WordWorks is provided three times per year to FBCW members and to selected markets. It is available on our website at bcwriters.ca and in libraries and schools across BC and the Yukon.
Cindi Jackson, Christina Myers, Meaghan Hackinen, and Genevieve Wynand, Copy Editors
Cindi Jackson, Jacqueline Massey, Proofreaders
WRITE FOR WORDWORKS:
Visit our submissions page at bcwriters.ca/submit.
ADVERTISING:
WordWorks advertises services and products of interest to writers. Contact jacqueline@bcwriters.ca.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The Federation of British Columbia Writers functions on the unceded and ancestral territories of many Indigenous Peoples and cultures. As champions of language, we cherish the oral and written traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of this land. We commit to uplift the voices and stories of marginalized peoples and communities wherever we work.
We celebrate submissions from underrepresented communities and are actively seeking contributions from writers of all races, genders, sexualities, abilities, neurodiversities, religions, socioeconomic statuses, or immigration statuses. We encourage submissions from both published and emerging writers. We believe our strength as a community is in the breadth of our stories.
The FBCW gratefully acknowledges the support of the Province of BC, the BC Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Magazine Association of BC.
Letter from the editor Letter from the executive director
For decades I revelled in the freedom of fiction, but when COVID hit I craved a new challenge. Enter a creative nonfiction (CNF) podcast called Hintertales: Stories from the Margins of History. I thought I would feel restricted by the parameters of CNF; instead I felt invigorated.
As the contributors in this issue demonstrate, there are almost endless ways to express the truth at the core of CNF. Sarah Harvey provides a helpful overview and highlights the importance of an author’s voice. Naeema Bhyat offers a playful look at the tools CNF writers might want to pack. An exploration of setting has been especially rewarding for Annthea E. Whittaker’s work, while many of Kim Bannerman’s CNF pieces have been sparked by research for fiction projects. Many CNF writers are memoirists, mining their own lives for material. Creative nonfiction gave Dhana Musil a platform to tell the truth safely. For Hanne De Jaegher, CNF has been a doorway to connection. But as Kelly S. Thompson describes, writing about real people—especially loved ones— calls for sensitivity. And then there’s the treacherous emotional terrain that many memoirists must cross. Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho knows this terrain well and outlines some important self-care tips. For those who have access to living research subjects, JJ Lee’s interview techniques will be invaluable. Cheryl Andrichuk makes a compelling case for the importance of fact-checking when recounting historical events, while Shanon Sinn makes the counter-argument that spicing up those facts can be desirable in the right circumstances. And as always, the Darling Axe has “the last word,” discussing the important distinction between memoir and autobiography. Whatever your relationship to CNF, I hope you’ll find this issue as inspiring as I have.
Rachel Dunstan Muller Managing Editor and FBCW Press Director
Telling hard truths isn’t easy, but in the spirit of this issue’s theme “Truth Be Told,” I am going to share my fears for the arts in our province.
Across organizations, we are seeing staff layoffs, unfilled roles, reduction of services, and even some key staff opting to forgo wages to preserve the literary events and community that we cherish. Funding in almost all streams is more difficult to attain and retain. Our recent survey suggests we will likely lose several literary arts organizations over the next year from the mounting challenges of inflation, burnout, and stagnant funding. We are already in the process of losing at least two.
In October, the FBCW launched its first dues increase in recent memory—a painful decision. We debated and strategized to make the increase meaningful, but as minimal as possible. After hitting send to announce the change, I waited nervously for the first disappointed reply. Instead my inbox was flooded with messages of appreciation and support. My team and I cannot fully express our gratitude to you, our amazing members and community, for your kindness.
You will likely hear similar dire predictions and appeals in the months ahead. If you are able, please support these organizations. Once they are gone, they are unlikely to return.
Changing the narrative of the arts is as important as our desperately needed financial assistance. During elections, the arts are often siloed as separate from the economy—a frivolity or luxury—but our impact on the economy is real and important. We may not have the financial and organizational lobbying capital of other industries, but we have a secret power: We are writers and storytellers. I urge you to reach out to elected officials, candidates, and the media to share how the arts impact you and why funding is vital. We must highlight the value of arts in a healthy society to our leaders and broader community.
Let's use our skills and make our voices heard!
Bryan Mortensen, Executive Director
The treacherous terrain of writing memoir and some tips for self-care
BY WILEY WEI-CHIUN HO
“Write what you know” was one of the earliest bits of wisdom I picked up on my writing journey. The advice suggests that if we’ve lived long enough, we’ve accumulated enough experiences to parlay into story. On first blush, memoir seems the easiest entry into writing what we know: our own life. But this can involve traversing treacherous terrain. I’m not talking here about heartwarming tales that involve catching fish longer than your boat or a family reunion that goes amusingly awry. I’m referring to experiences that make a profound impact on the course of our lives, and trying to capture amorphous emotions or disturbing memories in a coherent narrative.
I’ve been toiling at my memoir for so long (seven years and counting) that I feel embarrassed when people ask me how it’s going. What began as a personal essay about an unusual childhood slowly evolved into a book-length memoir, as I unpacked the surface story of my parents returning to work in Taiwan, leaving me to grow up in Canada with my teenaged siblings. It led me to research transnationally separated families, failed immigration, reverse immigration, and the toll of long-term separation on families. As
I dug into memories from my adolescence, I found myself wandering in a minefield of unprocessed trauma. Writing about childhood abandonment detonated fear, anger, and shame that led to bouts of anxiety and insomnia. My writing stalled. After drafting difficult scenes, I would need to take long breaks—weeks, sometimes months—to recover from PTSD symptoms. The long pauses only made it more daunting to go back in. I tried to quit my project, but like a half-solved mystery it wouldn’t let me go.
A mentor suggested that I seek mental health support in order to finish my book. I resisted the idea for some time but eventually hubris—and writer’s block— yielded to good counsel. I’ve tried narrative therapy (a form of cognitive therapy that helps to reframe harmful ways in which we see ourselves and our past) and hypnotherapy (to access old memories and to learn detachment techniques). I joined a writing group. I took memoir workshops. I hiked. I danced to get back into my body and out of my head. What worked? All of the above.
It took me a long time to realize I couldn’t make progress by sheer will and discipline alone. While
writing memoir definitely entails perseverance, hard-knuckling through the emotional journey not only doesn’t work, it’s harmful to long-term health. Revisiting memories (often traumatic ones), selfreflection, and grappling with complicated feelings all require heavy lifting that unbalances us if we don’t counterbalance with self-care.
To keep going, it’s necessary to develop and maintain healthy practices. The best ones I’ve adopted include:
Journalling and mind-mapping to extract raw emotions and process them on the page. These pages are for ourselves only, so we can be as honest as possible. There is no need to worry about art or beauty; that comes later. Finding joy in the process. It’s vital, especially for a long project, to make friends with the writing process. When I switched from viewing my writing as a taskmaster to a sympathetic ally, it got easier. Having multiple writing projects also
helps to avoid burnout. I’ve found it beneficial to take intentional breaks from my memoir project and write other things—like flash fiction or this article.
Belonging to a writing community. Fellow writers are some of the most generous and supportive people around because they understand how hard it is to write. (If you are looking for a group, check out the FBCW’s writing circles.)
Fellow writers are some of the most generous and supportive people around because they understand how hard it is to write.
Honing the craft. Learning new techniques helps to sharpen our expressive powers. At a recent workshop, I was reminded to keep in mind the three selves in memoir: the character in the story (past self), the narrator telling the story (could be any age), and the writer (who we are today). The distance helps to maintain perspective and a necessary separation from the character in the story. For particularly intense scenes, it’s sometimes helpful to draft in the second person POV. The shift from first to second person provides breathing room for ourselves and our readers.
Nature and exercise are antidotes to copious time spent in our writing chairs and inside our heads.
Tears and sleep are therapeutic. Never underestimate the body’s powers to reset itself. For the best chance at a good night’s rest, banish screens from the bedroom.
Nature and exercise are antidotes to copious time spent in our writing chairs and inside our heads. When we write the hard stuff, tension builds inside the body and writing apnea is common (breathholding or breathing shallowly). Going for regular walks, especially in treed environments, greatly reduces stress. Studies show forest bathing (trail walking or even sitting quietly under a single tree for forty minutes) activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Ditto music and movement.
Professional therapies can help. Feeling blue or stuck sometimes is normal, but it can’t be all the time. We are not alone.
As a reminder that writing memoir is arduous work, here are some examples of fine memoirs that took a long time: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (5 years); Wild by Cheryl Strayed (7 years); Lit by Mary Karr (she broke the delete button off her keyboard and threw out 1,200 finished pages); Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (9 years, and she nearly quit); Stay True by Hua Hsu (20 years); and Solito by Javier Zamora (most of his adult life).
Writing what we know turns out to be just the starting point for memoir. Maintaining momentum to reach the finish line requires regular self-care. I’ve found the long process both gutting and gratifying. Putting words to uncovered terrors has been nothing short of alchemy, a transformation of wasteland into a way home. It takes mountains of courage, support, technique, play, and rest. It’s not an easy journey, and it’s not for everyone. I suspect the ultimate reward will not be the final product (a book) but the process of deeply understanding our own stories and becoming better writers.
With roots in Taiwan and Canada, Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho identifies as Generation 1.5, inhabiting the liminal spaces between cultures, languages, places, and identities. Her award-winning short stories and personal essays have appeared in anthologies and literary journals. She is at work on a memoir about growing up in a TaiwaneseCanadian “astronaut” family.
Writing about our people
BY KELLY S. THOMPSON
As a creative nonfiction instructor and memoirist, the most common question I’m asked is “How do I write about people I know?” As writers, we worry about offending, about differing memories, about hurting feelings—ramifications of sharing our stories despite a longing to tell them.
I understand the apprehension. On the eve of my first book launch, I sat with my family holding the first printed copy. “I’m sure glad there’s nothing about me in there,” my dad said. Gulp.
Not only was he a main character in my military memoir, but my dad had given me permission to write sensitive information about him. And now he’d forgotten that permission, or, more likely, he wanted to rescind it.
So, what’s a writer to do?
Get outside of your head
In nonfiction writing, real people become characters, so consider how others might perceive them. How do they look, sound, and act? How do they move at work or at home? With friends? While in love? Adopt an omniscient perspective to portray them outside your personal lens and bias.
Show humanity
Nuance is showcased in the traits and experiences of characters that exist between the lines, in both the mundane and sparkly moments of normalcy. People are never all good or all bad— it’s the in-between that makes story shine and characters ring true. Show scenes where folks exist beyond their best and worst moments.
Assess motivations
We tell stories for a million reasons, but the page isn’t the place for a story told out of malice or revenge. Keeping this in mind prevents anger or resentment from seeping into your work.
Open up the books
Consider sharing with those you’re writing about. But proceed with caution! I suggest prefacing their read by indicating why you’re allowing such access. Do they
have veto rights? Can they make changes? Are you merely informing them? If you indicate that the reader can change or nix material in your manuscript, only share if you are willing to accommodate their requests.
Trust yourself
My best advice? Writing about others comes with risks that can be paralytic for the writing process and the only solution is trust. Trust yourself to do the good work of showing nuance and being careful by using all the writerly tools available to you.
Ultimately, there’s no one way to write about real people other than with compassion and care. The very nature of asking yourself these questions means you’re striving towards thoughtful work that honours the people in your life.
I can still feel the panic of that weekend with my first book and my father, his moustache bristling over pursed lips. I poured us glasses of wine, crossed my fingers and toes, and read the most difficult chapter aloud. Once finished, we made eye contact as I held my breath.
“Oh, Kell,” he said, “you’ve honoured me.”
Relief flooded me, but I knew I’d done the work. I showed nuance and used the tools of the writerly trade. Above all, I approached the story with love and compassion, which should be every writer’s goal.
Kelly S. Thompson holds a master’s and a PhD in Creative Writing and instructs creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College. She has published widely, with essays appearing in Chatelaine, Maclean’s, and The Globe and Mail. Her two memoirs, Girls Need Not Apply and Still, I Cannot Save You, were instant national bestsellers.
Trust (your memory), but verify
BY CHERYL ANDRICHUK
“Everything in your memoir must be The Truth.”
I was taken aback by Annie’s feedback on the chapter I’d submitted to my critique group. She insisted I must not invent dialogue, compress timelines, conflate characters, or even change anyone’s name in my book about my dad’s dementia. The faction of writers who adhere to this point of view maintains that absolute truth is part of the nonfiction contract with the reader.
Until Annie’s comment, the idea of research for my book hadn’t been on my radar. After all, I had lived the story with Dad. My notes, along with all the emails and texts I had saved, backed up my memory. I was committed to representing events and experiences as authentically as possible. But Annie had struck a chord—particularly regarding a backstory intended to make Dad more relatable.
I’d heard that story so many times as a kid, yet I’d always had a niggling doubt that the account of Dad’s runaway year and subsequent incarceration was an exaggeration—if not complete fabrication.
Family lore has it that my grandmother was divorced, raising my dad and his four siblings on her own in Alberta in the early 1940s. She was dating Jack, who would become her second husband and, eventually, my grandpa. One night, my dad called the cops on Jack, who was sleeping over at grandma’s place. Because sex outside of marriage was illegal, Jack was hauled off to jail. When he was released, Jack came back and beat the thirteen-year-old who had ratted him out. As a result Dad ran away, and along with a friend rode the rails, criss-crossing the US and Canada.
After a year, the boys made their way to the interior of British Columbia. When they stole some railway workers’ lunches, they were chased into the hills and shot at by police. The young
miscreants were apprehended and sent to “reform school” somewhere in Coquitlam.
Today, in 2024, it seems fantastical that Grandpa would have gotten a criminal record for sleeping with my grandmother. Also, who shoots at kids in the hills of Kamloops? Not to mention that reform school sounds like something out of a Dickens’ novel. Nonetheless, Annie’s admonitions had become an earworm, driving me to ensure Dad’s story really happened.
With anyone who could have confirmed the story long dead, I asked my dad’s half-sister about it. She was likely a result of Grandpa’s felony, so the events had occurred before she was born. She had heard the story and believed Grandpa was the victim, since his conviction meant he couldn’t get a loan to start a business later in life. Interesting, but if I wanted facts, I’d have to dig them up somewhere else.
While writing the book, it had been easy to factcheck a labour dispute at Dad’s care home ten years earlier through online newspaper stories and government reports. But how do you verify something that happened nearly eighty years ago to an insignificant boy on the Prairies?
After countless googling sessions to find the law that had made Grandpa a felon, I came up empty. Then I remembered going to the Vancouver Public Library reference department as a student. Librarians would disappear into a backroom to pore through microfiches, catalogues, and large reference volumes, magically conjuring up answers to my arcane questions. I hoofed it to my local library to ask a librarian. He planted himself at a lone computer atop an uncluttered desk and I peered over his shoulder, struggling to curb my impatience as he fruitlessly entered keywords I had already taken a crack at. Finally, he shrugged, printed out an email address for the Alberta Legislature Library, and handed it to me. “You could try asking these guys.”
Bingo. Within two days of submitting my request by email, I received the text of the Corrupting Children section of the Criminal Code of Canada (which was, incredibly, only repealed in 1985).
Every person who, in the home of a child, participates in adultery … endangering the morals of such child shall be guilty of an offence and liable … to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year, or to both.
Now what about shooting at kids in Kamloops?
Although I couldn’t find a specific answer, I did discover that the Railway Act of Canada included special provisions for railways to maintain their own armed police forces. CN Police have had the same powers of arrest as any police officer in Canada since the mid-1800s, with a mandate to prevent “pilferage, theft, [and] vandalism”—precisely what Dad was up to.
And did my father really go to reform school? Clicking deeper and deeper into a website, I struck gold when I found the 1945 annual report of BC's Provincial Industrial School for Boys. The school, on the grounds of the old Riverview psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam, provided “moral rehabilitation” along with industrial training and education to “incorrigible youth.” While Dad and his buddy weren’t named in the report, their identifying information was unmistakable—hometown, ethnicity, religion, and apprehension location.
The twenty-page report describes the incoming students as “retarded [sic], neglected,” and “very
appreciative of the care they receive.” Reading between the lines of what the boys’ lives must have been like at that institution, I shed tears for the boy my father had been, while gaining a better understanding of the man he would become.
Did my sleuthing efforts meet Annie’s standard for truth? Probably not. But memoir is more than historical data. It’s about distilling facts and memories into a compelling narrative. Still, when I get feedback to embellish a scene in my book, or my sister suggests adding an incident she remembers but I don’t, Annie is in my head. Thanks to her, my book about Dad not only tells my truth, it is also as factual as I can make it—fulfilling my end of the contract with the reader.
Cheryl has been a teacher, marketing guru, and niche magazine editor. Currently, she collaborates with cybersecurity executives on thought leadership projects. Creatively, she’s had several short stories published and is on a quest to perfect the quintessential query letter. When not kayaking or indulging her grandkids, she tries to teach her Corgi-Poo SuperDog-worthy tricks.
Moving beyond facts: Bringing creative nonfiction to life
BY SARAH HARVEY
Ican’t wait to read The Fine Art of Literary FistFighting: How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-do-wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction by Lee Gutkind. Then maybe I’ll be able to come up with a definitive answer to the questions writers ask me all the time: Is what I’ve written a memoir? Is it autobiography? Is it biography? What’s the difference? And what is creative nonfiction, anyway?
As a long-time editor and book coach, I have worked on books for both kids and adults that started out as straight-up nonfiction (just the facts) and developed into heartfelt personal stories, full of inspiration, hope, and humour. I’ve helped academics take their books from stiff to supple. The common denominator is the act of bringing the author into the story. Many of us were taught never to use “I” in nonfiction. To be self-effacing, invisible, absent. Creative nonfiction has blown all that off the page, and the results can be amazing. Trying to pin creative nonfiction down (and distinguish it from “classic” nonfiction) isn’t easy. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854) is a memoir that is most often
identified as philosophy or spirituality. Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle came out 150 years later. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love was published in 2006, as was Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. By the time Tara Westover’s Educated arrived in 2018, memoir had become (and remains) one of the most popular genres for writers and readers. But what about biography and autobiography? Have they become the ugly stepsisters of personal storytelling?
In fact, memoir, biography, and autobiography can all be imaginative, intriguing, and profound, transcending genre boundaries and challenging readers to engage with new ways of storytelling. Creative nonfiction can also include the personal essay, narrative history, narrative reportage, and speculative nonfiction. Even this article is creative nonfiction.
So how’s a writer to decide how best to tell their story? First of all, embrace the reality that creative nonfiction doesn’t have a lot of (if any) rules. Some of the most breathtaking creative nonfiction comes from writers without writing backgrounds: scientists, doctors, teachers, musicians, artists, and athletes (to name a few) who have riveting stories and compelling
voices. Previous writing experience can help you write creative nonfiction, but it isn’t a prerequisite. Are you comfortable putting yourself front and centre in your writing? Does the idea of revealing intimate personal deeds and thoughts make your stomach turn? Does focusing on a specific period of time or recurring theme seem restrictive? Perhaps memoir is not for you. Do you want to tell the story of your life from first memory to present moment? Autobiography might suit you best, especially if you’ve had an eventful life and are something of a raconteur. Have you researched your family back to the 1500s? Family history can be a vibrant and creative choice when you use your unique voice to weave research and story together. Ask yourself: What is my vision for my book, and how best can I serve that vision?
The one element that holds all this together, of course, is you: your voice, your writing style, your experiences, your insights, your passion, your integrity, your story. You could write a memoir in haiku. You could turn family history into a book that becomes a musical. (The Sound of Music anyone?) You might want to transform a memory of a beloved grandmother into a picture book. My very first book, Puppies on Board, is a picture book based on a time in my life when I lived on a boat and my very large dog had eleven very large puppies. Yes, I embellished the story, but it is “based on a true story.”
elements as narrative arc, voice, setting, dialogue, tone, and characterization. Anything is on the table—as long as it’s in service of your vision. Whatever form of creative nonfiction you decide to write, you must always consider the legal, moral, and ethical issues involved. Could anything you’ve written be construed as libel or slander? (When in doubt, consult a lawyer.) Are you scrupulous about citing sources in research-based books? Is what you are writing going to hurt someone—a family member, an old flame, a friend? You are responsible for what you write, so be aware that there may be backlash if you write about people in your life. Are you prepared to lose a friend or a sibling?
First of all, embrace the reality that creative nonfiction doesn’t have a lot of (if any) rules.
Maybe you’ve tried writing creative nonfiction and it still feels restrictive to you. Would your story be more effective and engaging as fiction? Would you have more fun writing a novel rather than a memoir? Many, many writers choose to write novels based on personal or family experience. Not every story or writer is suited to creative nonfiction. Even though creative nonfiction is a flexible (and popular) genre, it will never be as flexible as fiction. If you love a good flight of fancy, fiction is your friend.
But what does that even mean—a true story? Memory is notoriously slippery and agile. You might be absolutely certain Great-Aunt Maud once slipped vodka into the fruit punch at a family reunion, but your brother remembers that it was Uncle Barry. Or your mother tells a story about her grandfather riding bareback in a circus, wearing a pink tutu, but there is no actual evidence. No photograph, no news story. Is it true? If you are writing memoir, all you can do is speak your truth, as accurately and honestly as possible, with the understanding that others may remember things differently. If your book is researchbased, then the truth may be easier to get hold of, but it’s still going to be open to interpretation. If it happened, you can put it on the page. You can be an observer or an active participant. You can use footnotes and add a bibliography if you really must. Creative nonfiction, like fiction, can employ such
Writing creative nonfiction with authenticity, selfawareness, and integrity is a complex undertaking, but seeing your story come to life on the page is worth every moment of elation, despair, doubt, and joy.
Sarah Harvey is a freelance editor, book coach, and writer living in Victoria, BC. She has written thirteen books for children and young adults. Before she became an editor, Sarah was a bookseller, book reviewer, and book columnist. Visit verbatimedits.com to find out more about Sarah and her editing and book coaching services.
Setting the truth
BY ANNTHEA E. WHITTAKER
My first published story was “Concrete” in the Buzz Magazine, Fall 1994. “Concrete” was about unrequited summer love. The setting was the breakwater of Ogden Point, where Yvette and I walked one evening. Truth was a friendship set in stone, never to change. To the editor, I called the story short fiction. Setting, access to settings, and how we see ourselves within a time and place can influence the truth. Am I an insider or an outsider? Is it a setting that I used to know? Truth be told, setting can have a significant impact on the stories we tell.
When I was approached by a CBC producer on the steps of Parliament Hill in 1996, it was a dream come true. I was commissioned by the CBC to write a speech about Women on Wheels, a trio of young dykes. W.O.W was Centime, Gretchen, and I building on Gretchen’s idea: “Let’s fill a truck with books, and give them away for free.”
anyone believes the time for social movements has come and gone, they should have been standing on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery the morning of May 14, as thousands of women and men launched the National Women’s March Against Poverty.”
The final setting of our project and the March was Parliament Hill, also a symbol for many Canadians—a place of power, a place where laws are made, a place of political representation, and a place of protest. These two settings bookended our journey and became the beginning and end of my speech. The two settings illustrated the truth that all sorts of Canadians from all sorts of communities supported this march, supporting women and supporting social change.
Because setting is a literary element, the message of creative nonfiction can be altered by our own position.
We collected over four thousand books. Diana Kilmury from the Teamsters loaned us her cube van, and with the Women’s March Against Poverty we drove to thirty communities, from Vancouver to Ottawa. Was I an outsider? Afterall, doesn’t queer activism exist in the margins? But W.O.W found support from unions, bookstores, book publishers, and Petro-Canada—not just feminists.
Putting the experience of a project that crossed five provinces and a few major cities into a threeminute nonfiction speech was a challenge.
While the settings changed daily, there was a beginning and an end to the Women’s March Against Poverty. The first setting was the Vancouver Art Gallery, a place of power and fine art in one of the wealthiest metropolitan cities of Canada. But the Vancouver Art Gallery is also a setting for many political demonstrations, for Vancouverites and other British Columbians as well. And so I wrote, “If
Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to publish the truth as fiction and to write a nonfiction speech featuring cross-country settings bookended by Canadian symbols of power. Because setting is a literary element, the message of creative nonfiction can be altered by our own position. As creative nonfiction writers using setting and other literary techniques, our loyalty can veer from a story’s facts and instead tell the story’s best truth.
Annthea E. Whittaker’s writing has appeared on CBC, in Front, Fireweed, The Windsor Review and on the Banff Centre website. In 2023, she presented “The arithmetic of homelessness” to Victoria City Hall, and a quora.com post penned as Evan received 73,000 views. In 2024, Annthea’s “Fable of Katy Wilson” appeared in the American blog Writing in a Woman’s Voice
Circus magic: From fiction to nonfiction
BY KIM BANNERMAN
An email popped humbly into my inbox, with a subject line written in shy lower case. Mistaking it for spam, I almost moved it into the trash—when a single word snagged my attention: circus.
Months before, I’d started writing a novel that followed the adventures of a tattooed lady in British Columbia during the 1920s. My research had led me deep into entertainment history and, more specifically, how a circus might have operated in a landscape devoid of highways and rail networks. I needed a real nautical circus on which to model my fictional one.
Enter “Buller’s Trained Animal Show,” stage left. Between 1916 and 1925, this travelling extravaganza sailed around the Salish Sea, bringing entertainment to coastal villages. I’d spent many solitary hours trawling through photo collections. I’d memorized seafaring superstitions. I’d dug into performers’ biographies: acrobats, musicians, monkey trainers. My filing cabinet bulged with interesting trivia.
In fact, I’d started to feel greedy. When I uncovered a 1919 advertisement for Buller’s Circus in my own hometown, I started to wonder: Maybe I should share what I’d learned?
The Cumberland Museum was happy to publish a creative nonfiction article on their blog about Buller’s Circus, so I wrote a quick essay based on my research. With this adventure now complete, I returned to writing fiction. But creative nonfiction has a long life of its own; it reaches into wonderfully eccentric corners. And online? Well, you never know where an online article will end up!
Back to my inbox.
I noticed the word circus and opened the email. To my delight, the message was from Mr. Buller’s grandson, now in his nineties and living in Florida. As a boy, he’d heard stories of his grandfather’s circus, and he was pleased to learn that it hadn’t been completely forgotten. How wonderful to
make a connection, across time and space, with someone who knew the enigmatic Mr. Buller!
As fiction authors, we know that intriguing facts make our stories sing. Facts root fanciful tales in reality and help readers connect with our characters’ struggles. But while fiction is my passion, I’ve discovered that sharing facts through creative nonfiction articles pushes me towards greater accuracy, sparks conversations, and helps me build relationships with researchers and new readers. Why not leverage your hard work in a different way to forge new connections with a broader audience?
While I’m sure it was not his intent, Mr. Buller’s grandson provided me with a much-needed human link. Our conversation helped add richness to the fictional characters I was creating—and I am so thankful he reached out to me. Without my foray into creative nonfiction, we would never have connected, and both my characters and I would have been poorer for it. After all, isn’t making connections what writing is about?
Kim Bannerman’s strange and sinister stories have appeared in anthologies like She’s Shameless (Tightrope Books 2009), Wolf-Girls (Hic Dragones Press 2014), and When Birds Are Near (Cornell University Press 2020). She received a Canada Council grant to complete her novel Bucket of Blood in 2008, and her novels include the Circus Salmagundi Mysteries series, including Truly the Devil’s Work, and the modern fairy tale, The Tattooed Wolf. She lives in Cumberland, BC and can be found online at www.kbannerman.com.
Interview like a vampire: A how-to for nonfiction and memoir writers
BY JJ LEE
In creative nonfiction, interviews can energize the writing process and provide a level of detail and perspective that enriches the story in unexpected ways. It can also, however, produce minutes, if not hours, of recordings with little or no narrative use. This is due to two main factors: 1) the subject may meander off-topic, key in on irrelevant details, or provide only banal information; and 2) the interviewer may focus on the wrong topics or fail to elicit information that can be incorporated into the manuscript in a compelling way.
My recent “Interview Like a Vampire” presentation for the FBCW Summer 2024 Writing Intensive drew from my experience as a CBC broadcaster and my own use of certain interview tactics in my current work. These tactics can help increase the ratio of usable information gathered and aid in structuring that information into a compelling narrative.
Employ tropes and beats. Structure interview questions along the lines of cinematic tropes. For example, films involving heists (like Ocean's Eleven) follow a certain pattern of scenes or story beat structures. A robbery flick always seems to have a gathering of thieves and a series of scenes that allow those thieves to demonstrate their unique abilities.
If you’re interviewing your mother about how she met your father (and I did this for my own memoir), you might ask the following questions which follow the cinematic conventions of a love story: 1) When was the first time she laid eyes on him? 2) What were her first impressions? 3) What did she most dislike about him? 4) How did they meet a second time? etc. The right questions project a movie in both the subject and interviewer’s heads. And to some extent, the recorded interview does the writing.
Also, you can use tropes to identify real-life plot twists. In a love story, there’s often a second act problem where the couple flounders. So, you may ask your subject, “Did you ever want to or actually break up?”
Even good questions can sometimes leave you with only the broad strokes. That’s why to craft great scenes it’s important to focus on scene and detail.
If we go back to the meeting where Mother and Father first set eyes on each other, there’s tons we would need to know to generate a factually accurate and compelling moment. What did the room look like? Who else was there? Why were they there? Was there music playing? What was the mother wearing? What was the father wearing? Did she go to the party with someone else, originally? These dramatic details, the kind you would find in good fiction, will feed your writing and provide a proximity to the event. It can make you feel like you were there.
To let the storytelling flow, the writer must remember to let the interviewee do the talking. Avoid dominating the conversation or showing off your knowledge. Keep questions short, all the while eliciting long answers. Asking “whats” and “hows” is best to keep the tale focused on details and what really happened. Prepare fewer questions. Sometimes too many prewritten lines of query can impede the situational awareness of the interviewer. Instead of checking off a laundry list, stay alert to the narrative structures and potentially compelling scenes that the interviewee is offering or hinting at. Be in the flow and jump on the good stuff. Good listening leads to asking great questions on the fly. It allows you to follow up on promising threads and catch any revelations.
never articulated before. Repeating trigger words means you’re giving them a chance to finally utter what they’ve always wanted to say.
Employ silence. This is a good corollary to listening. After you’ve asked the question, wait. Let a person have a chance to think. Let them find the words. Give them time to react and form an answer. Do not fill the silence or pivot to a more comfortable topic. They are processing, and patience is a virtue here.
That said, it’s a good idea to ask tough questions later. There are times a line of investigation will annoy, unsettle, or downright offend the interviewee, but as someone trying to convey the truth, you feel you need to ask anyway. Go ahead, but be aware that tough questions can end the whole conversation. By saving them for later, after a rapport has developed, you’ll have a better chance of getting an answer. If not, at least you’ll have most of what you need in the can.
These tactics can help increase the ratio of usable information gathered and aid in structuring that information into a compelling narrative.
I know, it sounds brutal and somewhat heartless, but I’m not advising you bring up harmful topics or browbeat your subject. You definitely have to show respect and avoid judgment. Nevertheless, ask your difficult questions; just save them for last.
Find a way out. This is a small and simple trick, but I never end an interview UNLESS the subject says or does something that I know I can use to end the chapter. Keep interviewing until you feel that you’ve recorded a potential “out” for your writing.
Kinda like what I just did here.
Listen for strong emotions. One of the best techniques I employ is to follow up with trigger words or phrases. For example, if the subject says they “hated” something, I’ll chase that down with “What made you hate it,” “How did you act on that hate,” and “What makes you say that?”
Echoing powerful words offered by your subject can function as a magic key. Often, they are making initial attempts at expressing ideas they’ve
JJ Lee is a mentor at The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and teaches writing at The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. His book The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award.
Creative nonfiction as a shield
BY DHANA MUSIL
The idea to use creative nonfiction (CNF) for my book first struck me when I listened to Cheryl Strayed’s keynote speech at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference. Strayed’s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail, had just come out and she was explaining the genesis of her book. If I remember correctly (memories are fickle, as CNF writers know), she said she’d initially wanted to begin the book with the scene where she and her brother Leif had to shoot their mother’s beloved horse. Upon further reflection, she realised she couldn’t start the book with such an intense scene—she’d lose readers. That scene, she said, needed to be embedded in the middle of the book once she’d gained the reader’s trust. Only then would readers be able to follow her into, and digest, this visceral and challenging experience.
As a relatively new writer attempting to write chronologically about my years in Japan’s underbelly, this was an Aha! moment. It signalled that I didn’t need to stick to the conventions of chronological, journalistic-style writing. Yes, I needed to tell a true story, but with CNF literary techniques I could have the freedom of fiction. I could create composite characters, give them new names, and change place names if necessary. I could write compelling scenes with dialogue and tension that read like fiction, but which still gave readers a factually accurate narrative.
Japan’s underbelly—a place of prostitution, drugs, extortion, kidnapping, and intimidation—is not one that many foreigners glimpse. As a young Canadian woman who worked as a hostess in Osaka entertaining the country’s most powerful gangsters
and later marrying and having a child with one of these men, I have experiences and insights I want to share. But I must tread carefully. The yakuza have a global reach, and the last thing I want to do is place myself or my daughter in harm’s way again.
Although I use pseudonyms for my ex-husband and the yakuza bosses in my writing—and after three decades most of the men I write about have likely passed away or aren’t active yakuza members anymore—I can’t be completely certain no one will come for me. This is where the “creative” in CNF gives me courage. If anyone from my past challenges me, I can counter that I’ve hidden people’s identities. I’m narrating a story about a young woman who seeks security in the arms of danger; I’m not writing an exposé on the yakuza. The Netflix show Tokyo Vice, based on journalist Jake Adelstein’s life, handles this subject deftly.
To come across as a reliable narrator and explain to my readers why I, as a young Canadian woman, chose to marry a Japanese gangster two decades older than me, I include an extensive backstory with less-than-flattering accounts of things my parents said and did. Until I decided to employ CNF techniques, my desperation to avoid parental conflict and act as family secret keeper sometimes left me unable to move forward with my manuscript.
I lost both my parents over the last year—my mother just a few weeks ago. Even now, I feel I would be betraying them if I told the whole truth, so I employ CNF devices as a shield. Instead of writing the details of how my father abused me, I allude to it subtly, in a scene where I’m tripping on acid and see his nude
image hovering behind me in the mirror. Instead of saying my mother urged me to marry for money, I write a tender yet frustrating dialogue between my mother and me. The reader is encouraged to make their own guesses and assumptions.
Some authors opine that we should feel free to write anything we want about anyone we want. If they don’t like it, tough. I’m not one of those people. Even though I have every right to tell my story, I still feel the need to protect my family, which includes my daughter, my current husband, my yakuza exhusband, and even to an extent my deceased parents. And then there’s the research—which I love. I’ve got dozens of handwritten journals I kept over the decades that I comb through to corroborate events, as well as every letter and postcard that I wrote to my mother from Japan. I read all the books I can find on Japan’s underbelly and highly recommend The Vanished: “The Evaporated People” of Japan in Stories and Photographs by Léna Mauger and Stéphane Remael, and From the Japanese: A Journalist’s Encounters by Catherine Bergman.
Often when I write I think, “This is so crazy and out there, I must be making this up.” But then I’ll contact a friend who was with me during that period and they’ll not only corroborate my story, but they’ll recount the same memory with details I’d forgotten. This gives me immense validation.
Sometimes I use Google Earth to jog my memory. I have one piece, “Seven Doors,” about waiting to visit my incarcerated boyfriend in a Tokyo detention
centre. I write about the seven doors he had to pass through to see me and I liken those doors to the seven chakras. When I sent this story to SmokeLong Quarterly, the editor rejected it but sent me a note saying he’d done some research and apparently there are seven detention centres in the greater Tokyo area—which gave my piece an extra layer of depth.
I’d love to say waving my CNF wand has allowed me to magically complete my manuscript, but that would be a lie. I’ve been working on these interlinked stories for a decade. Some have been published, some have been repeatedly rejected. Some were rejected by one literary journal only to be published by another. And so the journey continues. Overall, using creative nonfiction has allowed me to navigate the delicate balance between truth and creativity, offering a way to share my story while protecting those involved.
Dhana Musil lives on the unceded and occupied territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh people in British Columbia. Her stories and essays have been published in various anthologies and literary journals such as The Ex-Puritan, Tahoma Literary Review, Grain, HuffPost, and SugarSugarSalt Magazine
ISBN: 978-1-7781603-5-6
$22.95
ANDREA SCOTT
Winner of the 2024 Raven Chapbooks Contest IN THE WA RM SHALLOWS OF WHAT R EMAINS
“ In poems rooted in earth and in family, and love, Andrea Scott digs into the issues that trouble us today with a humanity free of doom-scrolling self-pity”
- John Barton, author of Lost Family: A Memoir
RAVEN CHAPBOOKS POETRY CONTEST CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Raven Chapbooks Poetry Contest is open to all emerging and established poets living in B.C. Full description and contest guidelines available on the website: ravenchapbooks.ca
We are pleased to announce the 2025 contest judges, Arleen Paré and John Barton. Entries must be received by November 30, 2024. Manuscripts are blind judged. The winner
An argument for terror
BY SHANON SINN
It begins where nothing exists but a lifeless blank page.
In nonfiction, data can bury your narrative. There is nothing wrong with academic writing— for that’s what it is—but it rarely champions the storytelling tools that engage readers most.
In 2017, I published The Haunting of Vancouver Island. A tome of local lore, it became a regional bestseller and has sold well ever since. One of the things that made The Haunting of Vancouver Island different from other “supernatural” books was my use of creative nonfiction alongside heavy research. Determined to be inclusive and open-minded, I also wrote with a specific goal in mind: I wanted people to be entertained.
As a Vancouver Island University creative writing student at the time, I recognized that eerie “reports of a woman in white” were anticlimactic. Hard journalism didn’t align with the expectations of readers—many of whom market research showed were under thirty.
Smiling skull faces lean forward in unison and then back again, as they row diligently, searching for help, or revenge. They will do so for as long as the ocean continues to exist, or until their bodies are finally laid to rest.
I had traced the Valencia ghost story back to 1906. There, The Seattle Times only described a phantom ship. By the 1980s, writers had added a full rowboat of skeletons—but every time I read about them, the horror-loving child in me felt let down. I asked myself, how would they look to a witness? I repeated the same question again for every chapter.
Hard journalism didn’t align with the expectations of readers—many of whom market research showed were under thirty.
Looking at books about hauntings from around the world, I found most were written from the perspective that ghosts and psychics’ powers were real (categorically spiritual or religious), or—less common—from the viewpoint that none of the events could have occurred. The odd exception was the folklore and/or unexplained experiences outlook. This one in particular offered me an opportunity to create something different.
Writing mostly at night, the Work slowly began to manifest.
I warned readers in the Introduction what to expect, then engaged with the tools of fiction to better describe the entities appearing in some of the chapters.
Here’s an example from “The Phantom Ship Valencia” story:
Oars dip gently into the inky black water, grasped tightly by skeletal hands. A scream carries across the night, and then another, and another.
Candles flickered as I typed. Music kept me company. My space became liminal. I spoke the words aloud, like a village orator, adding descriptive details and choosing adjectives to match the mood I wanted to create. Seven years later, I still do this. As I work on a sequel about BC’s nautical lore while drawing comics and editing stories, I keep in mind the creative nonfiction elements that seem to resonate most with readers.
You probably don’t write about hauntings. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that draws you to nonfiction writing, something about your subject inspires your passion. Embrace it. And consider experimenting with creative nonfiction as you write. This could be the ghost your page is missing.
Shanon Sinn is a comic illustrator and writer. He is the author of The Haunting of Vancouver Island and the editor of Black Cat—a collection of eerie tales set in BC’s Pacific Northwest. His writing and illustrations often focus on ghost lore in history and pop culture. He lives with non-visible disabilities.
Pack a shovel and a spade
BY NAEEMA BHYAT
Iwas prepared to sweat. I mean, who wouldn’t when confronted with a blank page and the germ of a story wherein a version of you graces the page with all the elegance of a fried egg? When I started, I knew creative nonfiction wasn’t any easier than any other kind of writing, but at least it didn’t require inventing a whole new world, new characters, or a plot from scratch. There was a natural scaffolding of facts and events to hang the story on, after all. The nonfiction elements needed artful draping and some storytelling design, but then they would lead the reader through with the eye-pulling draw of toppling dominos. I should pack, I thought, like I would for a long day of hiking, sweating it out in the sun. But the tools I packed initially were all wrong. It became clear that creative nonfiction was more like unearthing and carving out a story than simply
arranging its elements. The same events could appear very different when held to the light or viewed from different angles. Many stories could be told from the same set of facts. Whether I was working on a memoir, a podcast script, or a creative science or business piece, a new set of tools was in order. I needed a shovel for serious lifting and a spade for digging. A chisel wouldn’t go amiss, either. And an icepick might help me shape details—or stab the table in frustration when the writing wasn’t coming together! (When I wield my tools, I’m always careful to make sure no one is in the way. A shovel has value, but hardly anyone wants to test the maxim, “A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.”)
When the story I plan to tell turns out, in fact, not to be the complete story, sometimes the digging is about
removing layers, turning over the soil and exposing more details. Although when I catch a live worm wriggling away from the light, it’s a pretty good sign I have at least shoveled down to the right layer of dirt! Sometimes the story I thought was the story isn’t the right one at all, and the shovel comes in handy for moving a few steps to the side and digging a new hole. Excavation tools are useful for research and fact checking as well. Nonfiction (and some fiction) often call for verification of dates, place names, and historical details, with more digging to clarify an interviewee’s statement or verify its accuracy. Is a place located where I thought it was and called the name that I remember? Did we travel by car or subway? To help put the events in context, what was happening culturally and politically? Sometimes digging has meant checking with other people to find out if my memories match theirs, or if our stories diverge in smoky tendrils. In these situations, a shovel and spade—plus a dose of curiosity, persistence, and tolerance of ambiguity— have proved essential. Shovels and spades are handy not just for drafts, but in the revision phase too. In a recent story— where a young version of me manifested all the stubbornness a family friend once predicted would make life hard for my future spouse (cue spousal laughter here)—I thought I’d dug through all the necessary layers, and that my story was complete. A kind reviewer suggested I still had more work to do to expose the core of the piece before it would really speak to readers.
This is another use for digging tools: to determine if a story is ready to be told, or simply sorted and classified like old pottery shards. In the latter case, components can be reviewed, reworked, and understood in a new way. Sometimes it’s enough to consider a story and to recognize its meaning without that story needing to be polished or exposed to public light.
The same events could appear very different when held to the light or viewed from different angles. Many stories could be told from the same set of facts.
Along with a shovel and spade, I’ve found it very helpful to have a good magnifying glass, a timer, a chisel, generous beta readers, and a skilled editor. The magnifying glass helps me home in on parts I’ve been skimming over from too great a height. Zooming in can make the contours of a story’s themes pop out in a new way. The timer helps me gain enough separation to see the aspects that need more work or a different viewpoint, or to recognize that a story can now be laid to rest. The chisel is for finetuning the details once a story’s outline and form are in clear view. The readers and an editor are invaluable when I’ve inevitably lost sight of a piece from looking at it too closely for too long. They help me see where the tools need to come out again in order to make the story sing.
My current toolbox weighs more than the one I first packed, but it’s far more potent and practical than the one I first imagined I would need for sweating it out in the sun.
After cursing and quailing, I got out my tools again. The reviewer was right: the core needed more excavation and revision to make an emotional connection with readers. The reviewer suggested that perhaps my experiences were too painful, and that was why I had skated too lightly over the climax of the story. They were wrong about it being too painful— the story was many years past and didn’t graze any nerves—but more digging loosened a worry that so much exposure to the air would reveal the core as trivial and mundane, and the story as uninteresting.
Naeema Bhyat writes creative nonfiction, nonfiction, and fiction and publishes an innovation podcast from Calgary, Alberta. She enjoys writing that lifts up the hood of our daily lives to reveal what goes on in the engine compartment beneath the surface.
Connection will come of that
BY HANNE DE JAEGHER
Fiction and creative nonfiction connect us in our ongoing search for meaning. Behind each story we tell, there is the greater, universal truth of that lifelong search.
Our lived truths—the sense we seek to make of what happens to us—never stay fixed in place for long. What things mean continually evolves, for us and between us. In life, our understanding grows (and sometimes un-grows) through conversations and doing-together. In writing and reading fiction and CNF, we participate in sense-making through temporally and physically more distant paths of encounter.
Fiction and creative nonfiction connect us through the narrative techniques they share, those that deal in the concrete details of lived life.
Dialogue, setting, point of view, character development—all of these impart concreteness and particularity, and it is in the particular and the concrete that we can touch something in common. In this kind of encounter between reader and writer, meaning moves, and moves us.
when my arm touches my chest. There is a yet greater difference in size now. I sense the scar, the dent in my tissue, in my shape. With this, I am indeed alone.
Over the last months, my body and how I know it have shifted. In preparing to bring something of this experience out into the open in writing this piece, I notice something else has moved. Now when I encounter my changing body, I am a little less alone. I connect with you, reader, and through you to a wider humanity of people hurting. And for you, something may have shifted as well.
Fiction and creative nonfiction connect us through the narrative techniques they share, those that deal in the concrete details of lived life.
The more we employ fiction’s techniques to shape and convey the concrete, the deeper we move into participatory sensemaking—particularly in sharing vulnerable incursions into life, as memoir and personal essay do. Even though we are not directly talking with each other, this essay, like all pieces of writing, is a move among moves along all the many colliding, co-existing, coconstituting threads of ongoing sensemaking being woven in each moment, between truth and connection, between us.
In March, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Early on, my mother said, “Talk with people. Be vulnerable, open up about it. Connection will come of that. Not the superficial kind, but the real kind.”
She was right. I remember sitting in the dappled shade of the plane trees covering our street and telling a friend the news. As we talked, I felt us opening to each other, and my incipient and fragile understanding of what was going on deepened, as well as our friendship.
Sometime later, my mother said, “With what it really is, you are alone. Some of it, you can only share with those who have lived through it as well. And even then … ” This as well is true.
Once in a while, I encounter my breast. In the mirror in the morning, while washing myself. At night in bed,
Hanne De Jaegher is a writer, philosopher, cognitive scientist, researcher, and teacher. Dr. De Jaegher coauthored the book Linguistic Bodies: The Continuity between Life and Language (MIT Press 2018). Her CNF has been longlisted for the 2024 Creative Nonfiction Collective / Humber Literary Review contest. Ultimately guiding all her work is the question of how loving and knowing relate.
member MILESTONES
Dora Dueck’s essay “Because of the Postcards” was shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and will be published in The New Quarterly this fall.
Valerie White recently had pieces accepted for publication in the summer edition of Island Writer Magazine and in the anthology Feisty Deeds: Historical Fictions of Daring Women, to be published by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Sonya Littlejohn recently published a collection of poems titled The Sun Book, now available in bookstores.
Joan Boxall’s recent article in Canadian Architect speaks to the shining future for our Indigenous youth. Find it at https://www.canadianarchitect.com/reaching-forthe-sky-youth-centres-for-indigenous-communities/
Micki Findlay’s memoir story “Too Late” is a finalist in the WOW (Women on Writing) 2024 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest and was published in Crone Rising—an anthology of empowering women’s stories from Jazz House Publications.
The Last Green Dragon by Rud Verhagen is a 2025 Diamond Willow Finalist and has been selected for the spring issue of Best Books for Kids & Teens.
Carol L. MacKay was a finalist in the 2024 Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society (SCWES) Book Awards for her independently published poetry collection Bird, Making No Sound
Angela Douglas’s second novel, The Bone Trail, will be published by Rising Action in June 2026. In it, a woman uncovers buried secrets when she returns to her childhood home, forcing her to confront a dark family legacy.
Haley Healey’s picture book Kimiko Murakami: A Japanese-Canadian Pioneer (Heritage House 2023) made the 2024/2025 Chocolate Lily Awards Shortlist. The book is illustrated by Kimiko Fraser.
LAUNCHED! new titles from fl ˘cw members
Readiness Learning Curriculum
For the 21st Century
Pre-school Children
Adelina Gotera | December 2023 | 9798871145708 | $23.00 (paperback)
This book guides parents and caregivers of young children to help them roll with the punches and ride through the waves of uncertainty and challenge that the 21 st century poses.
Bosun: Ship of Ghosts
Gary H Karlsen | March 2024 | 978-1-775-2669-2-1 | $19.95
Killings and torture onboard the Dumas plague legendary seaman Bosun. He uses an unlikely weapon on the pathological ship’s captain. Long after the Dumas becomes a ghost ship, haunting mysteries linger.
Little Star
Lauren Seaton | March 2024 | 9798882874734 | $5.00
This is the story of Aeros, who lived with his family on the Milky Way. He was curious and adventuresome and wandered too far out of the Milky Way. He got lost and needs help to get back home.
Waiting for the Revolution
Ross Klatte | FriesenPress | March 2024 | 978-1-03-918887-7 | $22.99 (paperback)
A love story set in a time of political and social unrest in America that moves from Oaxaca, Mexico, to a back-to-the-land hippie commune in British Columbia.
Lily’s Walnut Tree Search
Grace L. Darney | Tellwell Publishers | April 2024 | 978-1-77941-657-5 | $23.00
Lily and her grampa search for walnut trees because they live in Walnut Grove. Grampa describes the needles, bark, cones, leaves, and the Indigenous uses of the trees they see on their walk.
Entangled Worlds
Ian Kent | April 2024 | 978-1-7380937-2-4 | $10.00
The third of the “Quantum Series.” Contact with exoplanet scientists creates concern among other planets, and war-like Earth is regarded as unfit to join others in this section of the galaxy.
Under Paris Spies
C.A. Leishman | September 2023 | 9798859740598 | $23.98 (paperback)
$7.99 (e-book)
If you enjoy thrilling twists, sexy romance, espionage, and highspeed car chases through Paris and the French Riviera, you will love Anya and the unexpected encounters of her Paris vacation.
Revolution
Keay Francis | May 2024 | 978-1-7387781-6-4 |$21.00 (paperback) $5.99 (e-book)
Opposites attract in this second chance, closed-door romance. Revolution is the third book in the contemporary smalltown Port Russell romance series.
Biography of a Friendship: A Memoir
Marie-Claude Arnott | Tule Publishing | March 2024 | 9781962707688 |
$15.99
A decades-long friendship is turned upside down by a shattering diagnosis that leads to a transformative journey set mostly in France and Switzerland.
A Reluctant Mother
Deirdre Simon Dore | Ronsdale Press | May 2024 | ISBN-10 1553807103 |
$25.95
Frida and her husband Blake have chosen not to have children. When a stranger knocks on their door with a child she insists is Blake’s daughter, their lives are devastatingly changed.
In 1970s British Columbia and Saskatchewan, bashful Mennonite Susie gains confidence and empathy as she contends with an enigmatic love triangle and a bossy, sanctimonious mother-in-law.
They Flutter Behind You
Brian Douglas | FriesenPress | February 2024 | 978-1-03-919543-1 |
$29.99
A bold, gripping, and nuanced novel about the human capacity for deplorable acts, redemption, and transformation. “A life-changing read.”
Palmyra
Karen Barrow | FriesenPress | March 2024 | 978-1-03-919580-6 |
$24.99
Part coming-of-age story, part Gothic mystery, Palmyra is a historical novel set in Trinidad that conjures a world teeming with family secrets, divided loyalties, and ambition.
A Ticket to the Grand Show: Journeys Across Cultural Boundaries
Neil McKinnon | Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing | May 2024 | 978-1-77869-023-5 | $29.95
Take a journey across cultural boundaries. The variety found across the globe is exciting, and each culture has its own truths that have the capacity to expand and inform our own.
An account of the author’s teaching and travelling overseas in seven different countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia—a wonderful, enriching experience that widened her horizons.
Have You Ever Heard a Whale Exhale?
Caroline Woodward | Pownal Street Press | June 2024 | 9-781-998129-07-2 | $24.95
This fanciful coastal adventure for kids of all ages brings the senses to life. Illustrator Claire Victoria Watson and writer Caroline Woodward take us from below the waves to way up in the sky!
Killing Imaginary Friends
Ardelle Holden | January 2024 | 9781990523021 | $3.99
What does a boy do when his imaginary friends never die? Twelve years later, he discovers the truth. Is it too late to find justice and peace? And for whom?
Secrets of the Italian Villa
M. J. Milne | Blue Heron Productions | April 2024 | 978-0-9739654-5-2 | $24.95
A spicy, slow-burn romance about finding the courage to love again—no matter who you are. “Beautifully romantic!” and “Swoonworthy!” and “Humour & romance in Italy—Bellissima!”
awfully hilarious period pieces
Heather Hendrie | March 2024 | 978-1-7388035-2-1 | $24.95
In an intimate, courageous, and transformative collection, twentysix girls and women of all ages share poems and stories exploring the ups and downs of menstruation, from first period to post-menopause.
Bad Boy
Winona Kent | September 2024 | 978-1-7390461-1-8 | $19.99 (paperback) $4.99 (e-book)
After the suicide of an enigmatic thief, Jason Davey follows clues to a collection of music by Sir Edward Elgar—scores the thief stole to order, and which a Soho crime lord desperately wants back.
Every Fall
Angela Douglas | Rising Action Publishing Collective | January 2025 | 9781998076819 | $25.99
A genre-blending thriller about a police officer and his wife raising a family in a dangerous city. When crime follows them home, they move—but trouble finds them, making them haunted in every way.
Little Fortified Stories
Barbara Black | Caitlin Press | May 2024 | 9781773861401 | $23.00
Barbara Black is back with another addictive page-turner. Poetic, quirky, and surreal, the unforgettable flash fictions in Little Fortified Stories reverberate far beyond their minimalist size.
Eros, the god of love, fires his arrows at selected individuals engaged on a bike and boat excursion through the Netherlands. Surprisingly, his actions have unintended consequences.
The Deposits
Corinne Tessier | FriesenPress |
978-1-03-830973-0 | July 2024 | $23.49
This novel will have you pondering your attachment to physical objects and how they hold unexplainable power to connect you with others—influencing more than you could imagine.
Aga Khan: Bridge between East & West Mansoor Ladha | July 2024 | 9798332960154 | $27.25
The Aga Khan, a humanitarian, has established schools, universities, and hospitals in remote areas. He has built bridges between East and West, promoted pluralism, and reduced radicalism.
A poetic world, unravelling all the enigmas that one goes through in life, carrying words straight from the heart in an earnest attempt to rediscover suppressed feelings.
Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain
Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, Tim Bray, editors | Between the Lines | October 2024 | 9781771136631 | $29.95
Hundreds of people have been arrested for non-violent protest against the TMX pipeline expansion. Here are the stories of people who show us how we can all take a stand for climate justice.
THE FORGOTTEN: A Novel of the Korean War
Robert W. Mackay | Now or Never Publishing | October 2024 | 9781989689752 | $26.95
A harrowing story of war and survival, THE FORGOTTEN sheds a light on a brutal conflict in our nation’s history, and those brave souls willing to step into the breach.
The Bookworm and the Cat’s Meow
Jeanine Lauren | September 2024 | 978-1-0689038-0-9 | $16.99
When a cat-hating bookshop owner meets a cat-loving shelter worker, sparks—and fur—fly! Discover love, second chances, and the magic of rescue pets in The Bookworm and the Cat’s Meow.
Ten-In-One: A Circus Salmagundi Anthology
Kim Bannerman | October 2024 | 978-1-998567-00-3 | $20.00
In Ten-In-One, the motley background characters of the Circus Salmagundi mystery series step forward to share their folk tales, maritime disasters, and ghost stories from British Columbia and beyond.
Bataria: Sonic Ones of the Airborne Realm
Allison F. Chan | January 2024 | 978-0-9952941-7-2 | $29.95 (paperback) $2.69 (e-book)
In this fantasy novella, Sarah Qin, a young woman, is flung into the ethereal realm of Bataria by an explosion on Earth and becomes one of millions of giant bats forced on a life-and-death journey.
Are you sure you’re writing a memoir?
BY DAVID BROWN AND MICHELLE BARKER
As editors, we receive a lot of submissions that are billed as memoirs but turn out in fact to be autobiographies. Splitting hairs, you say? Au contraire. There’s a big difference between the two, and if you’re writing creative non-fiction, it’s critical to understand it.
An autobiography is the story of someone’s life. A memoir is a story from someone’s life. If you’re still thinking, all right, so what? here’s why it matters.
The trouble with autobiography
Perhaps you’re writing your life story chiefly for the sake of your family and want to leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren. In that case, an autobiography can be a wonderful gift.
But let’s say you want to be published, or you are planning on self-publishing but are hoping for an audience beyond your immediate circle of friends and family. In that case, you’ll want to steer clear of autobiography and focus on memoir instead. The trouble with autobiographies is that no one buys them unless the subject is famous. Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run was a bestseller. That’s because his fans are eager to learn whatever they can about him. But publishers won’t touch John Q Public’s autobiography no matter how interesting his life might be because there’s no built-in draw for readers to buy it.
Memoir’s thematic lens
Memoir, however, has greater appeal because it depends more on thematic material than on pure life experience. These aren’t just life stories. They are stories from life as viewed through a very specific lens.
Educated, by Tara Westover, is not just about Westover’s life. It’s a story about self-invention through education using the thematic frame of the pursuit of knowledge against all odds.
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, is not just a story about a long hike she took. She uses the redemptive power of nature as her lens and shows us how physical challenge can be a form of healing from grief.
As well, a strong memoir borrows from the novelist’s toolbox: it is dramatized (showing rather than telling) and uses novel structure to craft a strong narrative arc. As the heroines of their memoirs, both Westover and Strayed are on quests to achieve specific narrative goals—much like the protagonist in a novel.
Causality versus sequence
The power of memoir comes down to causality: a narrator who struggles and strives toward something that matters to them. This trajectory is a strong source of emotional draw for the reader. It gives us a reason to cheer the narrator onward. Their potential failure makes us anxious. Autobiography, on the other hand, is merely a sequential string of anecdotes. If we aren’t driven to learn everything we can about the narrator because of their celebrity or notoriety, sequence just won’t cut it. Causality wins every time.
Mastering the nuances between memoir and autobiography is key. The difference could be what stands between you and a book deal.
Michelle Barker and David Brown are award-winning writers and senior editors at the Darling Axe, which offers narrative development, editing, and coaching. Learn more at darlingaxe.com.
