Six Questions interview #182 : Murray Citron

Murray Citron is a retired lawyer and a grandfather.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
Since 1957. I was offered a job.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I always liked writing, but did it as part of my work. After I retired I became interested in the Yiddish poetry of Itzik Manger, a very popular Yiddish writer of the first half of the twentieth century, and started to hear and write down English translations of his work. I read a couple at a Tree open mic, and they were well enough received for me to continue, both with Manger and other poets.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
Having a welcoming audience has to be encouraging. For some years I looked forward to the open mics, and made a point of getting something ready, and hearing what others were doing. A high point for me came when Tree published its first chapbook, which was a bilingual collection of Manger poems, There is a Tree (His poems, my translations).

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
I can't really say that I know enough about other places to make these kinds of comparisons.

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 also for several years been a member of Ottawa Field Naturalists Club, and have written quite a few nature poems of my own. Until the pandemic, for a number of years I would read a poem to start a meeting, and they were kind enough to introduce me as the poet laureate of the club. I have read that when the position of Poet Laureate was established in England five of six centuries ago, the Poet Laureate was given each year a hogshead of rum to keep up the good work. I didn't get that, but I liked having an audience.

Q: What are you working on now?
My translations have appeared in England (Modern Poetry in Translation) and online and in print in Canada and the U.S., often in Pakntreger, the organ of the Yiddish Book Centre, Amherst. I have also become interested in translating from English to Yiddish and have been invited to a Yiddish Open Mic Zoom group run from England.

Six Questions interview #181 : John Moss

John Moss is the author of more than twenty books on Canadian culture, Arctic exploration, and experimental literature, as well as the Quin and Morgan mysteries, the Lindstrom trilogy, and several YA thrillers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Master Scuba Diver Trainer, ran the Boston Marathon eleven times, swam the Hellespont once, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona the summer after Hemingway died.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
I worked at the University of Ottawa for thirty years, although I commuted from Bellrock, near Kingston, and from Peterborough.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
For family reasons I never lived in Ottawa fulltime, so I was never immersed in the Ottawa writing community. I started writing as an undergraduate at Western. Beginning with graduate work in Canadian literature at Waterloo and the University of New Brunswick, when such a notion was still considered radical, I wrote a lot as a literary critic. My first book was Patterns of Isolation in 1974. After that I wrote or edited quite a number of critical books, each one becoming more “creative” than the last, pushing the limits of critical prose. At the turn of the century, I turned to writing mysteries. Since then, I’ve published a dozen mysteries, thrillers, and young adult novels. Over the last few years I turned more and more to creating a major work in a postmodern vein after the manner of Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges, eventually published last year as To Set the Stone Trembling.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
Working in Ottawa did not, I’m afraid, have much of an influence on my work, although working at a university with bright and inquisitive students had a profound influence.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Moving from Kingston to Peterborough halfway through my tenure at U of Ottawa coincided with my shift from creative criticism to fiction and thence to postmodern intellectually self-conscious dystopian fiction. I think of myself as quite affable but not particularly a social person. I have belonged to a number of writer’s organizations but have not been involved, in Ottawa or elsewhere. Most of my mysteries have been set all, or in part, in southern Ontario.

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?
The city, Ottawa, and the University of Ottawa, all shaped my writing, as they all shaped my life.

Q: What are you working on now?
I am working on a sequel to To Set the Stone Trembling, however, I’m not sure I want to say any more than I’ve said. I’ve finished with a challenging work of fiction dealing with language and identity, semiotics as a principal component of literary experience. I’m not sure if there’s more to say.

Six Questions interview #180 : Gerald Lynch

Gerald Lynch was born on a farm at Lough Egish in Co. Monaghan Ireland and grew up in Canada. His next novel, “Plaguing Jake,” is forthcoming in Spring 2024 from At Bay Press. The Dying Detective (2020) was the concluding novel of a trilogy comprising Omphalos (2017) and Missing Children (2015). These novels were preceded by Troutstream, Exotic Dancers, and two books of short stories, Kisbey and One’s Company. He has published numerous short stories, essays, and reviews, as well as having edited a number of books. He has also authored two books of non-fiction, Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity  and The One and the Many: Canadian Short Story Cycles. He has been the recipient of a few awards, including the gold award for short fiction in Canada’s National Magazine Awards.

Website: http://geraldlynch.weebly.com/ 

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

 

I moved to Ottawa with my family of four (eventually five) in 1985 for a one-year posting at University of Ottawa, having just finished a Ph.D. The position was in the English Department teaching Canadian Literature and Creative Writing. The initial one-year stay lasted some 37, remarkably (observing how time flies is banal only when others say it, not when it’s the time of one’s own life). By the end of that flying time I was a Full Professor still teaching Canadian mainly, if occasionally offering a seminar in Contemporary Irish Fiction.

 

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

 

Recalling how I first got involved in writing gets a bit hazy, like trying to remember how consciousness itself emerged. I learned to read comparatively late, and when I did I loved reading whatever I could get my hands on. After years of that escapism (which it was for me), I thought I’d see if I could make poetry and fiction of the kind I loved as a reader. I think that’s the usual route for writers. Also, much of the motivation was just showing off (I was always good with words). I can remember writing something in grade five, which the teacher read to the class. That gave me status, if mostly in my own head, but I liked it nonetheless. Something similar happened a few times through high school and university, and I was encouraged. My involvement in the Ottawa writing community was mainly through my work in uOttawa’s English Department, organizing its reading series, and then with the publication of my first books of fiction, which sometimes entailed invitations to read.

 

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?

 

I had always assumed that writing was an isolating activity, private, personal, which it is of course, and which suits me fine. But as said, what little involvement I have in the Ottawa writing community began as organizer of a reading series in the Department of English (and as sometimes reader at others’ events). That helped dispositionally anti-socializing me see the value of a community of writers, of what Margaret Laurence called the “tribe.” Not valued for any tangible rewards in literary mingling, but just for knowing that there were other kinds of writers, and not all of them were egomaniacal and needy.

 

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

 

Ottawa is just the right kind of city for writers, mainly because it has lots of readers and writers and real jobs for writers to support their unremunerative writing. And Ottawa impresses me as a more literary place than most others. I don’t know why that is—or even if it is the truth—but I do suspect so. Consequently (though I’ve not done a survey), Ottawa’s writers don’t feel entirely alone and can continue to believe that there are readers and writers “out there” who understand the writing life and appreciate the product (that is, real critical and sympathetic readers). Various events in the city help to foster writers. I’m not saying Ottawa is especially distinguished from other locales in those ways, only that it continues healthily that way in an increasingly non-literary world: we have lots of writers worth reading, still many great independent book stores, literary events, and readers (an aging writer must dream).

 

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?

 

Yes, and very much so, this place has affected what I write. After about five years here, while living in the eastern suburb of Blackburn Hamlet, I decided to fictionalize it in a story cycle titled Troutstream, which was marketed as a novel. I eventually set two actual novels in Troutstream, Exotic Dancers and Missing Children. Then when our kids left home, we moved downtown, and after a few years I published two novels that used the centre town setting, Omphalos and The Dying Detective, which completed a trilogy begun with Missing Children. As my response to the following question shows, I’m still setting fiction in Ottawa and its environs.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

Since retiring in 2022 I’ve been focusing on, writing and publishing, short stories. Early last year I finished a novel which is coming out early next year, Plaguing Jake, from At Bay Press, following which I didn’t feel like beginning another novel. The stories are too various to précis here. The novel is in the tradition of the “academic satire,” which only sounds chalky. It’s also a young love story and a mystery (a signed first edition of Joyce’s Ulyssess is stolen). It’s partly set in a fictional “uBytown,” and in an equally fictional Lietrim Falls, and on a farm near there.

 

Six Questions interview #179 : Kyle Vingoe-Cram

Kyle Vingoe-Cram [Photo credit: James Arthur Maclean] is a cartoonist, writer and visual artist from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. They have been making comics since they were a child, and have always been fascinated by the potential of visual storytelling to create new avenues for literary exploration. They live in Ottawa with their husband and family. Kettle Harbour is their first novel.

How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

I have been Ottawa now for a little over a year and a half. I moved here from Halifax, Nova Scotia, my hometown, because my partner got a position with the Parks Canada federal office. 

I first starting writing and illustrating comics when I was a teenager, and by age 20 had written the first 100 pages of a longer comic. But I decided at the time to abandon it to pursue painting and contemporary art instead, as well as a master’s in Art History. It took me about 10 years to get back into writing comics in a big way. It felt like coming home—like, what had I been missing all this time? I am still quite new to the community here. We moved during the pandemic, so it’s really only in the last year that I’ve started reaching out to other writers and comic artists. I plan on attending my first Ottawa Writer’s festival this weekend!

How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

Like I said, I’m still pretty new to the scene in Ottawa. But I recently just got to meet many of my comic artist peers in person in Toronto for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, including Ottawa small comics press Ad Astra, and these connections were life-changing! I feel on the brink of being able to set up writing sessions on Zoom and in person, for example, which can be so helpful in a career that can often feel lonely and isolating. I also made a new friend who is organizing local drawing groups, so that’s a great way to stay in touch too.

What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

Well, as a parent of a young child, I think Ottawa has been great for finding lots of wonderful family recreation and art activities. I’ve been able to take my toddler to local museums and parks on a regular basis, and there are many free activities. It’s inspiring for parents as well, when the kids are entertained, and improves my relationship to my work. I love being able to walk over to the Ottawa Art Gallery and see fantastic contemporary art for free, just a ten minute walk from where I live, for example. Ottawa also has an incredible concentration of independent bookstores, who have all been so supportive of carrying my first book, Kettle Harbour, which just launched. Having lived in several cities in Canada who do not have this resource, we don’t want to take it for granted!

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 you work?

I am starting a new graphic novel with my friend, who lives in nearby Kingston, Ontario (where I lived for many years). The setting will be a small eastern Ontario city and college town, taking inspiration from both Ottawa and Kingston. I’m excited to portray the stately architecture of Ottawa in this story. It will be a new challenge from Kettle Harbour, which was set in rural Nova Scotia.

In terms of changing my approach to my work, I’m not sure Ottawa has changed anything substantially about my process (from Halifax). I still love working in nearby coffee shops to feel “part” of something and to be around others at work, instead of at home, where being alone proves a distraction.

What are you working on right now?

I am working on promoting my first graphic novel, Kettle Harbour, a queer family drama set in rural Nova Scotia, on the Fundy coast. The story is told through three interwoven perspectives, each character with their own distinct visual style. I was with Conundrum Press at TCAF this past weekend, and will be in Vancouver and Montreal later this month, Halifax in August. Stay tuned to hear about a signing in Ottawa soon! Probably in the early fall.

I am also working on A Rift in the Valley, with my friend and longtime collaborator, GHY Cheung, who also lettered Kettle Harbour. A Rift in the Valley is a new, full-colour graphic novel about what happens when a series of sinkholes opens up in a small university town in Eastern Ontario. It follows the intertwined lives of young, queer Brueghel scholar Oliver and his therapist, new parent Ursula, as they navigate this surreal new reality. We recently finished a mini-comic to preview the project, and are about to start on a detailed thumbnail draft.

THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW.