Poetry

Stephanie Bolster, Governor General's Award-winning poet, discusses her evolution from lyric poems to long forms, driven by a desire to challenge herself. She explores breaking open the craft of writing to express contemporary life's mess and overwhelm. Bolster reflects on recurring themes of time, ekphrastic work, and place, while sharing thoughts on genre-bending literature and AI's potential in poetry, where glitches prove more interesting than successes.

Poet Kim Mannix is the author of Confirm Humanity. Kim discusses how to evolve as a poet, her writing evolution through practice, workshops, mentorship, and broad reading. Common themes across her work include outrage, finding joy amid negativity, memory, nature's awe, and family. She uses social media for connection rather than promotion, views generative AI as a threat to writers, and edits selectively—avoiding over-editing first drafts while refining individual words and p

In a recent podcast episode, poet Natalie Lim showed how poetry can be both accessible and deep. We've created seven lesson from her interview on how poets can create meaningful work connecting readers to universal human experiences while remaining technically accomplished and emotionally resonant. The lessons explore rooting work in personal grief, balancing vulnerability with care, innovating with form, maintaining accessibility, blending cosmic and intimate scales, and cre

In Conor Mc Donnell On process and practice: The evolving work of a writer, Conor shares his evolution as a writer, shaped by courses, retreats, and constant reading. He holds a strong stance against gen AI, viewing it as a threat to creativity and human decision-making, citing its potential for error and its "triad of laziness, 'efficiencies,' and 'what-the-hell' planning." He shares his approach to writing, which involves editing as he writes and working on multiple project

Lynn Tait on poetry as an evolving craft. Lynn's writing is heavily influenced by a difficult childhood and a family tragedy, which shaped her use of figurative language and her focus on themes of grief and loss. Her style has evolved over 50 years through a combination of reading, writing groups, and workshops. She is now deliberately shifting away from writing about toxic relationships and is focusing on themes of change and human connection.

Lorne Daniel is a poet who finds clarity through life and place. His style prioritizes clarity and narrative, influenced by life experiences and mentors like Al Purdy. Their work explores themes of place, time, and the human condition, and his latest collection is What is Broken Binds Us. Lorne views the creative process is one of discovery, with free-flowing first drafts followed by editing. Lorne engages with social media to build community but are selective about which pla

Professor Gregory Betts sees writing as a communal and social act, a belief shaped by his Nova Scotian roots and a musical subculture. He encourages writers to create communities and to support each other. Regarding generative AI, Betts believes it will transform literature as profoundly as photography transformed visual art, forcing human writers to find new creative territories beyond what a machine can produce.

Poet Julia Webb discusses the influences on her writing, which include a childhood spent reading to escape a "noisy and dysfunctional family," her rural UK upbringing, and the profound losses of loved ones. Webb, a self-described "life-long learner," emphasizes the importance of reading widely and seeking critique to improve her craft. She notes that her work often explores recurring themes like family dynamics, girlhood, loss, and grief.

Neurodivergent SFF author Melanie Marttila says a 2021 autism diagnosis helped her reclaim her authentic voice and take creative risks. She was influenced by a supportive undergraduate community and a graduate school advisor who disparaged her "fantastical nonsense." Melanie identifies as a plantser, combining plotting and pantsing for her long-form fiction. She finds AI to be "a menace, but selectively useful," due to ethical and environmental concerns, but says it's useful