A.L. MacDonald is a mechanical engineer who writes from Ottawa, Ontario where he lives with his wife and two children. He has work featured in an anthology Beyond Human: Tales of the New Us by Lower Decks Press, and microfiction featured in two Serious Flash Fiction Anthologies published by Ben Warden. His debut novel is the self-published science fiction tale Orbiting Fortunes. In his spare time he is found in his workshop creating mad inventions or puttering about on his ebike, imagining that he is an intergalactic courier.
Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
Let's see…adding everything up, I've been in Ottawa since 1991 when my father was posted here. Or, as I like to put it, I got here about the same time as the Sens did. There have been intermissions for some of high school, university and then a few years of work out of town so my total “boots-on-the-ground” time is only 22 years.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
It's a mess. I've fumbled around with writing since middle school, filling desk drawers with stories that were only read by people who were not quick enough to escape. Through my twenties and thirties I submitted numerous rejected short stories to various literary magazines. I only made the jump to getting my work “out there” when a good friend of mine, local author MK Schultz, self-published with iUniverse and then KDP. I was determined to do the same. I got onto Twitter to connect with other authors, and met a few at events here in town like the Ottawa International Writers Festival, and the Orleans Comic Book and Novelty Show, and the Horror Author Event in Stittsville.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
The number one reaction is a sense of deep panic. There is so much happening! I need to get moving! I need to get into events! I need to write more! I need to write stuff that is GOOD! I need to connect with readers! There is so much to do all at once and it feels like a large convoy passing by that I want to jump on to. At the same time, what I have seen and the authors I've talked to have shown me how possible it is, and that has been very encouraging.
Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
There is a lot of support here. So many book shops are willing to host author events and are even proud to make “local author” displays. There are festivals that draw in authors from quite a ways away, like the ones I mentioned, and there is also the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair. Just goes to show that not only is there a vibrant writing community here, but it is large enough to have an entire spectrum from far-and-wide markets to local small presses.
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?
This community is where I met a number of my beta readers and my cover designer. I will always consider Ottawa as the place I “started”.
Q: What are you working on now?
Two things - well, three. Yeah, I'll just go over the three big ones. I am revising my second science fiction book, which will absolutely have a title at some point, I am compiling a book of my best 250-character micro fiction stories that I deleted from X before they could be stolen for training Grok, and I am unsuccessfully pushing off outlining my next novel.
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