Exploring the human condition in writing: A conversation with Michael Mirolla

Michael Mirolla is the author of more than two dozen novels, plays, film scripts and short story and poetry collections. His publications include a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award, as well as three Bressani Prizes: the novel Berlin; the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue; and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads. His poetry collection, At the End of the World, was short-listed for the 2022 Hamilton Literary Award.

Author Michael Mirolla

In the fall of 2019, Michael served a three-month writers residency at the Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver where he worked on the first draft of a novel, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. A symposium on Michael’s writing was held on May 25, 2023. In September of 2023, Michael took part in a writers residency in Olot, Catalonia. While there, he polished a novella, How About This …?, published in November 2025 (At Bay Press). In July 2024, Michael participated in a month-long writers residency in Barcelona. From September 2024-June 2025, Michael served as the WIR for the Regina Public Library. From September 1 through October 31, 2025, he acted as the Virtual Writer-in-Residence for the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild.

Apart from his writing, Michael works as a freelance editor and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Guernica Editions, a Canadian literary book publisher. Born in Italy and growing up in Montreal, Michael now makes his home on a 30-acre farm (along with five dogs, a cat and sundry humans) outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario. In this interview, Michael focuses on the evolution of his style, his favourite authors, and exploring the human condition in writing.

Shaping a taut style at UBC

OCW: What life experiences have shaped your writing style?

MM: I guess, in the end, all life experiences tend to shape a writer’s style. But to be specific, I can point to the opportunity I received to be part of the first MFA in Creative Writing program in Canada. The two years I spent at the University of British Columbia definitely shaped my writing style. I worked with author-instructors including novelist Robert Harlow, playwright Doug Bankson, and poet J. Michael Yates. They not only talked the talk but more importantly walked the walk. They played tough but fair when it came to criticism (more like critical analysis really). Clichés, lazy writing, prosaic poems, passing-the-time dialogue, and not-completely-thought-out story lines were quietly but quickly rooted out. At the same time, I was introduced to translations of Eastern European writers, a world I hadn’t known existed. Writing that was taut, ominous, dangerous, with an uber-realism that seemed to shine through all the dark corners of the universe. I told myself I had to strive for a similar vision, to achieve similar effects.

Exploring the human condition and identity in writing

OCW: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?

MM: If I had to come up with one major theoretical concern, one overarching theme, behind my writing, it would be the intersection between self-identity and society. Questions: What does it mean to be human? What makes us essentially human? How does the individual consciousness interact with that of others? At what point can we state that a human being has been stripped of all the non-essentials that accrue over a lifetime? And how does the concept of creation come into the picture? In my opinion, the questions being asked in much of today's literature all too often miss the point: rather than asking what it means to be human, they tend to ask what it means to be this or that -- gender, race, etc. Rather than looking inward to see what’s essential and what isn’t, there’s a tendency to be directed outwards, looking to place blame elsewhere. Another theme or concern is the relationship between creator (author) and created (character), the writing process itself, the building of worlds rather than describing an already-constructed one. These are images, issues and thematic elements that run through much of my writing.

Michael Mirolla's Holy Trinity

OCW: Which authors and/or types of books do you like to read? 

MM: I’m a traditionalist when it comes to writers. I still believe in Kafka, Joyce, Beckett with a hint of Woolf. No other writers have moved me or affected me the way they did.

I did have a brief affair with Bukowski and I still think he really stirred the shit nicely. And I like Mann’s Death In Venice and Hesse’s Steppenwolf. And the Modernist poets shook me when I first read them. But Kafka, Joyce and Beckett are the Holy Trinity for me, the writers who spoke to me directly. Kafka taught me that there is no true continuity in life, that it is all a matter of starts and stops, of fragments and bits and pieces, that there is no such thing as normal, and that judgment day is every day. Joyce revealed the world of language, the delight in playing with words, the magic of painting a canvas, the many ways that all lead to the same way. In a sense, Joyce is like a modern Siddhartha: he created a universe where neither thought nor action takes precedence and where it is the sheer joy of creation that is important. No lessons to be learned, in other words. By the way, I don’t think there is a more perfect short story in the English language than “The Dead”.

As for Beckett, he stripped everything down to the essentials, to show that there were no essentials. He represented in theatrical terms (even his novels are theatrical) what many philosophers were trying to express in the 20th century: if there is no canon, then everything becomes the margin. This battle is still being fought today in the culture wars that are ravaging the United States, for instance.

OCW: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?

MM: The key advice I think is to have faith in yourself and confidence in your abilities. Find your vision and stick to it. Don’t take critical comments on your writing personally but do take them to heart in terms of learning from them. And never let another person’s pessimism cause you to give up. If the passion, determination, persistence, (fill in the blank) is there, then a lifetime isn’t enough to bring it all out.

In practical terms, find a nice quiet garret, write till you’re ready to explode, and then get out there and promote yourself until everyone’s sick and tired of listening to you. Knock on the doors of publishers and literary agents, continue honing that talent, and learn all you can about what came before. Success will be yours. (Well maybe not that last sentence but there’s always hope.)

The threat of AI

OCW: Do you see generative AI as a threat or benefit to writers?

MM: At the present time, AI programs are simply regurgitating the massive amounts of data fed them, finding patterns in that data and spitting out what resembles creative writing. Plagiarism on the highest (or lowest) level. When the day comes when AI-programmed robots will be able to observe the world around them, filter that visual information through an AI brain, and then write a poem on those observations, there might be an argument that this is genuine creative writing. And that will definitely impact humans’ monopoly on all creative endeavours. At that point, however, there’s a question as to whether humans will still be around to complain about the loss. I don’t believe that the main goal of generative AI is to write literature. It will then be the dominant species on Earth and humans will be remembered (in AI memory banks) as the only species that engineered its own destruction.

On a lighter note, my latest novel How About This …? has supposedly been written by an AI program from the early 22^nd century!