Six Questions interview #228 : Vishesh Abeyratne

Vishesh Abeyratne is a Sri Lankan-Canadian playwright and poet. He has served as playwright-in-residence at the Great Canadian Theatre Company and as Literary Manager at Teesri Duniya Theatre, where he facilitated the Fireworks Playwrights' Mentorship Program from 2022 to 2025. His plays include Exposure (published by YouthPLAYS), Blood Offering, White Lion, Brown Tiger, and The Agony Market. His poetry has been published in Bywords.ca, Flo Literary Magazine, Montreal Serai, and on Instagram at @visheshabeyratne82.

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

I first moved to Ottawa in 2015 to study Technical Writing in Algonquin College (artist’s got to pay the bills somehow). I have lived in the capital for roughly ten years.

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

I wrote short stories since I was ten years old. I became interested in theatre in high school and I began writing plays when I was eighteen. I’ve explored several genres from black comedy to science fiction. My twenties was a long decade of fumbling and flailing and finding my voice. More recently I began writing poetry as a response to being in lockdown and I have continued after receiving encouragement from friends and family, as well as publication in some online presses.

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

It made me realize just how crucial it is for writers in any medium to be surrounded by people who wholeheartedly support their work and want them to succeed. The writer friends I’ve made here have been invaluable to me in their encouragement, and I hope I’ve provided them with the same drive to keep going.

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

In Ottawa you can find writing and art from people at all walks of life. We tend to think of this city as a stodgy government town, populated by public servants in gray suits. But having lived for several years in Vanier, which tends to be largely neglected by our politicians, I can say that the most compelling and vibrant artistic voices come from the rougher corners of this metropolis.

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?

Many of my poems are directly inspired by the urban landscape of the city, and I have also written a play called The Agony Market which is partly set in an arms manufacturing firm in Kanata. Through speculative storytelling it explores the complicity of Canadian white-collar workers in wars and genocides around the globe. Ottawa is a place where many high-stakes decisions are made that affect international politics, and it is my dream to one day stage this play in the capital as an act of cultural insurgency.

Q: What are you working on now?

Writing more poems which I am editing into a debut collection, pushing The Agony Market towards production, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Sciences at Western University, and trying to find the spark of a new play.

Six Questions interview #227 : Christine Kilfoil

Christine Kilfoil is an Ottawa criminal law lawyer and author of dystopian young adult fiction. Christine is a contributor to the Lowertown Echo, an Ottawa community newspaper. She grew up in Saint John NB. The One Percenters, a dystopian Young Adult fiction, is her first novel.

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

I have been in Ottawa for about 15 years.  I moved here with my family to follow my partner who landed a job in Ottawa.  I was initially not thrilled with the move as I was leaving the Maritimes behind, where I grew up, but I have grown to love Ottawa.

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

I decided at age 11 I wanted to be a writer, and hand wrote my first book every day after school.  I mailed it to a publisher and received a very kind rejection letter (the first of many) who told me to keep on writing.  Life intervened, school, jobs, kids but I kept writing over the years, sometimes late at night when the kids were asleep.  I tried different genres over the years, including mystery and a war story (after reading The Red Badge of Courage). I never quite found my voice.   But something gelled during the 2020 pandemic, and I finally completed a book I had been working away on for years.  It was a young adult dystopian novel.  Then came the huge learning curve, editing (I paid way too much for poor quality work), and self-publishing after numerous rejections from traditional publishers. For the first time in my life I joined social media, initially to market my book, but it was there I discovered a community of writers who offer support and good advice.  Through social media, I have connected with Ottawa writers and now attend local readings and book signings and connect with local authors at craft markets. 

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

I am gaining allot from the writing community here.  We support each other.  I feel less alone in my writing knowing there are others out there trying to do the same thing I do.  Before connecting with the writing community in Ottawa, I didn’t know any writers.  It's a very solitary activity and having a community makes it feel more like a supportive club.  I think about my writing differently because I feel like I now have the right to call myself a “writer” when I connect with the community of writers.  They accept me as a writer, even if I don’t always think of myself as legitimate because I am self-published.

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

I think Ottawa has a really supportive Indie bookstore scene who are very open to stocking Indie author books, which is wonderful.  Ottawa has options for writers to attend (or participate in) author readings and lectures from both traditional and self-published authors.  I see allot more events here for authors such as craft markets that allow authors to sell their books, and launch events, book signings and small publishers' events.  In addition, there are venues here in Ottawa that offer free of charge, spaces to organize author readings and book launches.

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 am planning an author reading with 3 Ottawa writers at Anina's Cafe in October.  I was so pleased that Anina's was an immediate, “yes”, and offered their marketing support to host an author reading and book sale event.  Without a city like Ottawa supporting the arts and the writing community, I would likely have neglected this part of the writing life and simply hoped dropping a book on Amazon, will make my book succeed.  The ability to connect and grow from the connections with the writer's community here has led me to approach my writing in a more creative, but also professional manner.  We all have experiences to share that is invaluable to those of us without a traditional publisher support.

Q: What are you working on now?

My first book is a YA dystopian thriller, which ended on a cliffhanger.  I envision a 3-part series, and I am currently working on the 2^nd novel in the series. 

Six Questions interview #226 : Kevin Shaw

Kevin Shaw’s poems have appeared in The Malahat Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Grain, and elsewhere. He won Arc’s Poem of the Year award and the Grand Prize in the PRISM international Poetry Contest. His essays have been published in magazines such as The New Quarterly and The Literary Review of Canada, broadcast on CBC radio, and included in The Best Canadian Essays anthology. His debut poetry collection, Smaller Hours, was published by icehouse poetry (Goose Lane Editions).

Shaw reads next on Tuesday, August 19 at 6:30 pm as part of a Pride Poetry Reading alongside Kimberly Quiogue Andrews and Sanita Fejzic at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, 2nd Floor Mezzanine, 1233 Wellington Street West, Ottawa. Hosted by Ben Ladouceur and introduced by Ottawa EN-language Poet Laureate David O'Meara. Free event.

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

A: My husband and I moved to Ottawa from London, ON, in 2018, shortly after I had finished graduate school. I moved here for work, but over the past few years we’ve really fallen in love with the city: the arts and heritage, the access to green space, lakes, and rivers, and the queer community events and sports teams. The city has provided us with a very full life.

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

A: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It started with writing contests through the Legion or the local newspaper (which published my first article, on my mom’s job at Tim Horton’s, when I was 9!) and over the years I’ve dabbled in a lot of genres, from fiction and poetry to journalism and playwriting. Eventually I seemed to settle on poetry and essays. When I first moved to Ottawa, I worked with Arc Poetry Magazine for a time and met some of the people in the city’s poetry community. I took a step back from writing for a few years but I’m enjoying getting to know more local writers as I attend some of the events in the city.

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

A: When I was writing my PhD thesis at Western, I was part of a great community of fellow poets with whom I could share and workshop new poems. It was kind of an idyllic moment—to have that much time to write, read, and think. I don’t have the same schedule or network in Ottawa but it’s forced me to weave writing into the weft of daily life, picking up threads when I find a few minutes. I think the poems I’m writing now have become more open and less insular as a result, if that makes sense.

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

A: I see Ottawa as a city of convergence: two rivers, two official languages (and many more), Indigenous and colonial histories, diverse neighbourhoods, urban and parkland spaces. There’s the cliché that Ottawa is “boring,” a staid government town, but I think that’s an opportunity for writers and other artists to reveal the city’s other and undersides.

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?

A: Some of the poems I’ve written since moving to Ottawa respond to the city directly. I have a poem in my current manuscript about the arboretum, for example, and another about the city’s many Hallmark holiday movie productions. I also like the contrast between the perception of the city as very beige and bureaucratic, and the more vibrant queer life I’ve come to know bubbling alongside that. I think that tension has worked its way into my more recent poems.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Aside from the occasional poem, essay, or book review, I took several years off from writing regularly. I’m trying to think of that time less as a drought than a period of “content farming.” But I’m happy to say the poems have been coming along more regularly and I’m working towards finishing my second poetry manuscript.