SUPPLIED BY GOOSE LANE PUBLISHERS:

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm 28 years old and from New Westminster, BC. Last July, I moved back to British Columbia after doing
my MFA at the University of Illinois, where I also played varsity wheelchair basketball. I was on the Canadian wheelchair basketball national team for six years and won two World Championship gold medals and a Paralympic bronze, though I've since retired. I work as a Communications Coordinator for various wheelchair sports organizations. Currently, I live in Vancouver with my cat, Mika.

The Time You All Went Marching is your sophomore novel. Did you feel any extra pressure for you second book?

No, mostly because when I'm writing a book I forget that anyone's actually going to read it. It wasn't until I saw the proofs of the cover for The Time We All Went Marching that it really sunk in that the book was going to be something more than a Word document on my computer, and by that time all the hard work had been done and it was too late to feel pressure.

Post seemed to take much from your own life. The Time We All Went Marching is a radical departure in theme, style, and tone. Was this a conscious decision to change your style, or do you feel it is a natural evolution of your talent as an artist?

The funny thing about Post is that nearly everyone assumed it was autobiographical. I got a lot of heat
because people either thought I'd turned them into a character in the book or assumed that I'd actually had a relationship with a much‐older man and were trying to guess who it was. I've joked that the reason I wrote a book set in the 1930s and 40s is so that no one could get mad at me. I think, however, that Post and The Time We All Went Marching actually have a lot in common. They both tackle the question of what happens after the "best"; years of your life are over. They're both
interested in the obsessive nature of memory and how a person's history is manifested on his or her body. That's a long way of saying that I'm never conscious of having a style. I just write about things that interest me and The Time We All Went Marching came out of that.

The Time We All Went Marching takes place in Canada's past, including real‐life events such as the On to Ottawa Trek. How did you go about synthesizing factual events within a fictional framework?

I've always been a believer that non‐fiction tells "the truth"; whereas fiction tells "a truth"; and so right
from the beginning I gave up wanting to have precise historical accuracy. The truth of what happened on the On to Ottawa Trek doesn't make for great fiction, since there wasn't a lot of nuance coming from any party involved. There's also been very little scholarly research written on the Trek and most
narratives therefore come either from the Trekkers themselves or their children/grandchildren, which means that the Trekkers are presented as these noble working‐class heroes and the government and police are uniformly evil. In fiction, that's a one‐way ticket to flat, stock characters.
Actually, what was harder for me was the question of whether to use a memoir my grandmother had written about living in Ymir in the '40s in my own work. Earlier drafts had a lot more of my
grandmother's story in it, but I quickly realized that a) she could tell her own story way better than I could and b) I look up to my grandmother so much that I would never be able to get enough distance on the story to use it in fiction. Knowing when to let fiction take over was a valuable lesson.

What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture?

I think one of the many shifts that are happening with the advent of the Internet and especially social
media is that storytelling is no longer the sole purview of "writers."; Anyone can write a story or post a video and have it reach a mass audience. What's missing from a lot of the storytelling that's taking place online is the ability to enter into someone else's headspace for an extended period of time. Being able to imagine another person's point of view is such a crucial skill and it's one that's on the decline. Obviously, we're talking about systemic problems that can't be fixed just by getting kids to read more novels, but I still maintain that we need writers more than ever.

What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

The quote that has always guided my writing life is by Adrienne Rich: "The problem is to connect, without hysteria, the pain of anyone's body with the pain of the body's world.";

What book had the biggest impact on you? Why?

Timothy Findley's The Wars. I read it in high school in an AP English class and we had to get permission slips signed to read it because of the sexual content. I'm not sure that I liked it during the first reading-it made me uncomfortable-but I sensed that it was a book that I wasn't equipped for at the
moment, but that I would grow to love it. Sure enough, it's stuck with me and I've loved it more and more on each read. I've probably read the book 15 or 20 times and I've even gone through and
highlighted it to try to break it down and see how it works, but it's never lost its energy for me.

What is the biggest obstacle you have overcome or challenge you have ever faced?

In 2009, I had a hip replacement that ended up not going as planned. I was basically in bed for 8 months and had to have a revision surgery the next year. I'm absolutely terrible at sitting still for long periods of time and hate not being busy, but the forced down time ended up being really good for me.

If you had to choose three books as a "Welcome to Canada"; gift, what would those books be?

Timothy Findley's The Wars, Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion and John Steffler's The Afterlife of
George Cartwright. When I lived in the States, I was always trying to push those three books onto Americans.

William Faulkner was once asked what book he wished he had written; he chose Moby Dick (with Winnie the Pooh as a close second). Is there a book that you wish you had written?

There are probably 20 books I wish I'd written, but the first time I had the "I wish I'd written that and want to study this whole 'writing' thing until I can write a sentence as good as that' was from The Great Gatsby: "He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight

Do you have any advice for writers who are trying to get published?

I've worked for a few different publishers/ literary magazines and it seems like 90% of the stuff that crossed my desk is just . . . okay. The person's taken a few writing classes and knows that they're supposed to use a hook intro or not have the story end with "and it was all a dream,"; but there's no urgency to the writing, no energy. I think it's easy to look at literary magazines and think, "Well, if I write about this or that, then I'll get published,"; but I think it's best to focus first on writing about
something you're interested in and letting the "getting published"; part come later.