Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
Biology. I was born here, and have either mostly lived in downtown Ottawa or across the bridge in the woods of Gatineau Hills. The only real interruption (besides going away for university) was the two incredible years I spent living in Prague, then northern Germany. The cursed pandemic forced me back to my home turf in March 2020. I wish I could live in two places at once; I love Ottawa, but my heart is weirdly overseas.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
Like most writers I know, I can't remember a time I didn't write, even as a kid. The first "book" I created, at the tender age of 10 or so, was a picture-book called "Nobody Likes Orange" after it struck me that no one ever said (back in the day) that their favourite colour was orange. I felt bad for it! The handmade result was sort of a riff off of those old "Mr. Men" books (I wish I still had it). For much of my life I was pretty solitary when it came to my work, but then about 10 years ago I made many writer friends among the Ottawa speculative literature community. It's a very supportive circle. Things like public readings, conference panelling, critiquing, and judging are a regular part of life now, not to mention publishing. I suspect founding a short fiction magazine made me more noticeable.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
It made me think more commercially, since the spec fic community in Ottawa is really tapped into what appeals to the big agents, editors, and publishers, and wants everyone to succeed; several local friends have broken into the big leagues. I have learned so many important lessons about how to strengthen fiction, and my work is better for it. I can't say enough about the value of being part of a working community, talking about fiction with other writers and sharing drafts back and forth--rather than hoarding one's work in the shadows.
But it also made me even more suspicious about "template writing"--which is awesome, since it has a huge audience and a key place in the world. It's just not my place. I don't tend to enjoy that as a reader, and as a writer it's not my natural gear. I teach creative writing at university, so I know on an intellectual level "how it works" and can follow the so-called Rules of Writing if I want to, but...I don't want to. I blame my synaesthesia, which is pronounced, so I write a lot in cadence, love archaisms and experimentation, hate literalism, and enjoy playing with structures that depart from the traditional hero's journey and that three-act-structure mandate. I'm definitely a "stained-glass" reader and writer, and will go to my grave arguing that it's as valuable and necessary as the "transparent" form popularized last century, especially in genre fiction where anything un-transparent is especially criticized. I know too many other readers and writers who feel the same, and it is possible to succeed there (see: Jeff VanderMeer). It's just a lot harder to break in. The good news is that the stale, 20th-century mass-market fiction template is finally starting to crumble even at the commercial level--it's over 100 years old, so it's about time, but an astonishingly large portion of publishers, critics, writing instructors, and other gatekeepers are still convinced it's the One True Way.
This all leads back to the original question about the value of being part of the Ottawa writing community, or any writing community--it'll make your writing better because it suddenly becomes a living thing that people react to in ways more personal than rejection or acceptance letters. You'll either get way better at hitting those commercial notes, or you'll become way more determined to hold onto your weird voice. Either way, stronger voices tend to emerge when we're part of a chorus--we just hear our voice better in a crowd, ironically, and become more certain about which direction we personally want to take it in. (Not that one's "best" writing voice is always stable over a lifetime, but you know what I mean.)
Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
I'm not a poet, and I don't write anything most traditional CanLit publishers would want, so I can only speak to the speculative fiction circle. But wow--if you write fantasy, SF, horror, slipstream, or anything remotely "unrealistic", you are in the right place. Ottawa has a remarkably strong cluster of such writers having successes with big NY agents and getting book deals, not to mention getting nominated for and/or winning the biggest awards in this field: Hugo, Nebula, Locus, British Fantasy Award, World Fantasy Award, etc. I sometimes think it may baffle the NY agents and publishers that Ottawa does so well on this front, given its size. Ottawa also hosts Can-Con, an annual conference for readers, writers, editors, and publishers of speculative fiction, which is garnering an international rep (and which will return if we ever get this plague under control). For anyone wanting to get involved in this specific writing community, hooking up with Can-Con on social media is a great place to start.
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 may have answered this question above. In terms of place, I do find my native region conducive to ideas and storytelling, though that's probably true of most writers. Ottawa, Wakefield, and Prescott have crept into my short stories, so I get "historical" even in some of my spec fic. How can you grow up in the Gatineau Hills and not want to insert the fall foliage into a tale, or the stunning view from the MacLaren Cemetery? When I was living in Europe, I so dreaded returning to Ottawa winters that I wrote a story set on the frozen St. Lawrence--icescapes have always been part of the Gothic tradition, but putting our severe local cold into a horror story was something I guess I had to do, to get it out of my system. The particular French-English hybridity of Outaouais communities also ended up inspiring a story that is basically my childhood on a page, minus the fantastical elements. In my case, I had to grow a bit older and live elsewhere before I felt the urge to write about home. I guess that's also pretty common... As someone who prefers writing secondary-world fantasy, and world-building from scratch, I'm always surprised when I find myself painting Ottawa's recognizable surrounds and culture into a tale.
Q: What are you working on now?
I'm drafting the last few chapters of Book 3 of
an epic fantasy trilogy, and finishing up the last fifth of a fantasy novella.
I have two more short stories in the works, and I'm making copious notes on
another (stand-alone) novel inspired by my favourite Thomas Hardy book. I'm
only doing a few freelance jobs this summer, so I'm trying to nail all of that
down (apart from the Hardy retelling) before the fall semester starts, when
writing time and bandwidth utterly shrink. The magazine takes up a lot of time
and creative energy, as well, and we're opening again to submissions on August
1. If you have a story about weird plants or trees or agriculture, it may suit
our upcoming theme, "Botanicals."
