Six Questions interview #234 : Cora Siré

Cora Siré is the author of two books of poetry, a chapbook, two novels, and a collection of short stories. Her poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in anthologies and magazines in Canada, the US, Mexico, and Europe. Her website can be found at www.quena.ca.

Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?

I was seventeen years old when I arrived to study at the University of Ottawa. It’s no exaggeration to claim that Ottawa lured me into writing poetry. The poets I encountered made a deep and lasting impression.

After my BA, I stayed in Ottawa for a bit, working at a deli and then in government. I was reluctant to leave, but I eventually returned to my home city of Montréal. Ever since, Ottawa continues to lure me back. I have family in the city and of course there’s a vibrant community of poets and writers with so many fine readings and events. I’ve been lucky to participate in a number of them.

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

I experienced a pivotal moment in Ottawa that was so formative, it found its way into my hybrid memoir/story collection, Fear the Mirror (Véhicule Press, 2021.)

In “The Mark” I write about a student who spends an inordinate amount of time playing backgammon in Pigeon Bleu, the bar that was on Colonel By Drive near Pretoria Bridge. One night she attends her first poetry reading. In a packed, darkened room on campus, she witnesses a visiting poet deliver powerful verses. The experience changes her forever.

It is true that when Dorothy Livesay stood under a single spotlight and read “The Unquiet Bed,” the last stanza ripped through my heart: The woman I am / is not what you see / move over love / make room for me.

After the reading, I went back to residence and wrote a poem. Livesay’s words and courage had ignited my voice. I played less backgammon and started attending readings whenever I learned of them. I paid attention to local poets and the magazines that were publishing them. It took more than a few years, but eventually I was grateful to have my work published in local venues such as Bywords and Arc.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since?

The Dorothy Livesay reading prompted me to take a contemporary Canadian poetry course in my last year at the University of Ottawa. It was insightful, although the canon taught consisted of largely male poets, with little diversity. But one of the assignments was to write a review of a chapbook and I was assigned The Chemistry of Instruments by Jane Jordan. From the opening poem, “Ottawa,” to the last one, “Brass Notes,” the stanzas spoke to me in truths I’d rarely encountered. Like Dorothy Livesay’s words, but even more intense. As in: gestures are the poem / you write / to tell me / the world is fragile (from “Brass Notes.”)

I felt Jane Jordan was addressing me in very precise terms. The poems I was drafting in my notebooks exposed my own fragility as a hyper-sensitive twenty-year-old trying to find her place in the world. I later learned from rob mclennan’s writings that Jane Jordan had been a legend in the Ottawa poetry community.

From the monumental shift I experienced in Ottawa (finding my voice and the courage to express my deepest feelings), I then shifted many times over. In Montréal I discovered poets such as Robyn Sarah and Carmine Starnino who led me into thinking more deeply about the language and architecture of poetry, the exciting possibilities around metaphor and compression.

After meeting my partner, who grew up in Argentina, and spending time there with him, I went on a Latin American reading spree and shifted again, influenced by Borges, Bolaño, and Parra among others. I started writing a novel set in the region that featured Delmira Agustini, the Uruguayan poet who was murdered by her ex when she was twenty-seven. Her work inspired me to compose a sequence of glosas that made their way into my first collection of poetry, Signs of Subversive Innocents (Signature Editions, 2014) and also, my second collection, Not in Vain You’ve Sent Me Light (Guernica Editions, 2021.)

All along, I took a number of workshops with poets such as Mary di Michele, a fine Montréal poet, or Jan Zwicky whose work reflects her deep connection to music. These poets prompted me to reconsider and refine my poetry. I think I’m like most writers in that we’re constantly developing as we read and learn from the works of others.

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

Thinking back to my years in Ottawa, I feel there was an interesting collision of influences that fostered creative life. The population includes many students who are largely transient (like I was) so there’s a youthful influence which expresses a certain subversion or resistance to the status quo and accepts the outsider status that so many of us share. That’s important for artists, I think.

Ottawa seemed less alienating than other urban settings and offered me a relatively safe space in which my origins as the daughter of war refugees from Estonia and our family history of displacement were generally accepted, if not always fully understood. Then there’s the international representation through the embassies and government work. I met students from Africa at the University of Ottawa who exposed me to diverse cultures and poetic traditions. In Ottawa, I was also exposed to progressive ideas around social justice that resonated with me.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How had the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

There’s a great spirit in the Ottawa writing community. I’ve been invited to attend events and readings over the years, and have always been made to feel welcome here. For example, I launched my first collection of poetry alongside Steven Artelle, an Ottawa poet, to a packed audience at Pressed Café thanks to the curators of the Rail Road Reading Series. Later, Frances Boyle invited me to read with her at The Lieutenant’s Pub for the launch of her novella, Tower. As part of the Sawdust Reading Series, I appeared alongside several Ottawa poets, including James K. Moran, rob mclennan, and AJ Dolman, at Bar Robo.

All these poets shared their remarkable, often innovative works in ways that seeped into my own poetics. The generosity of spirit I feel in Ottawa is extremely bolstering for poets, and the momentary emergence from obscurity gives one courage to continue exploring and creating.

I’m also aware that almost every place can have an unforgiving quality. Back when I was living in Ottawa, my mother gave me Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. I think my mother wanted to warn me off falling in love with poets. Instead, the book’s fierce passion moved and inspired me.

Later I was shocked to learn that after 2,000 copies of By Grand Central Station… were first published in London in 1945, Smart’s mother had all six copies on the shelf of an Ottawa bookstore removed and burned just so her Rockcliffe friends wouldn’t be scandalized. Then she made Prime Minister Mackenzie King ban further imports to the book to Canada. This stuck with me, and wound up as a central theme in my recent chapbook, Moonlight Recipe for Disaster (Turret House Press, 2025.)

Q: What are you working on now?

I’ve just completed a novel exploring art, democracy, and how they are connected. Portraits of the Essential will be published in a year and a half or so. In the meantime, I’m polishing some poems that seem to be very political, given the state of the world. These are especially tricky to write, but I’ve always felt that outrage is a powerful creative fuel and hard to supress.

Six Questions interview #233 : Ann Cavlovic

Ann Cavlovic’s debut novel is Count on Me (Guernica Editions, 2025). Her fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in CBC First Person, Event, the Fiddlehead, the Globe and Mail, Grain, Little Bird Stories, PRISM international, Room, SubTerrain, the Anthology This Place a Stranger (Caitlin Press), and elsewhere. Her work has been recognized in contests, including winning the 2017 Little Bird Writing Contest judged by Esi Edugyan. She wrote Emissions: A Climate Comedy, which won “Best in Fest” at the 2013 Ottawa Fringe Festival. Find her at: anncavlovic.com.

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

I arrived in 2000 on what I thought would be a short stint with the feds. I stayed in Ottawa until 2015, when I moved just a bit north to the Quebec side near Gatineau Park.

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

I first got into writing while I was in grad school for economics (therein lies a tale). Months later, I moved to Ottawa for a very square day job.

I owe this city a debt of gratitude, as it gave me the vast majority of my early training as a writer. I started with various courses run out of community centres or the back of bookstores like Collected Works and Mother Tongue (sniff sniff). I came to a few Tree Reading Series too. One of those courses led to the formation of a short story critique circle, led by Mary Borsky and including Frances Boyle and Deborah-Anne Tunney, which lasted for years.

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

Literary community is crucial. Without that short story critique circle, I don’t think I would have been able to develop as a writer. 

I tend to think of writing as a conversation, not only between the author and the reader/audience, but with other authors of the past, present, and future. I’m always puzzled when I meet aspiring writers who don’t read much – they remind me of people who’d rather talk than listen, and those are not my favourite conversationalists.

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

I miss the Ottawa scene. As much as I’m still just a short hop across the river, several things in recent years have distanced me from it, such as being a parent, health issues, and working on a novel instead of shorter pieces. I am involved with the Quebec Writers’ Federation, which offers fantastic workshops and opportunities, but most are based in Montreal. I deeply miss the cross-pollination that comes from hanging out with other generous artsy types, whether within literary or other forms such as dance and theatre. (The recent launch at Café Avant Garde was a reminder of the joys of artistic community!) But fortunately, I have more space in my life again for outings. So, dear Ottawans, invite me to your parties, pretty please!

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 straddle between fiction and personal essays, so some of the latter is implicitly “set” in Ottawa during the period I lived there. I’m probably inclined to set fiction elsewhere to help keep the two separate. So that’s no reflection on the city itself.

Nonetheless, the Crazy Kitchen at the Science Museum makes an important cameo in Count on Me. The novel is set in Kingston, because that lined up with my protagonist’s day job: I made her an auditor of environmental charities targeted by the government because they opposed oil and gas pipelines (drawing upon the actual history of this). She hates that job, poor dear.

I had considered setting the novel in my newly adopted Belle Provence but, as it turned out, the Quebec legal system is better at preventing financial elder abuse.

Q: What are you working on now?

I’m working on a play that’s a comedy about mortality. I know that makes it sound like I have a morbid fascination with aging and death. But facing these things head-on, I contend, makes you more fun at parties, not less. So, my plea for party invites above stands. I promise not to ugly cry in your kitchen.  

I’m co-writing the play with my “breastie” Crysta Balis, who until very recently lived in Old Ottawa East. She is brilliant. I never intend to write plays but have accidentally written two, and I’m excited to see where this one goes. 

 

Six Questions interview #232 : Ian Li

 

Ian Li (he/him) is a Chinese-Canadian economist, developer, writer, and poet, who started writing in late 2023 after a lifetime of believing he could never be creative. He also enjoys spreadsheets, statistical curiosities, and brain teasers. Find his work published in Nightmare Magazine, Small Wonders, and Strange Horizons, among other venues. Learn more at https://ian-li.com or find him on Bluesky @ianli.bsky.social.

Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?

I lived in Ottawa for about five years in elementary school. My dad’s career originally brought me to Ottawa, and it also took me away to California. We eventually moved back to Canada, but settled down in Toronto.

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

I’ve always been an avid reader, especially of sci-fi and fantasy, but never thought I was capable of writing until I gave it a try two years ago.

My writing community has mainly been in Toronto and online, but I’ve also been lucky enough to have my poetry featured in the lovely Ottawa-based publications Bywords and The Sprawl Mag.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since?

Since I haven’t been too involved in the Ottawa writing community specifically, I just generally wanted to express that the writing communities I’ve interacted with in Toronto, online, and elsewhere have all been incredibly welcoming and supportive. As a new writer, everything felt quite new and daunting, but folks have been kind, inspirational, and generous with their time and knowledge. I feel particularly lucky to be part of the Canadian writing community because we support and uplift each other, and we’re also fortunate to have government-funded programs that keep many of our beloved publications and programs going.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How had the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

I didn’t become a writer until decades after I left Ottawa. But I will say that I had fond memories of my childhood in Ottawa, some of which inspired and continues to inspire my poetry, including my poem that was published in Bywords and received an honourable mention in the John Newlove Award. There’s something about a child’s perspective that makes all manners of experiences feel larger than life, and sometimes I like to capture that kind of childlike wonder in my writing, so I often draw from my elementary school days in Ottawa in those instances.

Q: What are you working on now?

A couple of short stories and a lot of poems, including a short story and a poem forthcoming in Canadian publications, Augur Magazine and On Spec, respectively. And I’ve outlined a novella that I hope to get to soon. I’m early enough in my writing journey that I’m still trying a lot of things to discover my voice and what I’m good at, which is very exciting!

Six Questions interview #231 : Laura Hebert

Laura Hebert began writing poetry to get the inside out and process the world around her. Her writing, poetic and otherwise, has appeared in Bywords, flo., Women's Anthology: Carrying Fire (TL;DR Press), and CBC First Person. She received an honourable mention for the 2025 John Newlove Poetry Award and has been twice short-listed for the People's Choice Award in CV2's Two-Day Poem Contest. Originally from Manitoba, she now lives on a small farm near Ottawa with her partner, their dog, two cats, and a spoiled flock of chickens

Q: How long have you been in the Ottawa area, and what first brought you here?
Perhaps a cliché reason: I moved to Ottawa for a job with the federal public service in 2017. In 2021, I moved outside the city to a little farm near Vankleek Hill with my partner Noel. I still spend a fair bit of time in Ottawa for work and for fun – like poetry events!

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?
I've inconsistently written or wanted to write my whole life – unfinished short stories, scraps of fantastical world-building, and all sorts of attempts at poetry. After I moved to Ottawa, I submitted a few poems to Bywords, and eventually one got accepted. At the same time, through a friend I contributed to an anthology of poetry. These little successes encouraged me to keep writing and to keep putting my poetry out there, a little bit at a time.

I also volunteered at VerseFest and attended the Writers’ Festival. Events like these exposed me to the writing community here in Ottawa.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
I am, at heart, a self-conscious observer and a tentative introvert. Writing has been a personal undertaking for the most part. Writing as a community activity for me started with an occasional writing group made up of me and three of my close friends, encouraging each other, responding to prompts, and just trying things out. 

Here in Ottawa, writing as community happened through festivals and attending readings, and reading myself a few times. The first time I read my work aloud to people was through a flo. launch. That, I think, signalled a shift for me, to thinking about writing not just as the act of creating and expressing, but taking the further step into sharing (in person!) and being truly vulnerable. That is in part what my poetry is for: I am sharing bits of myself and hoping it resonates with someone in some way. I’ve also joined a creative writing group in my town to continue building community into my writing practice.

I’m somewhat on the periphery, popping in here and there, but even so, the community here is very open and welcoming. For me, Ottawa is the community in which I am becoming a writer, a poet, and I’m very grateful for that.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Like my hometown Winnipeg, Ottawa is a small big city. That’s part of why I feel at home here. And I think what that means for writers and other creators is that it feels warm and accessible. It isn’t as daunting or perhaps disconnected as I imagine it might be in our country’s bigger cities. But at the same time, Ottawa is big enough that there is variety, and there is always more to discover and contribute to.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, its environment, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?
Yes, in the sense that my environment inspires and feeds into my writing. When I lived in the city, I walked everywhere I could, and during those times I was also thinking and observing, feeling and avoiding my emotions. So, the canal and trees and squirrels and cracks in the sidewalk certainly made it into some of my poems. This is often how I start a poem: what am I seeing and immersed in, what is around me – particularly nature – and how does that relate to the story and the emotions I want to communicate.

Q: What are you working on now?
Quite honestly, just finding the time and energy and persistence to write. But I always have a few ideas vaguely formed and percolating. Right now, poems around existential guilt and hope and, always, birds.

Six Questions interview #230 : Bohdana Sereda

Bohdana Sereda is a writer residing in Ottawa. Born and raised in Ukraine, she started her creative journey in middle school. Bohdana aims to share stories inspired by her life experiences and topics of personal growth. Currently, she is working on two poetry collections, one of which is dedicated to Ukraine. 

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

I have lived in Ottawa since October 2020, when I moved to Canada for my master’s degree. The decision to permanently cross the ocean was taken in September 2019 after three months spent in Ottawa on a research internship. Before the internship, I had barely heard about Ottawa, but now I can call it my Canadian home!

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

My earliest memory of writing is a snapshot of a four-line poem I dedicated to my first year of school. I have enjoyed reading and writing for as long as I can remember, even though one of my third-grade teachers told me that I’m better at math than writing. Luckily, it didn’t stop me from exploring poetry, short fiction, and fanfiction in my teenage years – as it turns out, I was much better able to deal with emotions by writing them down and finding intricate words to describe them, rather than through solving equations!

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

Throughout my time in Ottawa, I had several updates in my thinking regarding what writing can achieve. But it is also worth noting that I haven’t been writing consistently for almost six years before restarting my writing journey in 2023, here, in Ottawa. And this new beginning is partially thanks to the all-welcoming and diverse local community. My interest in sharing my work with literary journals was sparked by a flo. lit mag, a copy of which I saw at the Art House Café.

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

Due to Ottawa’s governmental influence, many authors are deeply involved in their communities and draw inspiration for their writing and art from social issues. I don’t know if there are any statistics to support or contradict my observation, and I haven’t lived in any other Canadian city. Still, I find it incredible when people care about their social and political lives and actively express those concerns through art! 

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’ve recently started a bi-annual zine about everything, STEPPE, and many ideas for topics come to me when I walk through the streets of Ottawa. This also helps me include Ottawa in the zine. I would love for Ottawa to become even more artsy, and I would love for myself to be a drop in the ocean of its art scene! 

Q: What are you working on now?

Too many things at once, to be honest! Most of my current draft writing focuses on Ukraine as I aim to share Ukrainian culture and experiences with my readers. Then, there is STEPPE. Then, there are little projects, like starting a Ukrainian book club. I’ve also just finished a series of writing workshops with Westboro Books. I think I need more hours in the day…

Six Questions interview #229 : Carter Vance

Carter Vance is a writer and poet originally from Cobourg, Ontario, currently resident in Gatineau, Quebec. His work has appeared in such publications as The Smart Set, Contemporary Verse 2 and A Midwestern Review, amongst others.  His debut novel, Smaller Animals, will be released in November 2025.

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

I first moved to Ottawa in 2010, to attend school at the University of Ottawa. Since then, I’ve moved back and forth out of Ottawa and the area several times for education and employment. I most recently moved back to the area at the beginning of 2021 and moved to where I currently live (in the Aylmer area of Gatineau) in 2022.

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

I was originally from Cobourg, Ontario, a small but growing city on the shores of Lake Ontario, about an hour outside of Toronto. I was an avid reader from an early age, and first started showcasing my writing at readings at my high school and at local coffee shops, with the encouragement of a teacher. My earliest recognition came in the form of an award from a writing contest at the Cobourg Public Library.

When I first moved to Ottawa, I actually was not actively involved in writing for several years, as I was more focused on my studies and on other adventures such as debating and campus politics.  But I’ve actually gotten more involved since moving back the area, especially through some friends of mine who are also writers.

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

The initial manuscript for this novel given more shape by comments from a number of local readers, including my good friend  Chuqiao Yang  (who recently had a poetry book of her own published, which is nominated for an Ottawa Book Award!). One of the largest challenges in writing the novel  that getting that feedback and input on helped with was getting the balance of character development and plot action right. The novel is on the shorter side and I struggled with making sure it was long enough to convey what I wanted to convey but short enough to be quick read and not overlong with subplots. There were some sections that I removed in the name of not being extraneous or adding incident for its own sake. The process of being in a community has helped me refine more as a writer, but also as a reader, in terms of knowing myself, my tastes and blindspots more, and being more comfortable writing from a direct place.

This is somewhat different than previous short stories that I have published tended more towards a dryer, understated style that I have written in since my initial high school exposure to Raymond Carver. Smaller Animals is my attempt to be more directly emotional vein and be more generous to my characters. Whether I succeeded in that is largely up to the reader to determine, but I don’t know I would have written in this way without community support.

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

Politics is often written about in terms of the top players, the Prime Ministers and Presidents, even though so much of the actual work takes place at the level of largely invisible and often-maligned staffers. This novel is an attempt to shed light on and humanize them, particularly those early in their careers who are the least likely to be known in and of themselves. It’s those sorts of experiences I could only have had in Ottawa that make the novel what it is. The ability to connect the literary with the political, as well as the unique blend of cultures, languages and experiences make Ottawa a special place I’ve continued coming back to.

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?

Smaller Animals is my first full-length novel, following a series of short story publications and poetry chapbooks. I have previously worked as a policy analyst and legislative assistant on Parliament Hill, within provincial and federal governments, as well as on a number of projects internationally. The novel is primarily informed by my experiences on the Hill, as well as being active in the political life of Ottawa as a city.

The first draft of the novel was written in 2019, during a time I was working on a development project overseas. The separation from my previous life in Ottawa gave me the chance to reflect on what the city and its people had meant to me and develop the themes and characters in the novel. I felt that I wanted to capture and preserve some of what had happened to me and my peers in a form that could speak to others.

Q: What are you working on now?

In turning my mind to future projects, I have an idea for a historical novel set around the construction and fall of the Berlin Wall that I’ve been considering writing for a long time. Perhaps having this initial novel published will be the spur that finally causes me to put pen to paper on it, but I feel like I should do more research on the topic first.  I’m also continuing to write poetry and the occasional piece of creative non-fiction.

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.

Six Questions interview #225 : Veena Gokhale

Veena Gokhale, an immigrant shape shifter, has worked as a journalist, teacher, literary curator, and in the non-profit sector. She has also given Indian cooking classes in French and English. She has published three works of fiction — Bombay Wali and Other Stories, Land for Fatimah, a novel (both with Guernica Editions), and Annapurna’s Bounty, Indian Food Legends Retold (Dundurn Press). Having lived in ten cities across three countries, she now calls Tiohtià:ke-Montréal home. Visit her at: www.veenago.com

Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?

A: I lived in Ottawa from late 1999 to early 2005. My partner, Marc-Antoine, and I, moved there from Vancouver. We wanted to move back East, I to Toronto, where I had already lived, and he to his hometown, Montreal. Ottawa was a compromise destination! Nevertheless, it worked out very well for us. From Ottawa we moved to Dar-es-Salaam because my work contract in Ottawa ended, and I found work with an international development organization in Tanzania.  

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

A: I started writing stories when I was around nine years old. One got published in my primary school magazine. I have been writing fiction since then. In my 20s, I worked as a print journalist in Bombay. I immigrated to Canada in my early 30s. Here, I lived in Toronto, then Vancouver. I started publishing in literary magazines and anthologies and read from my work in public by the time I moved to Ottawa. I was really swamped with work in Ottawa and was much less involved with fiction during my time there.

I did, however, get to know the acclaimed Ottawa author, Mark Frutkin, here. We belonged to the same Buddhist community. After Tanzania, we settled in Montreal. I was living there when my first book, Bombay Wali and other stories got published, in 2013. I still live here. When it was time to look for an author endorsement of that book, I thought about Mark. He was the only published author I could claim to know rather well! Mark being the great sport he is, wrote a nice blurb for the book, which graced its back cover.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since?

A: I really found my writerly community in Montreal. It’s very important to have a community like that. I am so thankful for this. Writing is solitary, and an artistic life can be unpredictable and anxiety-evoking, though not all the time! It so happened that I also got to know a couple of writers who live in Ottawa from here. Both have active links with Montreal and are variously involved with literature. And lately, I met Wayne Ng, another Ottawa-based author, at the annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal. And I keep in touch with Mark, of course.

I’d like to say here that I feel a deep connection with Anglo-Canada and Ontario because of the very meaningful time I spent in Ottawa and Toronto. In fact, many of my closest friends live in one of these cities. It’s always a great pleasure to visit them.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here?

Yes, what I learnt at work in Ottawa is reflected in my novel, Land for Fatimah, my second published work of fiction. The main characters are Anjali, an Indo-Canadian, who relocates from the Toronto office of HELP, an international development organization, to an imaginary African county called Kamorga, to work in the field office there. Here, she encounters Fatimah, a farmer who’s been ousted from her fertile farming land, along with her community, and the monetary compensation promised, has not come through. The two women get together to secure new land for the scattered community, so that they can farm again.

While the programs I managed for the Ottawa-based nonprofit where I worked did not encompass the issues I describe above, I still got a very good idea about the internal workings of the international development field.

Q: What are you working on now?

Right now I’m really busy promoting my 3^rd work of fiction, which was released on June 3^rd. It’s called Annapurna’s Bounty, Indian Food Legends Retold (Dundurn Press). Mingling sweet, sour, and spicy notes, it’s an inspiring retelling of diverse food legends from India, each one paired with a delicious recipe.

The Ottawa launch is on Thursday, July 10^th. Here’s a link to the event:  https://www.veenago.com/events/ottawa-launch-annapurnas-bounty-indian-food-legends-retold/

As well, I will be doing a book signing event at Perfect Books on Elgin, on Sunday, July 13^th from 1-3 pm. I’d love to see the readers of this blog, who live in or around Ottawa, at either of these events.

 

Six Questions interview #224 : Christy Climenhage

Christy Climenhage is the author of The Midnight Project (Poplar Press (Wolsak & Wynn), 2025). A member of SFWA and CSFFA, she holds a collection of graduate degrees (PhD and two Masters) in International Political Economy, European Administration and Social Sciences from a past life as a social scientist, academic and diplomat.

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

I came to Ottawa first as a student doing my Masters in International Political Economy at Carleton U, then work brought me here more permanently a few years later. I’ve been in my community since 2002, with a stint overseas in the middle.

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

At first my writing was a very solitary activity, happening on the margins of a busy life, in isolation. But over the last few years, I’ve discovered the local speculative fiction community and found other writers who are not only wildly talented but very welcoming and kind.

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

I’ve shifted my thinking to seeing writing as a more communal activity.

Being part of this community has been a wonderful way to enjoy my love of books as well as learn about the publishing industry and improve my writing craft. It’s such a special thing to meet a writer whose writing you admire.

A number of very knowledgeable writers have been generous with their experience. I find the writing community in the National Capital Region welcoming and inclusive. I’ve been very encouraged and buoyed up in my writing.

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

Ottawa has a beautiful, natural setting that I find wonderful to write in. I live in a forest and my dogs walk me every day for inspiration.

There are also great conferences and festivals. I particularly love Can*Con, the annual conference of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA). It’s run by a great group of people. There’s also Comicon, Ottawa International Writers Festival and Wakefield Writers Festival.  

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?

There is a lovely ecosystem of writers and publishing here in Ottawa that makes me feel quite grounded. I find writing a less solitary activity.

Q: What are you working on now?

I’m working on a number of things at once. There’s another book set in the universe of The Midnight Project as well as some short stories, and a short story that is growing into a longer piece.

National Poetry Month : Helen Robertson,

 

 

Ampules of Spring
       for Allison

Soon a holy buzz will fill the air
As parasites crack open
And drink themselves royal
On the nectar of your blood.

I can not bring myself to shatter
These delicate ornaments
Though thieves they may be.

Instead, like to you, I will bear myself
To them — an offering
As every bit of me is possessed
By each piece of you.

 

 

 

 

Witch, bitch, and full-time disaster Helen Robertson is a transsexual, bisexual, genderqueer dyke moving through the lifelong process of accepting how lucky they've been; using poetry to excise her ire and sorrow — hopefully turning it into something worthwhile. Their work has appeared in Canadian and American journals including This Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Poet Lore, and new words {press}. She was long listed for the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry and her first chapbook (body of stone) was published via The Blasted Tree. They are a member of the poetry collective VII.