Writing the body: Mallory Tater on identity, systems, and creative survival

Author Mallory Tater

Mallory Tater is the author of four books: This Will Be Good: Poems (Book*Hug Press, 2018), The Birth Yard: A Novel (HarperCollins, 2020), Lockers are for Bearcats Only: Poems (Forthcoming, Palimpsest 2026), and Soft Tissue: A Novel (forthcoming, ECW, 2027). She was the publisher of Rahila’s Ghost Press, a now-retired chapbook press.

Mallory currently lives in Vancouver, where she teaches at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing. In this interview, Mallory discusses the shift from childhood maximalism to a precise, rhythmic drafting style and writing the body. You can find Mallory at her website linked above and on Instagram.

From childhood maximalism to modern diction

OCW: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how? Through writing experience? Reading a lot? Writing courses or communities?

MT: A combination, or something else? I am so fortunate to have had many professional, community-oriented and experiential moments continue to shift, shape and deepen both my writing and my writing practice. I can map the evolution and revisiting that path brings me a lot of joy.

As a child, I was an absolute maximalist—my teachers used to tell my parents I could never write a sentence without two adverbs and two adjectives and I loved being colourful and decadent with language! As I matured through adolescence and into my early twenties, my diction settled into a more concrete, comfortable place of saying what I mean and relying on a tighter economy of language. I now write what I want to write. In my poems, I don’t shy away from nostalgic allusion and if the adverbs feel earned, I let them spark across the page.

The privilege of studying creative writing in post-secondary education, belonging to and hosting writing workshops in my home or online with friends, and teaching at the post-secondary level keep me reading widely and this helps fuel welcomed shifts to my voice, interests and stylistic choices as I go.

 Writing the body against patriarchal structures

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

MT: I always write toward questions I want to answer. In all my books—poetry or fiction—I am intrigued by how patriarchal structures influence the body, identity, and community. My writing frequently examines the lasting impacts of girlhood experiences, purity culture, and organized religion, investigating how initial teachings on gender roles, shame, and familial disconnection emerge from the body.

Each book I have written revolves around a question concerning survival and identity: how we carry scars from the institutions and relationships that shape us, and how we can convert those into something restorative or artistic. My work revisits the same drive—whether exploring friendship and loss, motherhood and bodily autonomy, or the conflict between authenticity and ambition—to grasp what it signifies to live purposefully within (and in opposition to) systems that aim to limit and confine us.

OCW: If you’ve been published, how did you find your first publisher?

I love this question. When I was a child growing up in Ottawa, I wanted to be ‘in print’ so badly. My parents were supportive of this endeavour and sought out this wonderful contest for children called Awesome Authors through the Ottawa Public Library. Each year, I entered a poem or story (or sometimes, keenly, both) and when I did place (which was a shot in the dark but thankfully did happen for me a few times), I’d get put in their annual anthology! Having a program like this to encourage and honour the work of young people made a significant impact on my development, confidence and passion for poetry and storytelling. May we continue to fund and support these programs in our communities! Thanks, Awesome Authors.

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

MT: So simple—write the work that you want to read.

Breaking the inner critic with rhythmic drafting

OCW: Do you edit as you write, or write and edit later?

MT: I draft very hastily and rhythmically (i.e. that viral Kermit the frog typewriter GIF). I tend not to look back at what I’ve written until the following sitting. This way, I can’t prejudge and I can achieve a rhapsodic and generative flow that contains surprise, forks in the road and possibility. I return to the lively mess with fresh eyes later. For me, this helps avoid the inner critic and keeps the writing process propulsive, fun and meditative.