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“I think I was a bad writer before I discovered that I could use humor effectively and that I could use it at all. Being able to crack into just something and use humor kind of broke open a little bit of a creative gate that was really holding me back.” In this episode, Dina Del Bucchia discusses developing her own comedic voice outside an academic setting and bringing humour to cultural critique. She discusses: 1:39 | Marrying humour to the emotional core of the story3:15 | Encouraging students to write comedy that “punches up” in her introduction to comedic forms class6:09 | How seeing Wooly Mammoth skeletons at Whitehorse’s Beringia Interpretive Centre inspired her to write her collection “It's a Big Deal!”8:44 | Writing about class from a working class perspective, and selling $40 business books that will never be released in paperback12:43 | Her story collection “Don’t Tell Me What to Do” and writing women’s anger15:20 | Getting students to write song lyrics in class and the unexpected pandemic content it produced18:22 | Hosting the podcast Can’t Lit and giving a platform to writers from smaller presses Guest Bio: Dina Del Bucchia is the author of three collections of poetry, Coping with Emotions and Otters (Talonbooks, 2013), Blind Items (Insomniac Press, 2014), and Rom Com (Talonbooks, 2015), written with Daniel Zomparelli. She also hosts Can’t Lit, a podcast on Canadian literature and culture, with Jen Sookfong Lee. Her short story, "Under the 'I'," was a finalist for the Writers' Trust RBC Bronwen Wallace Award in 2012. Her first collection of short stories, Don’t Tell Me What to Do, was  published in fall 2017 with Arsenal Pulp Press. She is a senior editor of Poetry Is Dead magazine and is the Artistic Director of the Real Vancouver Writers' Series. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she currently is an instructor.   About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more free writing and teaching tips from Dina Del Bucchia at: tnq.ca/parallel You can find Dina’s work here:  It’s a Big Deal!  Don't Tell Me What to Do  Rom Com Blind Items Coping with Emotions and Otters

“You want to be continually energized by your students. And that's really the dance of mentorship. And that's the gift of mentorship, is that when you finally get an afternoon to return to your own work, you're going with that hunger that they showed you all the time.” In this episode, Richard Van Camp discusses his life’s work as a storyteller and writer to pass on teachings for the next generation, and his excitement about the future of Indigenous literature.  0:29 | Realizing as a child that the school curriculum he was learning was cultural theft and how it inspired him to interview Elders and write down their knowledge for future generations4:27 | Becoming the Handibus driver in his community and recording community matriarchs5:00 | Studying Native Management Studies at Arctic College and making the choice to pursue writing over politics8:39 | Getting to meet author and Sahtu Dene Elder George Blondin11: 23 | How he’s carried Maureen Medved’s advice on teaching into his work with the Audible mentorship program13:26 | Why he encourages his students to “write for revenge”15:25 | Recording Elders in Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan and the teaching he learned from James Grandjambe22:55 | Developing Gather: Richard Van Camp on Storytelling and sharing interviews from Elders who have passed with their living descendants25:25 | How seeing a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug completely changed the storyline in his book When We Play Our Drums, They Sing!30:46 | Ending in the splits  Guest Bio: Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Dogrib (Tłıcho) Nation from Fort Smith, NWT, Canada. He is a graduate of the En’owkin International School of Writing, the University of Victoria’s Creative Writing BFA Program, and the Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He is an internationally renowned storyteller and best-selling author. His novel, The Lesser Blessed, is now a movie with First Generation Films and premiered in September of 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival. He is the author of five collections of short stories, six baby books, three children’s books, five comics and much more. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more free writing and teaching tips from Richard Van Camp at: tnq.ca/parallel You can find Richard’s work here:   Gather: Richard Van Camp on Storytelling The Lesser Blessed Angel Wing Splash Pattern Moccasin Square Gardens We Sang You Home

“I think that there's something inspiring to students about knowing that I don't come from an academic background. My career experience in my thirties—I was a waitress and a house cleaner. So I think that that's actually a good balance to have in an institute that teaches something creative.” In this episode, Ayelet Tsabari discusses writing about contested places, giving voice to her community and how stories can resonate in unexpected ways. She discusses: 1:46 | Being Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Public Library and running drop-in workshops for immigrants and people who write in their second language3:41 | Writing place as a mirror of your characters’ emotions6:40 | Getting workshop feedback that confused cultural differences with style, and how she re-discovered her own authorial voice8:30 | Spending a year only reading books by BIPOC writers11:10 | Delving into difficult emotions when writing her memoir The Art of Leaving14:00 | the impossibility of trying to fully capture her grandmother in the text16:55 | Her research into the literary traditions of Yemeni women’s songs20:00 | Helping students re-focus their attention on the world and engage with it  Guest Bio: Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She wrote her first story in English in 2007. She is the author of The Art of Leaving, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, finalist for the Vine Awards for Nonfiction, and an Apple Books, CBC Books, and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won both the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2016, and has been published internationally. Her translations appeared in the New Quarterly, Berlin Quarterly, Paper Brigade, and Mantis. She teaches creative writing at The University of King’s College MFA, the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA, and at Tel Aviv University. She lives in Toronto. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. If you like our podcast, please leave a review—it really helps other listeners find our show! Thank you! Visit TNQ.ca to access more of Ayelet’s writing and teaching tips, including web extras about the vulnerability required by creative non-fiction, and her new anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language. You can find Ayelet’s work here: The Art of Leaving The Best Place on Earth Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language Recommended reading:  The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez Salt Houses by Hala Alyan Meander Spiral Explode by Jane Allison

“I don't believe that I would be a writer if I wasn’t Deaf. I think that being born deaf kind of derailed me from the kind of path that, that the men in my family tend to take. My dad worked for CN Rail, and my brother worked for CN Rail, and my dad's dad worked for CN Rail. So being Deaf kind of took me away and steered me away from, from that path and down a more artistic and imaginative path.” In this episode, Adam Pottle shares the importance of believing in the story you want to tell and how creativity is a necessity for a disabled life. He discusses: 0:40 | His work as Writer in Residence at Sheridan College and how he hopes it will be an opportunity to encourage more Deaf and disabled writers to tell their stories.1:58 | The development of his first play Ultrasound, and dramaturg Yvette Nolan’s advice to “raise the stakes, raise the stakes, raise the stakes.”5:11 | His research into the Nazi’s T4 Euthanasia program and its victim and his experience touring the clinic described in his book, The Bus.8:15 | The ongoing relevance of The Bus, in an ableist world where eugenicist attitudes still persist.14:58 | His memoir Voice about growing up deaf in a hearing family, and using the persona of Lemmy from Motorhead to bring “color commentary” to the book.17:00 | Asking students to write a paragraph about themselves from the perspective of someone who loves them and the benefits of using this exercise during the pandemic.18: 24 | Developing The Black Drum, a Deaf musical, and how he provided a blueprint for the actors to interpret, creating music out of their own rhythms.20:15 | The windfall awaiting the first major publisher, film studio and art gallery that truly recognizes the potential of disabled artists.  Guest Bio: Adam Pottle's books include the award-winning novels The Bus and Mantis Dreams, along with the critically acclaimed memoir Voice. His plays include the groundbreaking piece The Black Drum, the world's first-ever all-Deaf musical. He is the only Deaf person in a hearing family, and all his work focuses on disabled characters. He is currently working on the script for a new graphic novel while shopping his new novel Apparitions. He lives in Saskatoon. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. If you like our podcast, please leave a review—it really helps other listeners find our show! Thank you! Visit TNQ.ca to access more of Adam Pottle’s writing and teaching tips, including web extras about mentorship and cultural appropriation. You can find Adam’s work here: Voice. Adam Pottle on Writing with Deafness  The Bus The Black Drum Beautiful Mutants   

“The other thing I say in Out of Line after ‘if you don't have community, art will break your heart’ is your heart will be broken anyway, eventually, but it's better with community. You will recover faster and you won't die of heartbreak if you have community.” In this episode, Tanis MacDonald encourages us to challenge the voices in the canon that do not satisfy, and examines her changing relationship with both walking and art. She discusses: 1:06 | How poetry attracts people with its strangeness and makes space for two disparate ideas to sit alongside each other. 1:58 | Writing about a female experience of the city in her poetry collection Mobile. 4:40 | Reclaiming the “Crazy Jane” trope and writing about a character who is struggling to leave capitalism and colonialism behind. 7:06 | Considering questions of mobility in her forthcoming book Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female.  11:24 | Being vulnerable with students and using her own work to teach revision strategies. 14:26 | Her book Out of Line: Daring to be an Artist Outside the Big City and how to measure success as a writer. Guest Bio: Tanis MacDonald is an essayist, poet, professor and free-range literary animal. She is the host of the podcast Watershed Writers, and the author of Out of Line: Daring to Be an Artist Outside the Big City. Her essay “Mondegreen Girls” won the Open Seasons Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2021. She identifies as a bad birder, and lives near Ose’kowáhne in southwestern Ontario as a grateful guest on traditional Haudenosaunee territory. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft. Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. If you like our podcast, please leave a review—it really helps other listeners find our show! Thank you! You can find Tanis’s work here:    Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female Mobile Out of Line: Daring to be an Artist Outside the Big City GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for our Times Rue the Day The music you heard on this episode was composed by Amadeo Ventura. You can hear more of his music at amadeoventura.weebly.com. Visit TNQ.ca/parallel to access more of Tanis MacDonald’s writing and teaching tips.

"I think it's really important, even if you are not, you know, not gonna be a writer, to still acknowledge that you have right to creative production. There's nothing that says that you have to stop drawing or, or painting after middle school or high school. Celebrate your capacity to make something out of nothing." In this episode, Ian Williams discusses tackling complicated ethical issues in his writing and finding ways to maintain lifelong creativity.  He discusses: 0:50 | Examining thorny moral and ethical questions through a mathematical model in his poetry collection Word Problems 5:10 | Sticking his poems on the wall and the point in the writing process where he “surrenders to the work,” giving it precedence over the comfort of closure 6:45 | Asking his students to write every day and how he adapts the assignment to different course levels  8:33| His essay collection Disorientation, about what it feels like to be a Black man moving through the world, and writing directly to the reader without the filter of fiction  13:00 | Taking his book draft out to dinner and the importance of recovering joy in the writing process  16:41 | Accruing a character through a repertoire of physical gestures  18:29 | Decentring the “I” by asking students to write an autobiographical poem without any people or pronouns in it  20:20 | Why it’s critical to make plans for our creative lives and how creativity is not a failure because it's a part of your life rather than all of your life Guest bio:  Ian Williams is the author of six books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His latest book, Disorientation, considers the impact of racial encounters on ordinary people. His novel, Reproduction, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was published in Canada, the US, the UK, and Italy. His poetry collection, Word Problems, converts the ethical and political issues of our time into math and grammar problems. It won the Raymond Souster Award. His previous collection, Personals, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. His short story collection, Not Anyone’s Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada. His first book, You Know Who You Are, was a finalist for the ReLit Poetry Prize. He is a trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize.  Williams completed his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. After several years teaching poetry in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Williams returned to the University of Toronto as a tenured professor of English. He was the 2014-2015 Canadian Writer-in-Residence for the University of Calgary’s Distinguished Writers Program. In 2022, he will be the Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris.  About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and pract

“Am I doing enough? I mean, with the new generations of students, everybody's plugged in and knowledge is out there. So in the classroom, what are they actually coming to learn from me? What am I giving them?” Lamees Al Ethari questions how to know when you’re doing enough as a teacher and a writer. In this episode, she discusses: 00:30 | Developing diverse course reading lists and the impact of representation on students 02:39 | The development of her memoir Waiting for the Rain: An Iraqi Memoir and her poetry collection, From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris05:13 | Writing about the trauma of war and the challenges of an audience that has no experience with it 08:26 | Using constraints in group work and preparing students to give feedback09:20 | Her experience working on The X Page: A Storytelling Workshop and helping writers find their voice in a second language10:43 | How who she writes for has shifted over time Guest Bio: Lamees Al Ethari holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative and academic writing since 2015. She has published a collection of poems titled From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and, more recently, a memoir titled Waiting for the Rain: An Iraqi Memoir (2019). Her poems have appeared in About Place Journal, The New Quarterly, The Malpais Review, and the anthology Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here. She is a Nonfiction Editor with The New Quarterly and a co-coordinator for The X Page: A Storytelling Workshop for Refugee and Immigrant Women. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft. Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more writing and teaching tips from Lamees Al Ethari at: tnq.ca/episode-1-lamees-al-ethari

“When someone commits to being an artist of any kind, they are also committing to a lifelong process of learning. I want to always be a student of the craft of writing, even when my job is to teach it. As Mr. Miyagi told Daniel in The Karate Kid, someone always knows more karate. And I want to learn all the karate I can when it comes to writing poetry.” Paul Vermeersch discusses how, to become an artist, you must commit to a life-long process of learning. In this episode, he discusses: 00:40 | His recent collection Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995-202002:08 | The optimism of the atomic age and our current fixation with dystopia08:26 | Helping students expand their work past preconceived boundaries of poetic form11:44 | Ekphrastic poetry and its pitfalls13:38 | Teaching a course on Self-Publishing at Sheridan College 17:10 | How literature can help shape the future Guest Bio: Paul Vermeersch is a poet, multimedia artist, creative writing professor, and literary editor. He is the author of several poetry collections, including the Trillium–award nominated The Reinvention of the Human Hand and, most recently, Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995-2020. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal. He teaches in the Creative Writing & Publishing program at Sheridan College and is the founding editor of Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd. He lives in Toronto.   About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more writing and teaching tips from Paul Vermeerch at: tnq.ca/parallel  

“I think the idea of an emerging writer only being someone barely emerged from puberty is a problem. Some 25% of Canada is over 65. Where are our first time senior writers? The only senior writers we see are people who have had a long career. Who started in their thirties. And some of that is fueled by capitalism. I've had agents look me in the eye and say, ‘You know, you're a fabulous writer. You're as good a writer as anyone I represent, but I'm just not going to take you on because I don't think you have five books left in you.’” Dorothy Ellen Palmer shares her thoughts on the opportunities that the pandemic presents for advancing disability justice. In this episode, she discusses: 00:01 | Ageism in Can Lit03:35 | Sensitivity readings…and how to kill someone with a walker05:05 | Ethical representation of disabled characters by abled authors10:27 | What inspired her books When Fenlon Falls and Falling for Myself: A Memoir13:48 | How to teach character development with her exercise “Pass the Pudding”15:35 | The importance of combining activism with an artistic practice  Guest Bio: Dorothy Ellen Palmer is a disabled senior writer, accessibility consultant, and retired high school drama teacher and union activist. For three decades, she worked in three provinces as a high school English/Drama teacher, teaching on a Mennonite Colony, a four-room schoolhouse, an adult learning centre attached to a prison and a highly diverse new high school in Pickering. Elected to her union executive each year for fifteen years, she created staff and student workshops to fight bullying, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and homophobia. Dorothy sits on the Accessibility Advisory Board of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) and is an executive board member for the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (CCWWP) where she writes a monthly column on disability in CanLit for the newsletter. Her work has appeared in: REFUSE, Wordgathering, Alt-Minds, All Lit Up, Don't Talk to Me About Love, Little Fiction Big Truths, 49th Shelf and Open Book. Her first novel, When Fenelon Falls, features a disabled teen protagonist in the Woodstock-Moonwalk summer of 1969. She lives in Burlington, Ontario, and can always be found tweeting @depalm.   About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more writing and teaching tips from Dorothy Ellen Palmer at: tnq.ca/parallel

“If you're going to walk into any room and do any kind of presentation, you just want to assume that people are really happy that you're there. You bring more of yourself. You're less focused on your content and more interested in who's in the room and what they might need. You go from rigid to fluid.”  Farzana Doctor discusses how her career as a psychotherapist informs her writing and teaching practices. In this episode, she discusses: 02:14 | The lightning bolt of inspiration that helped her revise her novel All Inclusive03:53 | Being respectful when writing about real-world events, such as the Air India bombing06:40 | How her activism sparked her most recent novel, Seven, a multi-generational story dealing with the impact of khatna in the Dawoodi Bohra community08:54 | Self-care for writers both while creating new work and while promoting it13:05 | Techniques for silencing your inner critic15:20 | Facilitating constructive peer feedback Guest Bio: Farzana Doctor is a writer, activist, and psychotherapist. From 2009-18, she curated the Brockton Writers Series and has been a volunteer with The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trust. She currently volunteers with WeSpeakOut, a global group that is working to ban female genital cutting in her Dawoodi Bohra community. She has been writing all of her life but it became a more regular practice around 2000, when she began writing her first novel, Stealing Nasreen, which was published by Inanna in 2007.  Her second novel, Six Metres of Pavement, won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and was short-listed for the 2012 Toronto Book Award. In 2017 it was voted the One Book One Brampton 2017 winner. Her third novel, All Inclusive was a Kobo 2015 and National Post Best Book of the Year. She's just completed a novel, Seven (August 2020, Dundurn), and a poetry collection, You Still Look the Same. She is currently at work on a YA novel.   About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada. Access more free writing and teaching tips from Farzana Doctor at: tnq.ca/parallel

“For me, poetry is really where my heart lives. And the reason why these poems are maybe such short emotional bursts is because that's how my heart functions. I definitely know I'm not a super technical poet. I'm not a structural form poet. My poetry is just me heart-speaking. And that's it. And that's all I want it to be. And that's all it needs to be.” In this episode, Francine Cunningham discusses giving people permission to write their own stories. She discusses: 0:32 | Working with youth who feel disconnected from their own culture2:21 | Giving adults permission to be creative4:55 | The development of her award-winning collection On/Me and what it’s like to write an encyclopedia of the self8:12 | Why it’s important to keep some stories for yourself and your community9:48 | What we notice when we stop constantly trying to be productive12:27 | Her exercise “Words Matter” and the five essential questions to ask yourself when you’re writing Guest Bio:  Francine Cunningham is an award-winning Indigenous writer, artist, and educator originally from Calgary, AB but who currently resides in Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of the UBC Creative Writing MFA program and a recent winner of The Indigenous Voices Award in the 2019 Unpublished Prose Category and of The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award.  Her fiction has appeared in Grain Magazine as the 2018 Short Prose Award winner, on The Malahat Review’s Far Horizon’s Prose shortlist, Joyland Magazine, The Puritan Magazine, and more. Her debut book of poetry is titled On/Me (Caitlin Press). About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft. Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly Magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.   Access more free writing and teaching tips from Francine Cunningham at: tnq.ca/parallel

“Many people have lifted me up and have given me a helping hand in my career and I wouldn't be here without them. And so the more I can do to pull up the next generation, the more I will do. And that's what teaching is all about.” In this episode, Kathy Friedman discusses offering students choice and control in the classroom. She discusses: 0:27 | Building Mad literary arts and Inkwell Workshops3:09 | Being trauma-informed and making participants feel seen5:57 | Her forthcoming collection All the Shining People and exploring Jewish South African identity during and after apartheid11:18 | Teaching with objects and the importance of brainstorming13:46 | The power of bringing your own vulnerabilities into the classroom Guest Bio:  Kathy Friedman’s writing has appeared in literary magazines including The New Quarterly, PRISM international, Grain, Geist, Room, Canadian Notes & Queries, Humber Literary Review, and This Magazine. She has been a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, runner-up for the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award and PRISM International’s short fiction contest, and was nominated by PRISM for the Journey Prize. Kathy has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a BFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She teaches creative writing in the University of Guelph’s department of Open Learning.  Kathy is the co-founder and artistic director of InkWell Workshops, which delivers free creative writing workshops to people with mental health and addiction issues. She is the publisher of four literary anthologies with their in-house imprint, InkWell Books. About the Podcast: Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.   Credits: Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly Magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.   Access more free writing and teaching tips from Kathy Friedman at: tnq.ca/parallel