The Story Behind the Story with Author Anna Dowdall of Toronto, ON, Canada.

 

It’s a real pleasure to have Anna back as our featured guest.

She’s sharing the SBTS of her newest novel this week.

If you missed her previous visit, please go HERE.

I’m looking forward to reading this story.

Read on my friends.

 

Anna Dowdall was born in Montreal and currently lives in Toronto.  She likes to write mystery novels infused with a kind of otherworldly Canadiana, creating characters that seem real and fairy tale-ish at once.  The Suspension Bridge is her fourth novel and the first to feature reluctant amateur sleuth Sister Harriet of Bingham, whom she cautiously asserts to be Canada’s first nun sleuth.

 

 

Title:  The Suspension Bridge (Radiant Press, October 2024)

 

Synopsis:
In this irreverent and immersive pilgrim’s progress set in a Canadian river city, Sister Harriet plunges into new teaching duties at a boarding school where girls ominously begin to disappear. Between sleuthing and teaching, Harriet hardly has time for her secret identity crisis. But it’s 1962, and the whole world is restless. Hellbent on glory, Bothonville (pronounced Buttonville) is building a gigantic bridge, unaware everyone is falling victim to its destructive influence. Amid the dreams and double lives, the monsters and mayhem, who will make it out alive?

 

The Story Behind the Story:

When I was young I had a series of dreams about supernatural bridges I was trying to cross.  If they weren’t ill-intentioned like the highway to hell bridge in my new book, they were certainly mysterious and portentous.  That’s one source.  I was raised very Catholic, by Irish parents in a traditional French Canadian community.  When I was ruminating one day about how to write a mystery that’s little off-beat and historical while doing hardly any research--being a lazy soul—I had a “duh” moment regarding mining all that unique cultural experience.  In fact, I love books featuring clerical sleuths; they range from cozy to darkly metaphysical and I love them all.  As for what one of my book sponsors referred to as my quietly droll narrative voice, I’ve been accused of flippancy and similar all my life, but now I get to go with it in my stories. 

 

            Website – please go HERE

A question before you go, Anna:

Scribbler: Your books have been called literary mysteries. What the heck does that mean?

Anna: I rely on the conventions of the mystery novel and then bend and bend again and see where that goes. My books are middlebrow, but with secret depths. I enjoy description and the use of what one literary agent accusingly termed “big words,” I play with themes and symbols, and the wrapping up of the mystery features deliberate improbabilities and dangling threads. But The Suspension Bridge is still discernibly a mystery. You can certainly read it for its twisting and turning plot and final reveal, also its recognizable character types like the hapless detective and the relatable amateur sleuth.

An Excerpt from The Suspension Bridge.

Sister Harriet had doubts about what she was about to undertake, but the arrival of the fire department early the next day for a timely inspection—they were going to have a couple of overdue fire drills once the girls were back—seemed to her a propitious sign. Perpetua assembled a band of nuns to do a walkabout with the inspectors, but some of the nuns were in the middle of things and so others were substituted. The resulting mild bedlam, making her absence easier to miss, smiled on her endeavour.

The keys to the senior girls’ dorms were simple to extract from the office, with only Lester the cat to witness the act. The fire team had moved on to another part of the school by the time Harriet let herself into Laura Rome’s old room. Each boarder had an alcove of her own, with a bed, a closet and a desk. It wasn’t hard to find Laura’s cubicle, the attractive clothes set it apart.

Harriet felt odd, going through the dead girl’s effects, but how else could she leave the school grounds without being noticed by the reporters still camped out front? Things were being boxed up for the Rome family to pick up, and someone was coming tomorrow. Harriet could have borrowed some other girl’s clothes. But with the first students coming back at the end of the week that could lead to complications. A little voice told her she would hang onto what she borrowed today.

Trying on Laura’s clothes felt even odder. She ignored the dress up clothes and uniform, the latter somehow hardest to look at. She wanted casual and warm. She settled on a woolen turtleneck and corduroy pants that she only had to roll up a little at the ankles. She grabbed a shoulder bag as an afterthought. She burrowed through the boxes before she found an oversized pompom beret she could pull down over her face, and an insulated pea jacket. The whole thing worked. The hat hid her no-style choppy hair, and with a scarf to cover her lower face she was unrecognizable. A boyish young woman in a modish getup stared back at her in the mirror. She swung by her room to pick up the Marimekko bag—better than Laura’s purse—and slipped out the back exit.

She scaled the wall behind the barn where the trespassing journalist had entered. When she emerged in full view of the news teams out front her heart was thumping. She got a glance or two, but there was nothing to interest them in this young woman with a tote, probably a Vivamus coed, crossing the intersection.

Harriet was practically giddy with success when she got the same reaction on the half-filled bus: casual glances, but so different from the furtive no-look looks that greeted her as a nun. She’d never ridden a Bothonville bus before and she enjoyed the passing scene in the sunshine. She knew where to transfer for the bus to Turpentine Flats.

It had occurred to her that Florene must be there, if she was anywhere. The shanty towns had an on-again off-again, but mostly off-again, relationship to civilization and officialdom, for everything from taxes to electricity supply. The police had known to go to the River Flats address. Roger had been described as a resident of River Flats. Did anyone even know about the existence of a second cabin at Turpentine Flats? If Florene was missing, and not in the hands of welfare authorities or the supposed cousin, it was possible she was there.

The second bus let her off at the mouth of Factory Alley. The walk through towering grey walls and belching stacks was eerie, and she almost lost her way when she was once again crossing the frozen fields. I’m always here, always doing this. A peculiar thought, perhaps not even true, and yet it felt true. Her booted feet balancing on the snow-crusted ridges, the fence of trees rising up on the horizon. Surely she’d done this before.

She plunged into the twilit world under the canopy. She remembered the footpaths leading to the Sherwoods’ place. She knocked on the sagging door. The weasel-faced boy gave her a shock when he suddenly wrenched open the door. She didn’t introduce herself. What could she say? “You won’t recognize me but I am one of the sisters who visited?” Confidence was the key.

“I’m looking for Florene Pellerin.” No reaction. She gestured to her bag. “I’ve brought her some things.” The boy’s eyes dropped to the bulging bag, back up to Harriet’s face. He frowned, as if something nagged at him but he couldn’t think what.

“Things she needs.” Harriet hefted the Marimekko. “I know she’s being helped by neighbours, but you can’t do it all by yourselves.”

The hostility lessened. He looked behind him into the house, made up his mind. He grabbed a coat and stepped outside.

“I’ll take you.” He gave her a shove along the path.

He was bigger than he’d seemed before, and she didn’t much care for walking ahead of him through the semi-darkness. The back of her neck and the space between her shoulder blades tingled. He occasionally called out “left” or “right.” The place was big, it went on and on. Cabins and huts crouched amid the roots of great trees in a way that made River Flats look positively suburban. She became disoriented. It grew darker, as if evening could decide to come whenever it felt like it in this alternate world.

When he told her to stop, she didn’t see the dwelling at first, for the rudimentary door was half concealed down a tunnel of vines. She could just see the shape of a structure behind it, camouflaged by trunks and shrubbery. She wouldn’t have thought anyone lived there.

“Is this where she lives?” But Harriet spoke to herself.

She knocked. Presently she heard slight noises. There were cracks in the wood and she tried to look benign. The door opened, and Florene appeared.

“I’d know you anywhere, Sister.”

Thank you for being our guest this week, Anna. We wish you tremendous success with your writing.

And a Special Thank You to all our visitors and readers.

Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below. I know Anna would love to hear from you.

The Story Behind the Story with Author Mark E. Shupe of Halifax & Calgary, Canada.

 

Let’s welcome Mark to the Scribbler.

 

He is a newcomer to the blog, and most welcome. 

His book is garnishing many 5-star reviews and he has kindly agreed to share the SBTS with us today.

Read on my friends.

 

Mark looks like an everyday bland Clark Kent. If Clark Kent had a more boring profession like an accountant. But inside, Mark is a burgundy and blue clad Shuperhero, whose chin sometimes scrapes the sidewalk while he is flying. He dabbled in sports writing, but quit just before cable sports increased the number of sports journalists tenfold. Apparently, his watch runs three years too late.(It does however play the bagpipes) He is also a whirl of creativity imagination, and angst. He dampens his natural energy by running marathons, walking all the streets in a city (i.e. Halifax, Calgary, Dieppe) or consuming large amounts of chocolate. He has three children who are all taller and complain that he makes too many Dad jokes. He pretended to be an accountant for thirty years, all the while writing the most epic of epic fantasies which someday, fates willing, will be his published masterpiece. Upon retirement, he toned down the zaniness of his writing to produce the Wish Doctor, which received a starred review from the Miramichi Reader. Mark likes to travel, hike, make jokes and puns, be outside and read comic books while eating chocolate. Oh and he owns 32000 comic books. He’s read 30000 of them.

The doctors’ told him his arteries were so clogged, unless he got hit by a bus, he was going to die of a heart attack. To which he answered, “Anybody got the number of that bus?”

 

 

Title: The Wish Doctor

 

Synopsis:

For 500 years, The Wish Doctor has battled the evil spirits that make wishes go wrong. Now, the number of wishes going wrong are increasing. The wish he has made to stave off a fatal heart attack is wearing off. He needs to find a replacement or the number of bad wishes will overwhelm the world. So he opens the School of Wish in the aptly named Baddeck, Cape Breton. He invites 22 of the most outlandish characters, all susceptible to the power of wish Magic. The Wish Doctor uses his last birthday wish to wish for a replacement. What can possibly go wrong with a wish like that?

 

 

The Story Behind the Story:  

We were traveling in Ireland and on a bus trip to the Giant’s Causeway we saw a movie about a human and a leprechaun in a wish battle, which had me thinking about wishes and how they go wrong. There really should be someone who helped train people to make wishes correct. Later we were in the West of Island on a fairy trail with all sorts of little fairy houses and doors. The story crystalized in my head. Details were added while telling the story to my son while we walked through poets corner in Central Park, New York. The story took on gravitas when I had two heart attacks and realized I had to turn over my responsibilities to a new generation – hence the need for the Wish Doctor to create the School of Wish. Of course, I don’t believe in telling anything completely seriously. Even with dire consequences, one must keep their sense of humor with them, so the plot of the Wish Doctor is actually propelled by puns. The cornerstone of my life.

Oh yeah, despite the imagination of this book, every single scene, is based on something from my real life. After you have read the book, think about that line. What kind of life has this guy had?

Website: Please go HERE. 

A question before you go, Mark:

Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when you write your stories? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila? Messy or neat?


Mark: Outside, feet lifted, staring into the sky, sea, mountain or garden. Scotch is the correct beverage. Chamomile tea for editing. My Scotch is kept in an antique globe bar, my beloved spouse gave me celebrating the publication of The Wish Doctor. My mind is an unorderly, orderly mess. My outside world, which I don’t often see due to the flashing lights of imagination, in my head, is a string of chaos theory, decorated with gingerbread icing swirls.

Currently, we are spending our writing time in our piece of heaven known as WishLight Cottage with the view of a famous little lighthouse.

At low tide, behind our summer house is the Wine and Sand Bar, where only the grandest tales are told. We encourage people to visit us. You never know what kind of story you are going to hear…

Photo from Mark's website.

An Excerpt from the Wish Doctor

From Chapter 19, The Danger of Birthdays

The Wish Doctor’s ninth lesson:

 

“A birthday wish is almost always useless. Unless you want to invite trouble. It is the single type of wish most likely to go wrong.”

“Why?” Christian asked. “I make birthday wishes all the time.”

The Wish Doctor felt like shaking his head. “I’m well aware of that. It’s why the true colour of your face is purple and why you always have termites in your pants.”

The other students laughed. They thought he was joking.

“To get a birthday wish right, to make it so that the language is airtight, that nothing can go wrong, to overcome a granter’s desire to make the wish go wrong, is almost impossible.

“Since a birthday wish is yoked to the turn of time, it can rarely be used or boosted in conjunction with a pure wish, making it even more difficult to use, or use without something going wrong. Yet even so, a birthday wish sometimes may be your only way to solve a problem.

“Everyone has a set of birthday wishes, and though you may give them away, no one may take them. In an emergency, if you know how, you may borrow a birthday wish from the future, as long as it is from a year in which you will still be alive.

“To make a birthday wish work takes great effort. If you can do that, you can make almost any wish work. You must use the principles I will discuss with you now in making most wishes, but most certainly for birthday wishes. But first I have to make you promise one thing.”

He looked across the class with the most serious expression the students had yet seen upon his face.

“You must promise me you will not make a birthday wish until you have made it to fourth year and then only with my blessing. We cannot continue until you promise me this. Raise both hands if you agree.”

Syd was the first to raise his hand, and most followed quickly. Alma could not help looking at the triplets. Not for the first time did they raise their hands last, but they did.

The Doctor took a deep breath and called for all eyes to look upon him, and all ears to hear. If ever anyone of them were to learn enough to be his replacement, they must learn this lesson.

“To make a wish happen, you must never have just one wish to use. At minimum you need nine wishes. Nine wishes, so maybe, maybe, you can make one come true. Without disastrous circumstances.

“Use the first three wishes as protection wishes, to protect the actual wish you make. Use them to guard against misinterpretation, whether wilful or unwilful.

“The last three wishes are mitigation wishes, wishes to make sure that another wish doesn’t come along and undo the wish you made. The power of magic is always in flux and seeks to find balance. An unprotected wish may seem okay today, but other wishes will seek to undo what you have done. Unless you mitigate your wish, it will be undone.

“The fifth wish is usually the best wish to be your actual wish, but you must know the nature of the granter, if there is a granter. There are some who just detest the fifth wish. If it is a wish using natural forces, then five is the best because nature favours the number five.” The Doctor held up his left hand spreading out his five fingers.

“Use the fourth wish to protect that the wish does not later become unbearable. We call this the Midas protection.

“The sixth wish is a wish that allows you to reverse the wish you just made in case something went wrong. We call this the escape wish.

“Your studies over the next year will be difficult, let me warn you. You need to learn how to harness the power of nine wishes to make a wish to help undo a wish that has gone wrong. And, rarely, for the pure benefit of the wish itself. Most of you won’t be able to do it. Most of you will be sent home. But maybe one of you or two of you will learn to do it and be granted tuition for a second year.

“I wish you well,” the Wish Doctor said.

Thank you for being our special guest this week, mark. We wish you continued success with your writing.

And another HUGE thank you to all our visitors and readers.

Feel free to leave a comment.

We’d love to hear from you.

The Story Behind the Story with Sally Cronin of Southern Ireland.

 

Another treat for you this week on the Scribbler. 

Sally is back to tell us about her memoir.

 

Sally has been an ardent supporter of her fellow authors and writers. On her popular website, she shares music, reviews, nutritional tips, humour, excerpts, books, author interviews and more!

She has been a welcome guest previously.

Take a peek HERE.

Read on my friends.

 

Sally Cronin is the author of eighteen books including her memoir Size Matters: Especially when you weigh 330lb first published in 2001 which followed her weight loss of 150lbs and the program she designed to achieve a healthy weight and regain her health. A programme she shared with her clients over her 26 year career as a nutritional therapist and on her blog. This has been followed by another seventeen books both fiction and non-fiction including multi-genre collections of short stories and poetry.

As an author she understands how important it is to have support in marketing books and offers a number of FREE promotional opportunities in the Café and Bookstore on her blog and across her social media.

After leading a nomadic existence exploring the world, she now lives with her husband on the coast of Southern Ireland enjoying the seasonal fluctuations in the temperature of the rain.

 

 

 

Title: Size Always Matters: Don’t be part of a statistic, start losing weight today.

Synopsis:

At age 41 in 1994 and weighing 330 lbs, Sally Cronin had two choices when she was told that she was unlikely to live to 45. Carry on eating or get her act together. She chose to study nutrition and change the way she approached the food she ate and her other lifestyle choices.

Her first book, Size Matters, told the story of her weight loss of 154 lbs and shared the programme she designed to both lose the weight and regain her health. Now, thirty years on from the start of that journey, having worked as a nutritional therapist with hundreds of clients as well as acting as a health consultant on radio for several years and on her blog, she shares an updated version of the programme. This also includes the nutrients we require to be healthy and recipes to provide our bodies with them effectively.

 

The Story Behind the Story:

Having followed many diets over my teens and 20s and 30s I reached 330lbs and was in very poor health. I decided I needed to discover more about both my body and my relation to food which led me to design a program which led to me losing 150lbs in 18 months healthily. I studied both medicine and nutrition and then qualified as a nutritional therapist, working with hundreds of clients over the last 26 years and working as a consultant in the media.

Size Always Matters brings both my own experience, my research and work with others together in a program that anyone can follow. It is not a get slim quick approach but one that lasts a lifetime.

Website: Please go HERE.

A question before you go, Sally:

Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when you write your stories? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila? Messy or neat?

Sally: I usually create stories, posts and books in my head first when walking and then sit down at my desktop to put it down in writing. I prefer quiet when working, I prefer tea and I would say I am semi-messy but know where everything is.

An Excerpt from Size Always Matters

Stop thinking like a fat person and start thinking like a slim one.

Start thinking and voicing the ‘when’, not ‘if’, you lose weight. Also there is a six letter word which is your nemesis…‘Should’. We use it blatantly when we want to avoid doing anything. I should lose weight, I should stop smoking, I should save money! Very wishy-washy and not going to get you over the finish line. Start using the word ‘MUST’ instead. Put some muscle behind it and get it done.

Also, stop eating for the size you are. I cannot count the number of times I was told ‘take two you’re a big girl’ or ‘have a second helping you need all the energy you can get’…. No. Actually you need to eat for the person you are going to become, not the one you have become!

 

Thanks very much Allan for having me as a guest today, it is much appreciated.

It’s our pleasure to have you back again, Sally. Thank you for being the featured guest this week. We wish you continued success with your writing.

And a Gigantic Thank You to all our visitors and readers.

Feel free to leave a comment.

We’d love to hear from you.

The Story Behind the Story with Chuck Bowie of NB, Canada.

 

Chuck has a new book arriving soon… and you will be one of the first to see the cover. Yahoo! 

 Chuck has been a frequent guest here at the Scribbler and if you missed the previous visit, please go HERE.

Read on my friends.

 

 

Chuck is both a writer and an author, with twelve books/novels published and one on the way. While he enjoys writing mysteries: Suspense-Thrillers and Cozy Mysteries, he also writes short stories. All his books are well-reviewed, and he has sat on the boards of the Writers’ Federation of NB, The Writers’ Union of Canada, is a Fellow of the Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts, as well as being acknowledged as a member of the Miramichi Literary Trail.

His thriller series chronicles the adventures of Donovan, an international thief for hire, while his cozy series (written as Alexa Bowie) follows the adventures of the owner of an arts centre as Emma solves the crimes that swirl around her centre: The Old Manse.

http://www.chuckbowie.ca

Chuck lives in Fredericton and beside Miramichi Bay. Thriller number Six, Lost in London drops in November, 2024.

 

Title: Lost in London

Book 6 in the Donovan: Thief for Hire Suspense-Thriller series

 

Synopsis:

A small group of young, naïve Irish people is persuaded that England has stolen Irish artefacts and that these should be stolen back and returned to Ireland. It is not until the thefts start that they begin to suspect that things might not be as they appear. One of the young adults in particular, Áine Wedden, suspects the worst and transforms from thief to kidnap victim with a punch to the face. Later, we discover that, in effect, all of the young thieves, in one way or another are lost in London.

Sean Donovan, a contract thief is approached by Áine’s father, Loic, to go to London and recover his daughter. He agrees, but while investigating this theft ring, he discovers a much larger series of crimes is underway. Extricating Áine becomes more complicated, and with the crimes straddling both Ireland and England, Donovan must deal with three completely different layers of crime, all while trying to rescue, and then keep a willful young woman safe.

 

The Story Behind the Story:

I had occasion to visit Ireland and England (and Wales) for a month a few years ago, and returned with a fully-formed tale that became my fifth thriller: Her Irish Boyfriend. Toward the end of the story, Donovan had to contact a rich Irish industrialist in order to stay in the good graces of the Irish police, the Gardai. The appearance of the industrialist, Loic Wedden, was brief—he was merely mentioned off-scene—but the thought of such a character remained in my head. I promised myself that if occasion presented itself, I would re-introduce him in a later book. It turned out he has a willful daughter…

What if you were a young adult in search of a purpose in life, you look around your mates, and they haven’t really made the transition to adulthood either. And what if you and your mates happen upon a charming man who has an ambitious idea you can get behind? You might be tempted to explore this ambition, in the hopes of finding yourself.

My Main Character, Sean Donovan, is a thief for hire: a contract thief. He is seeking redemption, and has decided not to steal just for profit. But he has these skills, and innocent people could benefit from somebody with this skillset. My desire to explore this change in Donovan, together with my desire to explore a bit more of Ireland led me to consider writing a story about a young Irish woman who gets in deep enough trouble that even her rich father can’t bail her out without really good help.

Website: please go HERE.

A question before you go, Chuck:

Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when you write your stories? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila? Messy or neat?

Chuck: Hemingway (with reference to getting a book done) tossed the off-hand comment ‘Write drunk, edit sober.’ Riffing off that comment and speaking for myself, in general, I like to write in quiet and edit with music. I am able to write with instrumental music on, preferably jazz or 50s pop music. The fifties music era was just before my time as a music fan, but I’ve developed a taste for it. Same for editing and revising.

It used to be that I liked to write with a mug of coffee at hand, but now I prefer water or chocolate milk. I tend not to snack while working.

Am I a messy writer? This expression can have a number of meanings. My desk is a little untidy, with gas, restaurant, and book purchase receipts on a corner of my desk. So yes, messy that way. My writing is also a bit untidy, because I am an intuitive writer and do not follow an outline, or writing formula. My editor as a consequence has to work harder to whip my WiP (Work in Progress) into shape.

It was a lot of fun writing this novel. I hope readers enjoy it as well.

We are definitely looking forward to reading the story. 

Thanks for sharing the news and for being our guest this week, Chuck. 

We wish you continued success with your stories.

An a BIG thank you to all our visitors and readers.

Feel free to leave a comment.

The Story Behind the Story with Author/Poet Michelle McLean of New Brunswick Canada.

 

Michelle is back and we couldn’t be happier.

 

She is sharing the SBTS of her new poetry collection, a touching personal journey.

She has been a welcome guest before and if you missed it, please go HERE.

Read on my friends.

 

Michelle McLean is a poet, clinical social worker and addictions counsellor, animal and nature lover, and collector of treasure in all forms. Her poetry has found homes in Quills, elm & ampersand, Ascent Aspirations, Other Voices, Peacock Journal, Understorey, and others. Her collection of children’s poetry, When Pigs Fly and Other Poems, was published in 2020 by Chapel Street Editions. Her eldest daughter, Sophie Arseneau, is the illustrator and her youngest daughter, Lily Arseneau, is a contributing illustrator. Michelle and her family live in the small village of Bath, New Brunswick.

Title:  Tesserae

Synopsis:

Tesserae is a poetry collection that traces the journey of trauma, grief, addiction and recovery.  It explores both what is shattered, and the various ways we seek to rebuild.  The term “tesserae” refers to small pieces of stone, glass, tile or any other material used in the creation of a mosaic.  The mosaic is our lives, which can be so messy, painful and sharp, but somehow still beautiful.  That’s what I’ve learned and continue to learn.  We can sometimes find ourselves utterly broken by the things that happen to us.  We also have the power, artistry and resilience to rebuild and make something new. 

 

The Story Behind the Story: 

Ernest Hemingway once said, “write hard and clear about what hurts”.  I believe that’s what I did in this book.  I wrote these poems for myself, for my own healing.  From the time I was a young child, I felt compelled to write about my experiences in order to better understand them and poetry has always provided a safe space for me to maneuver large, loud and often complicated, messy feelings in a way that simultaneously provided a sense of freedom and containment.  While intensely personal material, I opted to pursue publication because…well, there’s just something special about seeing my words in print and holding a published volume in my hands, something I created. 

This collection is heavy content.  I’ve described it as “equal parts scream and lullaby”.  I was twelve years old when my sister Tracey was killed in a horrific accident.  She was fifteen.  This utterly shattered our family.  The loss of a child is the worst loss imaginable.  It’s unfathomable (thankfully) to many of us.  Where is there space for the grief of sibling loss within this magnitude of tragedy?  I certainly didn’t know as a child and didn’t even know where to begin to look or even how to ask.  I didn’t even know the question.  I was adrift in a sea of suffering that I couldn’t identify, describe, or even begin to navigate.  I was drowning.  To borrow a line from the band Larkin Poe, “the river runs deep and the deep stays down”.  My deep stayed down.  Until it didn’t.  It was decades later when my first therapist named “trauma” as a significant factor in my recovery.  I remember being strangely defensive and hostile with her about that.  My parents had trauma.  Not me.  I couldn’t (at that point) acknowledge the magnitude of impact that my sister’s death had in my own life and development.   In my mind, my parents’ suffering was the only pain that mattered.  I couldn’t seem to make space for my own. I didn’t know how.  For many years, poetry was the only space where I let some of these feelings roam and find healthy expression.

My sister was a truly exceptional person and the impact of her loss is now woven into the very fabric of who we are.  I don’t believe you “get over” grief, but it is possible to move forward with it and learn how to carry it differently over time.  These poems were written over the course of many years.  I’m very happy to say I’m no longer in that dark place.  The collection itself is organized into three sections but certainly not meant to imply any kind of neat and tidy “completion” – I’m a work in progress, just like everyone else. 

So those are my personal reasons for writing and publishing this book.  That said, it is also my sincere hope that sharing these poems will play some small part in breaking down the stigma that folks with addictions and mental health issues continue to face.  I think we’ve come a long way when it comes to stigma, but we have a long way to go – particularly for those suffering from substance use disorder.  Stigma kills.  There’s simply no other way to say it.  Stigma is one of the biggest barriers to treatment and recovery for substance use disorders according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (and my own anecdotal experience, both personally and professionally).   We need to fight stigma.  It’s a matter of life and death for too many people.

Early intervention is key.  I believe it’s critically important to model this for our youth.  For everyone.   I’ve often wondered how much suffering could have been mitigated for me had I received mental health care as a youth who felt so lost and alone in what I was going through.  Unfortunately, that was not the culture of the time – in my family, community, or in society more generally.  The layers of unhelpful coping and defenses I developed over the years as a result of muddling through on my own made it that much more difficult than it needed to be to fully engage in healing.  That said, I can’t emphasize enough that it’s never too late.

Gabor Mate talks about trauma as the gateway to addiction.  I think that is the case for many.  He encourages bringing an attitude of “compassionate curiosity” to our experiences.  I love that.   I think that if we, as a society, bring more of this “compassionate curiosity” to complex struggles and problems that people face, we would have more helpful outcomes.  Addiction is a problem – we all clearly know this.  What many don’t appreciate or understand is that substance use issues and behavioral addictions were also attempts at “solutions” for many of us when healthy solutions were scarce or absent altogether.  

We need to change the narrative to reflect the truth – that it is smart, strong and brave to seek help when needed.  Not weakness. Attending to our mental health should be as routine and accepted as seeing our doctors, our dentists, our hairdressers.  There should be no shame attached.  No stigma.  Stigma has devastating impacts for individuals, families and communities. It keeps people isolated and alone when they need support and community the most.  We are all on a continuum of wellness and illness, many finding ourselves at different points on that spectrum throughout our lives.  To borrow the words of Greg Boyle, there is no “us” and “them”.  There is only “us”.  

Website: Go HERE.

A question before you go, Michelle:

Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when you write? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila? Messy or neat?

Michelle: My ideal spot for writing still lives in fantasyland at this point – my “someday” waterfront home, perhaps sitting on my covered porch (with intermittent breaks spent rocking in my porch swing), overlooking the gardens and lake/river/ocean, a generous cup of very strong coffee within easy reach.

For now, I generally squirrel myself away in my bedroom to write. While I typically need quiet and privacy to focus when I hunker down for writing, I’m often inspired when listening to music and compiling my multitudes of playlists and tend to generate a lot of thoughts, connections and ideas that way. Sometimes inspiration comes in the stillness, other times in the chaos. The writing itself is generally a very quiet and solitary thing for me. While I prefer a well-organized writing (and living) space, this is not always my reality. More often there are papers strewn all over my bed as I hunch over my laptop in postures that would likely make most physiotherapists and chiropractors collectively cringe.


3 poems from Tesserae

Thursday’s Child                                            

 

I still remember the costumes                           

you were eight, I was five 

A wee Lucifer, shoulder-hunched                               

and anvil heavy, watching you twirl

resplendent in a gown of golden satin

recycled from a wedding

  

Glittered, star-topped wand

like Glinda, the good witch 

My crimson cape (perfect for

dramatic entrances)

was custom-made  

I tried to feel grateful

resisting the urge to poke you

with my plywood pitchfork

hot tears behind my beastly

plastic mask

 

No more pictures now                       

and it’s taken me years to find

some sympathy

for this little devil 

to recognize that sometimes

it’s the monster

needing rescue

 not the princess

In Medias Res

 

You dropped my name and it broke

on the floor

 

trying to make sense

of this ragged, shattered scene

 

all the spaces in between with your

fingerprints wiped clean 

                 

 Sharp edges of my pain                              

warn, handle with care

thin skin

beware 

 I will not throw away

this tesserae 

I’ve never been one for waste

(though I like things

properly spaced)

                   

I’ve been long collecting

for this mosaic

pulling in, sifting out

 

 Still arranging

 no plans, as yet

to grout  

 

 

 Watermarks

 

There was a time I snail-carried sorrow

on my back

took all my travels

with that burden masquerading

as home

  

There were seasons I chased sorrow

down with drink

dissolving the throat lump of loss

with a hundred and one flavors

of oblivion

 

Sorrow once held me hostage

in the trunk of an old beater 

hogtied and ball-gagged

breathing through bullet holes

and trembling

with my heathen prayers

 

I made my scathed escape

shaking

off the Stockholm syndrome

 

easing my way back                                           

to the things I know

by heart

 

Thank you for sharing your poems and for being our guest this week, Michelle.

We wish you continued success with your writing.

And a HUGE thank you to our visitors and readers.

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