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I am unbelievably excited to announce that my unpublished novel, A Twitch in the Bones, was selected for this year’s Guernica Prize Shortlist!
It is truly such an honour to see my novel included on this list.
Many heartfelt thanks to everyone at Guernica Editions!https://www.guernicaeditions.com/
“It’s really important to work together. It goes back to community. it’s important for womxn to support one another”
For my next interview in the occasional series on womxn writers, I was fortunate to be able to speak at length with the accomplished poet, Debbie Okun Hill. A member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Writers’ Union of Canada, and a past president of The Ontario Poetry Society, Ms. Okun Hill continues to write poetry and blogs on her website, Kites Without Strings, and recently judged the Golden Grassroots Chapbook contest for The Ontario Poetry Society, which you can read about on her website. This interview was conducted on August 14, 2019, and has been edited for length.
RS: One of the questions I’m interested in is about poets and their engagement with the community. You’ve been past president of The Ontario Poetry Society, and former co-host of Sarnia’s Spoken Word event. Are there any other community groups that you help to organize, and more importantly, why do you think it’s important for poets to engage with their community? How does your contribution to the community affect your work as a writer?
DOH: I believe as a writer it’s important to find a caring community; it’s just so nice to have that support. Many writers tend to be introverts — they’re used to being on their own. They enjoy solitary activities like reading and writing but at some point, they have to go out and meet other people for encouragement, support, and the generation of new ideas — it’s all part of the learning process. You learn by going out into the community, you learn about what readers may like to read, and you can test your ideas with different people.
For example, when I returned to creative writing after a long hiatus, I joined a local group called Writers in Transition, which was based in the Sarnia area. It was a great group with established and emerging writers who met weekly to workshop new work. Because the membership included an eclectic mix (poets, short story writers, novelists, columnists, and people writing non-fiction) the variety of genres enriched me and fed my love for writing. Sometimes you feel that it’s such a drain to be a writer, but when you’re with other people who love writing, and who share the same dream, you support each other.
So even though I started with writing short stories, I feel that this community helped me in my journey to become a poet.
Sometime later, I stumbled upon The Ontario Poetry Society (I don’t even remember how!), but this provincial organization was also supportive and warm and welcoming at a time when I was just learning about this genre. When they asked me to be part of the executive, initially I said no, but I soon reconsidered. I’ve always believed that being part of a community makes the experience richer, and TOPS gave so much to me that I wanted to give back and thank them.
I discovered that being part of the executive, being part of that community was so helpful, because it helped me with my confidence. For example, when my writing wasn’t going well, I could fall back upon something really positive such as my work with the organization.
As a writer, it’s so easy to get down, to fall into a negative space when the writing isn’t going well, or to feel down when you’ve sent something out, and you don’t receive any feedback. But once you work behind the scenes, and you get involved, perhaps help to edit an anthology, or judge a contest, all of a sudden you realize that sometimes things are rejected only because they may not fit that particular publication, or maybe everyone’s written about apples and so the person who writes about a peach gets published just because it’s a little bit different. So, it’s another part of the learning process.
As for participating in and co-hosting Sarnia’s Spoken Word event for eight years, I discovered the tremendous value in sharing work in front of an audience. You know, poetry is meant to be heard and shared. It was gratifying to watch writers grow in such a warm and caring environment. For me, the participants were like family and each month we gathered together to applaud and celebrate how unique everyone was.
Today, there are so many literary communities that one can join or participate in. Not every group will be a good fit but each one has the potential to make our work stronger. Sometimes the time commitment interferes with the writing but overall, it’s worth it.
RS: I’d like to ask about your trajectory as a writer, and how important you think it is for writers to take themselves out of their comfort zones.
DOH: I believe any kind of writing is helpful, because it helps you understand the world a little bit more. Diversification is a really good thing. So is moving outside one’s comfort zone. And sure, it’s nice to be an expert specializing in a particular area but there needs to be a balance.
For instance, I worked at Lakehead University earlier in my career, and I was exposed to so many different people. I realized after a time working with the professors that, because of their careers, they had to specialize and dedicate themselves to such a small part of the world, even though they were doing important work. But I just feel that the more you know about many things, you become richer as a person, especially if you step into different genres. I believe it enriches what you’re doing, especially when you’re just starting out as a writer, you don’t always know the direction you want to go in.
As I’ve mentioned already, I started out writing short stories and then people suggested I write poetry, and now I’ve been writing poetry for over fourteen years. So sometimes you don’t know what genre you want to write in until you start experimenting and trying different things. And for the past few years I’ve been slowly moving away from poetry, and I’m really enjoying blogging, but blogging reminds me of going back in time to when I was a journalist, and the enjoyment I received from interviewing people. Moving towards blogging is a bit of a break for me – a break from the poetry.
And then there’s art. I’ve always loved art. So it doesn’t surprise me that art started to creep into my poetry, first as a subject matter, and more recently in writing ekphrastic poems. So maybe eventually I will go beyond poetry and move into another genre like the fine arts, photography or something like that. I know there are people who are inspired by music, and I think that all the arts (dance, theatre, music, writing) they all feed each other. And you’ll notice that poetry is changing, you’ve got the Instagram poets, for example. People just need to have those spaces for creative expression. Most human beings want to be creative.
RS: This blog and these interviews are meant primarily to focus on the spaces for womxn writers. What is your perspective on the importance of supporting and encouraging womxn writers? Have there been moments in your own life when you’ve felt the need to encourage and support womxn writers?
DOH: I’ve been fortunate in my life that I grew up with a mother who never hindered my childhood dreams but encouraged me to do whatever I wanted. The way I see people helping each other is like the interaction between trees in the forest. I’ve done a fair bit of work on the emerald ash borer, so I also studied a lot about trees. As a result of that work, I’m starting to learn that it’s important to be diverse and to support people as they are. It’s important to support womxn, but also immigrants, people from all cultures, and I feel it’s really important to work together. It goes back to community. It’s important for womxn to support one another, and for men to support womxn, we need to support trans folk, and it’s important for all of us to support all genders. Similar to the trees, we’re all adapting, but in the end, everyone needs to support each other.
It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If we’re all still at the lower level trying to get shelter, or food, or love, it’s challenging to be creative because we’re still trying to get those other needs met. But when we support each other, and provide those spaces where we can move up the hierarchy, then we find that space to become creative, and we find the voices that we can share with other people.
My involvement with the Sarnia writer’s group, now that I think about it, was mostly composed of strong womxn, and because many were older and started to pass away, it was a really difficult period because I felt I was losing my mentors. Just imagine! They had all been writing together for a long time, and they were friends, and had been together for thirty or forty years. They were very good writers and when I met them, they were very very supportive of each other, which I thought was so nice to witness. They shared ideas. For instance, if someone heard there was a contest, or someone heard there was a submission call, they would share that information. They wouldn’t hide it from everyone else; they would openly share it. And then when someone had a poem published or a short story published, they would all celebrate and embrace that. They made people feel good. If someone received a rejection, they would say, ok, well, just keep going.
They also mentioned that the writing industry had changed a lot. Back in the 70s and 80s there weren’t that many writers, so it was fairly easy to get published in Chatelaine or CBC. They acknowledged that in the early 2000s that things had changed. But yes, the older womxn were writing at a time when it was difficult for womxn to be writing, but they were quite successful in what they were doing, so they were quite inspiring. One of the womxn was I think a journalist back in the 1940s, so she was one of the first womxn in the newsroom, and she had to fight to write hard news, because they wanted her to write for the women’s pages. A couple of these womxn are (or were) well into their 90s, and so it’s encouraging to see older womxn who are still writing.
It was a wonderful experience to be part of that group. I hope I too can be so supportive to other womxn and writers.
RS: Whose work (which writers) inspire/s you the most? Or more generally, what inspires you?
DOH: In response to the second question: quiet. The stillness that we no longer have in the world. Because I’m an introvert, I need quiet time to think and reflect. If I don’t have it, then my mind starts racing too much and the creative side doesn’t emerge.
Art has always inspired me. Many years ago, I worked at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and I found that most inspiring because I could write about art and interview artists. That was the best of both worlds for me, because my love for art and writing were combined.
I also find nature inspiring. I live in the country, well sort of on the edge of the urban and the rural, and I just love the quiet and the outdoors, and being with nature. We have rabbits in our backyard, and milkweed, so I see monarch butterflies in the summer, and it’s always a lovely surprise when I open my curtains. It’s just fascinating to spend time with nature. So I find when I’m stuck and cannot write, I just go outside and get in touch with nature. It’s important to be away from people just to recharge my batteries.
So nature, art, and just having that quiet time and that space and time to think. And it is worth the sacrifice living outside the cityscape in order to have that.
In response to the first question: I absolutely have to say Margaret Atwood. I have to admit I haven’t read all her books, but when I was in high school, we read and studied The Edible Woman, and somehow it just stuck with me. For whatever reason, it spoke to me and it introduced me to metaphors and symbols which are literary devices that still appeal to me. Surfacing was also really significant for me. Atwood’s work just inspired me because of its symbols and deeper layers of meaning. I believe the strongest writers are the ones who, perhaps they don’t always consciously do it, but they make magical things happen.
Toni Morrison’s work also inspired me. Her work was so poetic, and different, and powerful, and it really affected me. When I first picked up Beloved, I couldn’t read it. I was a new mother and the subject matter was too disturbing. However, eventually I went back to it, and read it, and even though it was a painful book, it was well-written and left the reader with a powerful message. In hindsight, she needed to tell that story and to make the reader angry. Morrison took that anger, gave it a voice to educate people, and hopefully it makes people think twice.
And oddly enough, Agatha Christie, which is totally different because her mystery novels are light but clever with her twisted puzzles, the working with the reader’s mind and just her brilliance in trying to solve the mystery. And maybe that’s the kind of writing I like, where you have to analyze it and try to figure it out. And maybe that’s where the poetry comes in, where you have different layers.
I am so thrilled and honoured to announce that my unpublished novel, A Twitch in the Bones, made it to this year’s Guernica Prize for Literary Fiction Longlist!
Many thanks to everyone at Guernica Editions!!https://www.guernicaeditions.com/
I think that human tenacity inspires me. Our bounce back-ability, you know? That we can recover from so many things. And I think something else that inspires me is that we really have everything in us that we already need. Who we are is already inside of us, is already there, and it’s just a question of unearthing it. So, when I write stories, novels, I think they are about people unearthing themselves.
A little while ago, I thought it might be interesting to do an occasional series on womxn creatives. The focus is to interrogate womxn’s writing processes and to generate a space for all writers to investigate and reflect on their writing practices.
I’m beginning my series with the talented and amazing Gwen Tuinman (https://gwentuinman.com/). Gwen Tuinman is a novelist, short story writer and poet. Fascinated by yesteryear and the landscape of human tenacity, she fashions troubled characters shaped by nature, nurture and circumstance. Gwen is also creator of The Wild Nellies (https://thewildnellies.com/), womxn’s creativity collective and co-creator of Poetry and Spoken Word Quarterly Readings and Performances. Born and raised in rural southern Ontario, she currently resides in Whitby, Ontario.
My interview with Gwen was conducted in Whitby on May 24, 2019. It has been edited for length.
RS: You are a writer, community organizer, event planner. You run the Poetry and Spoken Word Collective, the Wild Nellies – how do you juggle all of it?
GT: I’ve gone through waves… I try to meditate in the morning just to still my mind, and to state an intention and the intention that I state pretty much every day is that I will focus on the task I’m doing to the best of my ability. My friend, Ellen Wong is a Happiness Expert, and she recently printed something on her blog that mindfulness is focusing awareness on what you’re doing at the time. I try to be more purposeful about that, so that when something from another project is creeping into my mind, I’ll say: “not now” or I’ll just jot it down, put it on a sticky note, tack it up somewhere, and I’ll get back to it later. I’ve also found that it’s easy for the business side of things to creep into my art, but my art is at the core of everything, so I need to really protect that.
Sometimes I do feel a little bit swamped, but then I find also that the things I will naturally eliminate from my schedule, like taking time to go for a walk, or going to the gym are very easily swept aside. When that happens, I feel everything crowding in on me. But when I make time for those things, it does something to me mentally and physically, and I find I’m more able to continue on with the task at hand.
RS: How important do you think it is to contribute to the community? How does it affect your own work as a writer?
GT: I think it is important because the statements and observations that people in the arts make through their work need to be shared with the community. I think people can sometimes see themselves reflected back in what they hear in a poem, or see in a piece of art, or in a piece of music or what have you, and then we see that commonness of the human experience. It’s so easy now to be isolated with our technology and our busyness, and our long commutes, so to be able to share that, to be in a community, and to be able to share those connections through art I think is necessary.
Through the work that I’m doing, I’m meeting so many extraordinary people. They encourage and inspire me to think bigger, on a bigger scale in terms of projects, and I find that really exciting. I’m also really inspired by other creative people’s process, and usually when people talk about that, there comes with it a story, and so, hearing those stories opens my heart, and it shows me different ways that I can conjure a world in my writing, whether I see it done through poetry, or through a sculpture or through painting.
RS: You do a lot of work for womxn – the Wild Nellies for instance is all about encouraging and supporting and engaging with womxn creatives. How important is it for you to engage with other womxn creatives? Why do you think it’s necessary for womxn to have these kinds of spaces?
GT: When I first had the idea for the Wild Nellies, I just thought it would be really neat for womxn to get together and then I had conversations with a couple of other womxn creatives who are close to me, and tossed some ideas around. We started developing this idea of having groups of womxn who would perform together, and then the idea that came to me was that we should diversify, not only in terms of the types of art that the womxn create, but also to diversify in terms of culture, age, and so on.
I remember reading Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, and the thing that I most strongly remember about that book is that I was so smitten with the notion that the womxn gathered, and they entertained and told stories to each other, and they cooked for each other and it was a time just for them. And they cared for each other, and I think that truth be told, the idea for the Wild Nellies is kind of like my “red tent”. I shouldn’t say “my”, because I’m not possessive of the space. It’s a metaphoric red tent open to any womxn (and nonbinary) creatives.
I think when it’s a group of womxn, we communicate, and we share our stories more freely, and it feels like a safer space in some way. There’s no deferring to men, and we’re like a big circle, you know? I really like that and the feedback from other womxn is that they enjoy that aspect too.
I also think that as artists, our work reflects humanity, so we need to be among people, many people from different walks of life. If we don’t connect with our community, interact socially and creatively among people, our view of the world is much restricted. We need to escape the garret and live.
RS: I want to ask about your writing process. What do you find works for you?
GT: I’ve been thinking a lot of the “why” of my writing, you know, trying to figure that out, and when I simmer down everything that I write, I think, whether it’s poetry, short stories, or the novel work, I’m writing about characters, particularly womxn, who are navigating the social restrictions of their era.
The first novel I wrote, I was very proud of saying it was “organic”, which I think is just a “hip” way of saying I was pantsing it! (laughter) I knew my characters like the back of my hand, I knew what was going to happen, I knew how it was going to end, but I didn’t have a really tight plan. I just wrote as I went along. On the second novel, I did in fact draft a written plan, so I knew, not necessarily chapter to chapter, but I knew the plot more precisely, and I had drafted out the events that would unfold, and I’ve been sticking to that. The characters do throw surprising zingers sometimes, so overall, I really have to remain flexible.
I do write the novel for the first half of every day. I find it really hard to take a break from writing. As a matter of fact, I feel really agitated if I take a day or two off from writing. I feel really antsy. It’s kind of like that feeling that you have when you’ve made a list, and you know that there’s one thing from a list that you forgot, and it eats at you. That’s kind of how I feel.
I also walk around my neighbourhood with a tape recorder at the end of the day, and I record my thoughts as I go. I’ll say, “Oh, I think my character would do something like this, but wait a minute, what if…” You know, that kind of thing. So I talk it out. I rarely go back and listen to that tape recorder, but I’ve said it, and it’s on there. I find it helps me a lot to talk that through.
RS: What inspires you?
GT: I think that human tenacity inspires me. Our bounce back-ability, you know? That we can recover from so many things. And I think something else that inspires me is that we really have everything in us that we already need. Who we are is already inside of us, is already there, and it’s just a question of unearthing it. So, when I write stories, novels, I think they are about people unearthing themselves.
I’m writing pieces about empowerment for womxn, but really about a woman empowering herself, and believing in herself. Coming back to that place where she believed in herself, before all this “stuff” happened, just having that attitude, really having that belief that the universe is going to deliver, you know? Just keep doing your thing. It’s like the thing that you need, or the person or people you need, they’re coming towards you. You can’t see them right now, but they’re coming, and you’re drawing them towards you, so just keep on keeping on. I find that notion inspires me.
RS: Whose work (which writer) inspires you the most?
GT: Richard Wagamese, particularly Medicine Walk, and I really appreciate Joseph Boyden. I’ve really enjoyed some Louise Erdrich and Margaret Atwood as well.
I’m so pleased to announce that my poetry chapbook, An Archaeology of Desire won an honourable mention recently in the Big Pond Rumours chapbook contest!
My thanks to Sharon Berg, and congratulations to all those who entered!
When I was young, I used to take singing lessons. I had a romantic dream of singing in musicals, especially ones like West Side Story. In my fantasies, I would, of course, play the role of Maria, the star-crossed teenager, styled after Shakespeare’s Juliet. If I couldn’t be Maria in West Side Story, I would have accepted my close second fantasy, and play the role of Maria in The Sound of Music. (Yes, perhaps it was only a fascination with characters named Maria.) Although my voice lessons progressed well and I participated in many local Kiwanis musical competitions, and sang in choirs well into my university years, I wasn’t gifted with an exceptional voice that would lead to a career as a vocal star. Continue reading “Where’s your voice?”
Clouds move swiftly across a gorgeous blue sky on this winter morning as I sit at my computer. It’s a distraction from the noise going on all around me – contractors doing all manner of work in the process of making major renovations to my home. It’s the first time I’ve had work like this done, so I am new to the disruptions, changes, and general chaos of living out of boxes, and living with boxes. In fact, there are boxes everywhere: in the living room, in the bedrooms, even in the bathroom.
It’s also a process that, for the moment, is painful (mostly because my ears are struggling to withstand the assault of all the banging, drilling, and hammering). But it’s useful to think about renovations because they are so similar to the editing and revision process of writing.
I’ve read somewhere that when editing, writers should “murder their darlings”. All the beautiful lines, elegant phrases we constructed, or that came to us as if through some magic genii are often the very ones that we have to sacrifice in order for our piece to make sense.
For instance, in order to prep our house for the renovations, we had to get rid of things we once valued. Some of those things were easy to dispose of, but some of them were a little more challenging, and required a bit of a KonMari approach.
Of course, with writing, we don’t really have to throw everything out. We can save those “darlings” for another piece, another time. But for the short term, we have to move them out of the way so that the writing can take the shape it needs to – so that the writing can breathe.
I know that the renovations in my home won’t last forever. Eventually the work will be completed, the contractors will leave, and the modifications will allow us to have greater flexibility in our lives. In other words, we’ll be able to live and breathe in our home, in a way we couldn’t before.
As I struggle to work on my writing during this renovation process, I think I’ll turn to editing some work that needs sharpening. And yes, I’m prepared to sacrifice some of my “darlings”. What will you renovate?
