Winner of the PEN Canada Scholarship, Maria Saba is a writer, storyteller, and arts educator. Writing in both Persian
and English, she has published three books of nonfiction, short stories, and personal
essays. Her short story manuscript, “My First Friend,” was a semi-finalist for
the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. The title story of the same collection was
nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and won Scoundrel Time’s
Editors’ Choice Award in 2018. Her novella, “The Secret of Names,” was long
listed for the Disquiet Literary Prize in 2020. Maria is the recipient of grants
in English literature from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Saskatchewan
Arts Board, City of Ottawa, and Wallace Stegner Grant for the Arts. She has served
on various arts funding and awards juries in literature, theatre, dance, arts
organization, and arts education.
Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you
here?
At first, I came to Ottawa from Winnipeg for my MSc program. Then
I moved to Toronto for my PhD and back to Ottawa after my postdoc. In total, it
would be about eighteen years!
Q: How did you first get involved in
writing?
I have always been writing one way or
another. My first publication, if you can call it that, was a letter I sent to
a women’s magazine in Iran after a row with my mother. Being fifteen, and a
particularly mindless one, I didn’t stop there but mailed it to my mother’s
favorite magazine, which I wasn’t supposed to read (and did, cover to cover,
every week.) and forgot about it. My mother might never have known about it if a
nosy neighbor hadn’t shown up at our door with my letter in the magazine. I
wasn’t very popular at home for a while, to put it mildly.
My teachers in Iran and later in Canada always urged
me to write, but I never committed to it until I took a short creative writing
workshop at a community center with local writer, Joanne Proulx. She liked my
ideas for stories and encouraged me to write. I told her I couldn’t see myself
writing 300 pages. “Write a short story then,” she said. And that set me out on
the path to write fiction.
Q. How did you get involved with the writing community here?
I was very isolated until a wonderful
local writer and theatre artist, Ann Cavlovic, very kindly connected me with
two amazing local poets and writers, Frances Boyle and Deborah-Anne Tunney— two
of the nicest, most supportive, most generous people I have ever met. This
encounter has had a very positive effect on my writing and my sense of being
part of community. These are crucial for me as a writer, who spends most of her
time in her own head.
Q: What do you see happening here that you
don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Ottawa
has a great literary landscape with so many writers and poets and events and
publications. I love events like Tree Reading Series, In Our Tongues, and many
others where reading and workshops happen. I believe we need to join forces to
bring Ottawa more onto the spotlight. Your blog is a good effort in that
direction.
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 have learned
from my exchanges with writers and poets, and the city certainly has an effect
on my writing. I love different places in Ottawa, where I can reflect. Walking
in so many trails and driving in the country always invigorate and reset me. Writing/literary
cafes would be a good idea!
Q: What are you working on now?
Three things. Possibly four. I switch from one to
the other. I am revising my first novel, writing my second one, and revising my
novella. The fourth project is a secret. For now.
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