Wednesday 2 October 2019

A Difficult Essay to Write: On Anxiety, Depression, Bisexuality and Isolation

Frog Hollow Press and Hamilton Arts & Letters have co-produced an amazing new anthology, Imaginary Safe House, as number 11 in Frog Hollow's Dis/ability Series.


I am honoured to have a personal essay in this magnificent collection of work by deaf, disabled, neurodiverse and mentally ill poets. My essay, "Leaving a light on," is about my history with both anxiety and depression, and the relationship to my bisexuality and to isolation. 

This was one of the hardest things I've ever written, and I'm very grateful to Imaginary Safe House co-editor, Roxanna Bennett, for her editorial guidance and her kindness.

Released last week, the book explores themes of disability and poetics, and how and where the two connect. The press is publishing a very limited number of printed copies, so buy one soon if you want to own one. 

Wednesday 14 August 2019

My Writing Sabbatical: Ten Months and Twenty-One Days in Review

The end of my one-year writing sabbatical (a sabbatical to write, not from writing, though it's felt like the latter sometimes) in September is looming like a guillotine at the bottom of a water slide.


Which means I've, of course, started focusing on everything I haven't done (like maintaining this blog). My spouse keeps reminding me, as patiently as he can, of everything I have managed to do over the past 11 months, from hanging out more with our kid, friends and extended family, to fixing things around the house and garden, to traveling, to finishing the first and then second draft of a novel.

I know focusing mainly on the negative (and the spiraled thinking that then follows) is part of my anxiety disorder, but knowing is not actually half the battle, because it rarely helps steer me away from the road to self-recrimination and the certainty that I'm a complete failure in every way. So, I hope you don't mind if I list some of the good from this year, both to point you to some cool things you may want to check out, and to remind myself they exist.

Aside from writing, including some new short stories for the first time in ages, and reading (hopefully I'll manage a subsequent post on some of my favourite reads from this year), I've been editing for poets and fiction writers, writing articles, and reviewing for Arc Poetry Magazine and Room. Most recently, I had the incredible honour of being the Arts editor for the September/October issue of This Magazine. The issue's Arts section will cover visual, audio and literary artists each exploring new ways to connect with audiences.

One of my favourite literary parts of this year was starting it in Toronto, reading at the Bi Arts Festival's 2018 Author Showcase, and having poetry published in the festival's Crush zine. The lineup for the 2019 reading sounds fantastic, and the call for submissions for this year's Crush closes September 1.

A series of my poems on the recovered suitcases of the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane (based on the photographs by Jon Crispin, who I also had the chance to talk to this year) were published in the stunning issue 11 of Experiment-0:



Another highlight was reading at the Ottawa launch of Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology (Mansfield Press, 2018) last fall, organized by my same long-patient spouse, the author and poet James K. Moran, and meeting several of the other contributors, including some incredible survivors.

James and I were also recently interviewed on The Small Machine Talks, hosted by Amanda Earl.

Many other things have happened during the past 11 months, both good and bad, but the most important thing about this time away from my regular day job has been the opportunity tosometimes, at leaststop, and breath, and think, and recover. I realize how privileged I am to have had the opportunity to do this. So I'm trying not to feel I've wasted it by not managing to do absolutely everything a human could do in one year.


Crazy / Mad: my first poetry book, out spring 2024!

The start of a new year feels like the perfect time to announce my forthcoming poetry book, Crazy / Mad, will be available in spring 2024 fr...