My husband shared this great NY Times article with me, called The Power of the Particular: My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call “paracosms.” These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient ourselves in reality. They are structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world. We carry this need for paracosms into adulthood. It’s a […]
After high school, I got a job at an artificial flower warehouse by the airport. It was my first real job. I took two buses that always smelled of coffee, and squeezed in amongst people trying to navigate a newspaper within their own sliver of personal space. I loved it. I was a cashier, but sometimes I would have to go down our long aisles to retrieve a certain colour of hydrangea or check the
Your time is coming Read More »
1) A long morning walk with my dog, remembering what a cool breeze feels like. 2) Reading the paper at my parents’ kitchen table. Opening my laptop to write. 3) The familiar sounds of my childhood home – the fridge humming, the kitchen floor creaking, an upstairs door closing as a wind blows through. 4) Standing at the back door looking at the grey clouds, smelling the air for rain. 5) Returning to my work, finally
When I say I miss high school, I miss writing terrible poetry in a notebook in a shitty coffee shop that was the closest thing to my house in the suburbs, the kind of coffee shop where someone writing in a notebook for two hours is strange. Wandering around secondhand book stores in Toronto, especially the one on Queen Street that’s gone now, with the really creaky floors, imagining where my books would be. I
As of late: 1) A short story of mine, “Breathing Underwater”, was published at my friend Leesa’s new site WhiskeyPaper. It’s a really wonderful site, and I’m thrilled to be included. 2) My lovely friend Susanna and I are collaborating on a blog, Lumisilla Mailla, which means “in snowy lands” in Finnish. There are only two posts up right now, but we’re having a lot of fun with it.
You can tell me anything you like about the value of output, of just writing without analyzing. But give me the minutes spent staring at the screen, walking around the neighbourhood, working loose the knots of a story that you feel might never give way. Despite the almost palpable stress of it, it makes me feel connected to the fact of being a writer more than anything else.
More than a week later and I’m still at odds with my city. I venture out of my bubble and quickly return, soothing my jangled old-lady nerves in the ravines and parks and brick homes of my neighbourhood, my strangely sleepy neighbourhood that feels like a held breath. I’ve also been reading, photographing, writing these days. Though I’m only three short stories into my mentorship, everything already feels possible with my work. And I’m realizing
“I remember the day I started to write that. It was in January, a Sunday. I went down to the bookstore, which wasn’t open Sundays, and locked myself in. My husband had said he would get dinner, so I had the afternoon. I remember looking around at all the great literature that was around me and thinking, You fool! What are you doing here? But then I went up to the office and started to
I seem to be preparing for winter hibernation much too early; before it even threatens snow. I walk through the library, judging books by their covers. I read voraciously in the mornings, when it’s still dark. In the daytime, I discover ideas for short stories I’d forgotten about. And last weekend, evenings were spent getting lost in a different kind of story. J and I discuss strategy over dinner, sharing our favourite parts of the
Today I went to the library to write, a new library, which I like much better than my local one. This new one has many staircases and little nooks with desks and comfortable chairs, and windows with trees and light on the other side, and a fireplace. And it was quiet. I wrote so well. I’m working on a story that has a teenage boy as the protagonist and I love him so much, I
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