me some advice on getting started and taking
risks. He was the one who encouraged me to submit my manuscript to Coach House
Books. The writer-in-residence program and Stuart’s guidance shaped my book
into what it is today. His unconditional enthusiasm for helping me on this
journey also gave me an appreciation for the difference community involvement
and mentorship can make in new writers’ lives.
Q: What are you working on now?
Up until a few weeks ago, I was working on finishing my master’s thesis
– I haven’t written much of anything else in the last while! I am continuing my
volunteer work as Associate Poetry editor with Plenitude Magazine, and
have just started a job as an air pollution researcher. I have a longer writing
project that I am looking forward to delving into this upcoming year!
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