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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. The podcast 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 ...
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“It's essential when we're writing non-fiction for it to be non-fiction. My experience has always been that f**king with the facts f**ks with the emotion. And so sometimes it's because you think that fudging the facts will get you to the truth faster, or will get you to the emotion faster. But often what it gets you to is a surface emotion. False f…
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“What I tell my students is that, you know, when they publish someday and work with an editor, it'll be a breeze. Because if you spent two years or more workshopping your work creatively, where you've got 20 people telling you their opinions about it and what they like about it, what they didn't like about it—that's far harder. What they're doing i…
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“I always say that I learned to be a writer by teaching. I didn't take a creative writing course in high school. I didn't take any creative writing courses in university. I really credit teaching writing with my knowledge of writing, which seems kind of backward, but having to understand writing enough to teach it, I felt like I knew enough about t…
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“I certainly see the plasticity and the infinite possibilities there are within language as a way to expand the limits of the, the quote unquote world and a way to dream of another world where liberation is possible. And to try and, in some way, approach it in language as a way of possibly immanentizing it. Some people might think that's sort of an…
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“Mostly when I'm teaching, I am trying really hard to get out of the way of the student's own creative process. So I don't want to dictate what students make. I like to give a writing prompt that invites them to source their own material, to give them a degree of choice in how they find what they want to write about. So I trust a lot in the unconsc…
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In this episode, Eufemia Fantetti describes how she approaches teaching with compassion, outlines the challenges of writing about emotional trauma, and shares how she uses humour as a superpower and a shield. She discusses: 0:52 | teachers who take their frustrations out on students and why it’s important to provide practical tips in every lesson 4…
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"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 di…
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“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…
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“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 pat…
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“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 …
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“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…
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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…
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"Writing's my playground. So I feel very free. I feel, you know, we're in a world where there's not a lot of freedom. I feel like I'm free on the page." In this episode, Carrianne Leung challenges established ideas about craft and teaching, and shares how her writing aims to show the complexity and fullness of being human. She discusses: How her wo…
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"I think with a poem, you always want to have something at stake that you just are not going to be able to answer, but you keep trying to get at it in this way, in that way, in this way." In this episode, Sheryda Warrener explores how poems anchor us in the world, the importance of making space for ritual, and how her students build material from s…
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"Writing is something that I really come at as a writer. And I think, like many writers, we all bring our, our lenses to what we write. Science--now I'm realizing more and more—it's a language, it's an entire language. Which, of course, has a culture associated with it as all languages do. And I bring that language and culture to my writing" In thi…
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"I talk about speculative fiction in particular, as theory given characters and taken form. And so, rather than it just being like a theoretic concept out there somewhere, it becomes this very specific—here's a character that embodies this theory. Here's a world that embodies this theory. And then we play it out." In this episode, Derek Newman-Stil…
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“When I think about teachers as gatekeepers, I think deeply about privilege and what our access to information and knowledge looks like. I recall a lot of the opportunities that have been offered to me came from a teacher just paying attention. And so when I think of gatekeeping at that smaller scale, it's also the teacher needing to pay attention …
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“My own background in physics has taught me wonder. As a poet, we deal mostly in metaphors and a metaphor says that this is that - that's what equations do too. Equations say that mass is energy. Just being able to throw yourself at the universe and find out everything you can is a great background for a scientist or for an artist.” In this episode…
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“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 | …
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“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 t…
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“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 p…
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“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…
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“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 poe…
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“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 | Developin…
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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 wr…
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