Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
I was born in Ottawa in 1984. I moved to Prince George and Montreal for a couple of spells, but I always found my way back here. I have really settled in this time and do not see myself leaving anytime soon.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I always wanted to get into writing – to be a writer – but never knew what that meant. It was in my fourth year of undergrad at UNBC that I took a couple of writing courses with Rob Budde, and from then on I started to take it more seriously and made efforts to become involved in a writing community and to seek publication. When I moved back to Ottawa, I sought out groups and publications here and tried to reach out whenever I could.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
It is important to not write in a bubble. You need people to share and workshop your writings with or else you might as well just keep a diary, so being in a community seems like a necessity. I remember when I was writing on my own – with nobody looking at what I was producing before it was submitted – I would not realize a poem was terrible until the feeling of regret or embarrassment I would have immediately after dropping the submission into the mailbox. Knowing I could not reach in and get the envelope back, I would just have to wait several months until the person on the other end opened it, cringed and sent back the rejection letter.
Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Ottawa has both a vibrant and accessible writing community. When I lived in Montreal, I had a group of people who I worked with, but they were mostly musicians or other types of artists and, while we were working together, they were not necessarily involved in the production of my writing. Being able to be part of publications like ottawater and Bywords and their associated events is not something that I had going on before moving back to Ottawa. The scene here encouraged me to find more partners to be active in my writing process. Even completing these interview questions makes me realize I have not written much outside of work-related emails and policy documents.
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?
One project that responded directly to my engagements here was the opportunity I had from bird, buried press to publish a chapbook, A Functional History, in 2017. I know they are not based in Ottawa, but I think that if I was not here I would not have connected with them, and I also attending some events they held in Ottawa afterwards.
Q: What are you working on now?
I
regret to say that I am working on nothing. In May 2020 my wife and I were
blessed with our second child, but that means we had two under two, and combined
with taking on being the principal of a high school during a pandemic, I have
not been able to find the time and energy. Things come in waves, though, and
the tide is turning. Lately, I have started jotting down notes and sketching
out new poems.
