Missing Witches - WF Anna Maxymiw： Minique, A Novel ＂Everyone Is A Little Bit Dangerous.＂

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00:00:46.640 The stories we tell require a general content warning.

00:00:49.640 It's just a fact of this terrain of interrogating what is missing.

00:00:54.660 We promise to hold those moments with care. 1.00

00:00:57.100 you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 1.00

00:01:00.880 you must be a witch 0.99

00:01:05.760 well first of all someone like tried to burn down our building or something yesterday like 0.98

00:01:11.900 i don't know like put a microwave on fire in the hallway when i was outside there was like

00:01:17.100 we have ravens that live around here in toronto which is very rare but there was like eight of

00:01:22.220 them in the sky, like just calling for like 10 minutes. And I was like, okay, something's going

00:01:27.360 on. Some sort of planet is moving backwards or something. But you're getting responses about

00:01:36.200 your work. But yeah, it's been one of those weeks. Okay. Welcome to the Missing Witches podcast,

00:01:44.020 friends, common mates, listeners far and wide, whatever the weather is, wherever you are. It's

00:01:50.920 so nice to imagine you here coming in on the waves of the wind and the sound and joining us

00:01:56.500 to talk about oh I want to talk about fiction and I want to talk about real witches and research

00:02:04.180 and channeling these stories and embodying them and I want to talk about the ravens that have

00:02:10.040 been visiting the author of Monique Anna Maximue who's here with us today I'm so excited to talk

00:02:17.780 about this book I'm in Monique land this book takes place in a historical Montreal in the woods

00:02:25.400 and so I felt so connected to her also her way of thinking about witchcraft also her way of like 0.91

00:02:32.420 really desiring men and desiring power and then being totally fucked by them and also being so 0.91

00:02:39.600 powerful and channeling her own power and the way you write about fear her constant awareness of 0.96

00:02:45.720 fear around men there are so many things about this that felt so fucking familiar and accurate

00:02:51.180 and I loved it and so welcome to the podcast thank you I'm so excited to be here what a

00:02:58.200 fabulous intro I'm channeling the the ravens myself it's such a pleasure especially in this

00:03:03.500 season to get to read fiction like to just like let fiction hold you for a little bit and I guess 0.62

00:03:09.800 I say in this period like in this period of the fucking apocalypse in this period of the world

00:03:14.380 to just be held by fiction is is really a gift what was it like for you spending time with this 0.50

00:03:19.880 story writing a big piece of fiction you know it's so interesting because my first book was

00:03:25.500 non-fiction which I found easier I mean there's more I think there's more of a potential for

00:03:30.740 like people getting upset about non-fiction because you're writing about real people but

00:03:36.600 the book dirty work was just a delight and I don't want to say easy but I really enjoyed writing it

00:03:42.540 but when you're writing a big piece of fiction the onus is kind of all on you and if the story

00:03:48.500 sucks it's your fault it's you know you made it up so I started this book October 2017 which was

00:03:56.600 like the advent of me too which felt interesting and then I really wrote the bulk of it when I was 0.82

00:04:04.320 at a writing residency on a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic in winter and then I finished

00:04:13.140 it up when the pandemic hit we were doing major edits and that felt weird because I was like oh

00:04:19.700 I'm writing about a woman in isolation I mean no real spoilers but there is you know sickness that

00:04:26.900 rips through Montreal I was like oh this is kind of dovetailing this is hitting a little too close

00:04:32.380 to home but it worked it worked because the pandemic at least in those early months was

00:04:38.040 kind of like an enforced writing residency right no one was doing anything so yeah I mean I

00:04:43.300 definitely could tell that you had pandemic experience in reading about the fever you know

00:04:50.100 this is not how people wrote about this before no and I don't want to first of all I hate the idea

00:04:57.920 have a pandemic book no offense to any writers who are writing about you know the pandemic but

00:05:02.620 I've read a few recently and it doesn't feel good because we're still in it so I will say

00:05:08.500 this is not a pandemic book this is the book is not solely about a sickness but that was a reality

00:05:14.960 of life in New France at the time so it happens yeah it's like a season that passes through the

00:05:19.920 book it's definitely not what the book's about yeah yeah did you go looking for

00:05:25.200 minique like do you feel like you went looking for a historical story that would tell a story

00:05:33.560 that you knew you wanted to tell or did it how did that process happen of kind of finding the

00:05:38.140 story yeah that's a really good question I did not go looking for her and I don't as of late

00:05:44.920 I've been reading more historical fiction or I should say fiction that's set in a historical

00:05:49.880 time because I think historical fiction is actually something different than what I'm

00:05:54.180 writing, but the nuances, I mean, the publishing world, I feel like the boundaries are kind of

00:05:59.160 dissolving. So perhaps it is historical fiction. I was listening to a podcast called Lore,

00:06:05.260 which is by Aaron Manke. And I'm really showing my hand here with all the, you know, cryptid

00:06:10.660 stuff. And there was an episode on the main Bruges, which is for people who haven't read the

00:06:17.860 book it's a little red imp that kind of popped up in new france and detroit actually has a parade

00:06:25.300 to the nain rouge every year and they had sightings like into the 80s 1980s and the podcast talked

00:06:31.880 about this witch telling cadillac's fortune and cadillac is the founder of detroit and i was kind

00:06:39.660 of it was kind of like a bolt from the blue i thought wow what would happen if i made these

00:06:44.020 people younger and a little bit more sexualized. And that's kind of how it started. And it just

00:06:51.720 went from there. And can you talk about how much research you did into Monique and New France?

00:06:57.760 What's the relationship between the research and the creativity when you're writing like this?

00:07:02.660 I do a ton of research. And my publisher was like, don't even worry about doing research.

00:07:07.340 Just write the book. Just write it. And I was like, I can't. I have to do the research.

00:07:14.020 So I read a lot, you know, something that's important to consider is that the only stories

00:07:19.620 we're really getting out of, of new France at the time, especially Montreal, which was 0.57

00:07:23.600 a backwater are those of white men. 0.98

00:07:27.100 That's really difficult to get, you know, the, the real story.

00:07:32.440 So I took creative liberties and my author's note says that some people hate that, but

00:07:39.160 this may have been made very clear to me that it's not, I guess, pure historical fiction.

00:07:44.020 But, you know, there's some things in the book that I, you know, despite all the research I did, I'm not going to be using racial slurs to refer to Indigenous people.

00:07:55.500 you know I tried my best to situate the story in in Montreal in 1670 like one of my exercises

00:08:04.980 which was really difficult my editor made me mark up a map of of Montreal at about that time

00:08:11.440 a little bit later of where I thought everything was that I was writing about so if I've done my

00:08:16.460 job with research in that regard then me saying the word indigenous instead of something utterly

00:08:24.920 horrible hopefully won't yank you out of the story but that was kind of a long way of saying

00:08:29.960 yes I did a ton of research I was emailing I remember like emailing a coin collector asking

00:08:36.280 like what kind of money did they use in New France music everything like it was just kind of

00:08:41.340 harem scarum so I really enjoy it I really enjoy researching I want to make it as as authentic as

00:08:48.360 possible within, you know, the framework of, of not contributing another piece of sexist,

00:08:56.240 probably ableist racist literature to the Canlet pantheon. Yeah. I kind of loved that because it

00:09:02.580 felt really like to what I studied in school, really accurate to the time. Lots of, lots of

00:09:09.620 really like great detail that made me feel really immersed in it. And then moments where I was like,

00:09:15.140 fuck yeah I know I love that and you know what's interesting is that people like my proofreader my 0.86

00:09:21.580 copy editor they all picked up on that like why are you using these terms and I've also seen that 0.94

00:09:28.240 in reviews I don't want to frame it as like a complaint but people have said well you know the

00:09:32.720 language feels really modern at times and I think yes good that's what I wanted to do right that's

00:09:38.680 what I wanted to do and I also don't I don't really like reading history books where they're

00:09:42.320 like, you know, the lady doth do us. It's not really my jam. So I basically just wrote the

00:09:48.820 book I think I'd want to read. Yeah, I loved reading it in that way. And I loved the moments

00:09:53.900 where I don't I'm not always drawn to historical fiction for exactly that reason. Like, I don't

00:09:58.200 need to know how much of a fucking nightmare it was for everybody all the time, except for those 0.96

00:10:04.480 like four dudes who were the worst, you know, like, I that's not I know enough about that. I 0.98

00:10:09.200 don't need to read that book over and over and over again so i love those moments when like

00:10:13.500 and it comes out in the mouths of of like bad guys it comes out in the mouths of people too

00:10:18.380 where you hear the connection to our contemporary reality like when i think it's father etienne

00:10:23.700 when the priest says something like women are not allowed to have body autonomy they're not allowed

00:10:27.600 to own their own bodies bingo yeah yeah he was an intro he's real as from what i can tell and like

00:10:34.540 well all these people are real like the story of Anne Lamarck dealing with the priest is allegedly

00:10:40.160 real I twisted some of the facts there but you know again I don't want to give away

00:10:45.860 spoilers but she has a major victory in the book and that's real allegedly so it was really kind

00:10:53.700 of easy to take these super interesting characters and kind of put a modern spin on them and again

00:11:00.900 some people will like that some people won't like that but it made me feel good about writing it

00:11:07.260 that way yeah oh i'm delighted to learn that anne is real she is she is real and the words she said

00:11:17.100 to the priest i hate the way i'm hedging this your listeners can be like what is she talking about but

00:11:21.680 they're allegedly real as well so i've had people be like you need to write a book about anne okay

00:11:27.620 Well, maybe at some point in the future, I'll return to Montreal, you know, 1700s, but not at the moment.

00:11:34.940 No, I mean, yeah, I was wondering when I was doing this podcast, if I was going to just let myself go spoiler crazy.

00:11:41.760 I know, it's so hard. And everyone who's reading it is sending texts like, I did not see that coming.

00:11:49.100 I'm like, yeah, well, you're only two thirds of the way through the book, so get ready.

00:11:53.060 i know it's hard to hard to talk about it without spoiling too much well maybe what we'll do is

00:11:59.640 we'll keep this episode very much like if you're listening and you haven't read this book we'll

00:12:04.360 tell you all the things we love about it and get you excited to think about anna's writing process

00:12:08.780 and how fucking fun this book is and then maybe we'll do like 15 minutes at the end that we'll

00:12:13.560 just put on the patreon because i know i know the two people here read the book and i know a lot of 0.90

00:12:19.280 of people in the cover read the book so if you want to if you want to talk about the sex scene

00:12:24.160 or any of the scenes yes we'll keep that for the baits I would love to I haven't gotten able to

00:12:30.580 talk about that many oh okay okay we'll do it let's do that that'll be awesome yeah so I did

00:12:36.760 I'm so thrilled to know that that lineage that witch lineage I mean I know it's real from the

00:12:45.020 research that I do but to hear that you found it here in Montreal is not something that I knew

00:12:49.840 at all can you tell us more about the like witches witch hunts stories that you found

00:12:55.660 yeah so interesting thinking back just starting this book because it's hard to remember the

00:13:00.520 thought process it's kind of a fugue state and I don't remember why I picked Montreal I can't

00:13:07.820 remember if Monique was actually based out of it or if I just picked it because it was closer to

00:13:13.740 the streets of Mackinac and Detroit but you know she Monique only pops up in this book that was

00:13:18.360 written in the 1800s maybe the banquet was happening in Montreal maybe that's why I picked

00:13:23.740 it um the legends of Detroit and so we don't know if she was actually real but I thought

00:13:29.780 well if they wrote about her she was probably real in some regard and it was really interesting

00:13:37.480 it's actually really kind of difficult to find a history of witchcraft in new france there is one

00:13:45.220 book about like new france kind of witchcraft traditions and it has one copy that's in the

00:13:53.640 library in ottawa like the big library there and the pandemic happened so i was like well i'm i

00:14:00.240 guess i'm not going there and luckily someone and it's the kind of book you can't check out like you

00:14:04.600 have to go sit in the reference room and look at it and luckily someone god bless the internet

00:14:09.920 someone put it on tumblr like all the stuff that they had like taken pictures of in that book

00:14:15.160 loves that ingenuity so you know it was it's interesting it sounds like new france witchcraft

00:14:22.400 was very much a mix of religion and sort of pagan rituals in the same way that like slavic

00:14:32.660 witchcraft is. It's one of those kind of unique blends. But what I could find of people who

00:14:39.320 were sentenced and killed specifically for witchcraft, like specifically for sorcery,

00:14:45.980 the main record I could find was of a man who had been shot for likes, you know, he seduced a young

00:14:52.340 woman in her dreams. Okay. He was probably a pervert. So, you know, probably good. It was

00:14:57.100 really fascinating to me that at this time in New France, there wasn't a big history of hunting

00:15:05.100 down women and killing them for witchcraft. But at the same time, in the colonies in the States

00:15:09.800 and overseas in Europe, that was really prevalent. So I thought, well, that's kind of fascinating.

00:15:15.920 I think people, the settlers were probably just trying to survive in this new world that they

00:15:23.080 landed in they really didn't have the emotional energy to be witch hunting and also like they

00:15:28.760 really needed they really needed any bit of healing any bit of knowledge yeah yeah the the

00:15:35.840 you know the sage femmes say it was it's really interesting actually researching too because they

00:15:42.220 were kind of reticent to with the catholic priests like people didn't like father at the end who was

00:15:49.800 real and they were they were fed up with him and and you know in one of the scenes they they very

00:15:56.320 much sided with Anne when the scene happened in real life they very much sided with her so

00:16:02.900 people think you know New France was very you know super patriarchal super religious and it was

00:16:09.960 eventually but I think in kind of the nascent the beginnings of it it was more like okay we're just

00:16:16.060 we're just trying to stay alive by any means possible. Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. I

00:16:22.120 think it's Marise Condé in I Tituba. She said that it was a channeled work. She was like, yeah,

00:16:27.760 I spent, you know, a decade or whatever it was researching Tituba. But as you say, like 99% of

00:16:35.240 who that person was exceeds the archives. And I really admire and love that she just kind of

00:16:43.260 claims that fiction writing, I think in general, and for her in particular, and telling the story

00:16:48.920 that's outside the archive was an act of channeling. Do you feel like there's a part of that

00:16:53.740 process that is like hearing voices? Yes. Not so much with this book, maybe because I've

00:17:01.640 matured a little bit, but like the first book I ever wrote was for my thesis at UBC. And that was

00:17:07.380 very much kind of like hearing voices I think with Monique it's interesting people will read

00:17:15.280 her and say oh I really hear you in her and I don't think I don't see myself in her at all

00:17:22.560 and that made it perhaps a bit difficult to write but also a really fabulous challenge

00:17:27.480 but then maybe I'm wrong because people who know me are like oh no I totally see you in her

00:17:33.320 interestingly enough it was actually probably more of an act of channeling to write Cadillac

00:17:38.620 because he is the id as opposed to I wouldn't call Monique an ego or a super ego but he is

00:17:45.040 he is very much the id I think he is an example of what would happen if you just really gave in

00:17:53.720 to your basest desires and in a way I think writing him was probably more of the act of

00:17:58.520 channeling and he I think is the most fascinating character to me in the book talk more about that

00:18:03.600 is that like do you think about shadow work when you think about Cadillac is that part of it

00:18:08.560 Cadillac Cadillac yeah I think so it's kind of like if we're talking about shadow work I'm

00:18:14.940 I'm gonna quote Dexter the show Dexter when he talks about the dark passenger you know the dark

00:18:20.960 passenger who's with you at all times and I really did a lot of reading on I have my my witchcraft

00:18:27.160 bookshelf which is just one shelf that's crammed full of books I've collected and you know I did

00:18:32.380 a lot of reading on like the horned one and the left-handed path and the poison path while writing

00:18:37.520 about Cadillac and it was super satisfying to kind of explore that dark side and I I thought a lot

00:18:48.800 about the devil while writing him as well I mean catholic school kid grew up in a catholic school

00:18:54.980 for 10 years. And you always wonder like, what about that other guy? And to me, Cadillac is

00:19:00.460 sort of personification of the devil. You know, the thing that the Catholic priests are warning

00:19:05.500 so much about is that right, actually is there right within your ranks. And you've welcomed him

00:19:10.860 in because he's so tricksy. So it was quite a release, I guess, to channel him and to write

00:19:20.660 about him hmm so he's not the personification of one of my worst ex-boyfriends then that wasn't

00:19:27.500 no wait that might actually you know it's interesting I did another interview we're

00:19:31.720 talking about Cadillac like he was like well how did you how did you write him I said oh well I

00:19:36.120 thought every abusive man I've interacted with yeah so yes he is the personification of all of

00:19:43.100 Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, that's him. And there's, you know, there's pieces of him and things that he does that people who know me quite well are like, Oh, I recognize that. And I'm like, Yep. But I think, you know, the devil is in all of us, but he is very was very much so in Cadillac.

00:20:05.080 So, yeah, I recognized my own experience of like loving and being very attracted to somebody who I could read the cues that they weren't, I wasn't ethically aligned with them.

00:20:19.780 Do you know, like the glory, the desire for, for fame and power and whatever, and just reading those cues and being like, well, I, I still see something that I want.

00:20:31.040 Yes.

00:20:31.520 And then being like, I put myself in this position.

00:20:34.900 I saw the cues, I'm chosen anyway.

00:20:38.940 Yeah.

00:20:39.480 And then having to like burn through that experience to get to the other side.

00:20:44.860 Very much so.

00:20:45.740 It's very much like you're, yeah, that you're putting yourself in that position.

00:20:50.980 Like you're making this choice of free will.

00:20:53.420 And then, you know, you can't be surprised when you get burned at the end.

00:20:57.560 but I did love that she was aware that whole time like she she made those choices she got 0.98

00:21:05.420 the freedom she wanted she got the she got the fucking canoe trip you know like she 0.97

00:21:10.220 she got to have the the life yeah yeah she did and I think you know 0.96

00:21:18.120 Monique is the protagonist in this book but she is not necessarily a protagonist all the time I

00:21:24.160 think both of them are antagonists. I think neither of them has a completely trustworthy

00:21:30.520 narrative, one much less than the other. Let's be honest there. But I think probably everybody

00:21:38.940 in New France at the time had to be quite wily, had to be quite smart. And it's keep yourself

00:21:46.240 alive. And I think because of that, everyone is a little bit dangerous. Can we go back to

00:21:53.020 your your channeled work to your thesis I wanted to know what it was about yeah so UBC

00:22:00.660 was a bit of a tumultuous time I don't know if this story broke oh gosh maybe 2015 but when I

00:22:10.840 was at UBC my thesis advisor was Stephen Galloway who later was let me get these facts straight

00:22:18.620 suspended and then let go from the university and he was accused of sexual assault and physical

00:22:27.080 assault and I don't remember the other accusations and the case is working its way through the courts

00:22:36.740 it's a it's a libel case now so I have to be very careful about what I say and he was my fiction

00:22:42.960 thesis advisor and my thesis is about 1980s Northern Ireland it's not auto fiction but

00:22:53.700 it's a mix of like fiction and non-fiction where it's real people but it's a it's a fictionalized

00:22:58.220 story I haven't looked at it since shelving it and by shelving it I mean finishing it I have not

00:23:03.560 returned to it and I know that I have to because that's the kind of ghost that lingers over your

00:23:09.340 shoulder but the time at UBC was just so a bit wild that I haven't had the fortitude I guess to

00:23:19.460 return to that work even though it's kind of calling my name you know like when you like the

00:23:26.140 heart under the floorboards even when you wrap something up and put it away it's still gonna

00:23:30.060 thump so that's definitely something in the future that I need to uh circle back to and it's it's

00:23:37.800 always in my brain. Hmm. I want to ask this question. It sounds really trite, but I don't

00:23:43.960 mean it in a trite way, but like, where do you think your stories are coming to you from? Or

00:23:48.220 like, why are you, when you look at the stories you've written in the past and the stories that

00:23:52.380 are calling out to you in the future, like what, what kinds of stories do you think are calling to

00:23:59.360 you and why you know it's interesting I've never felt the urge to write a story that's set now in

00:24:09.540 the present which is interesting to me because I read a lot of stories that are set now in the

00:24:15.240 present but something about voices that perhaps have been forgotten or overwritten throughout

00:24:24.240 history is very appealing to me. And, you know, the next few books that I'm kind of turning over

00:24:31.540 in my head are all in that vein. So I guess in a way that is kind of channeling because a voice

00:24:40.360 from history kind of speaks out to you, peels like a bell, and then that worms its way into

00:24:48.300 your brain and you can't get rid of it so you know I guess you could say oh it's the muse but

00:24:54.860 really it's just kind of an obsession where you hear one thing in passing and then you go oh I

00:24:59.760 can't get the story out of my head and then you're tethered to it what's your writing process like

00:25:07.640 it is I wish so I only just learned this year about like what do they call them plotters and

00:25:14.720 pantsers like people who sit down and plot out the book plot out the timeline that's not me

00:25:20.920 and I have major respect for people who do that and then the pantsers like the fly by the seat

00:25:25.340 of the pants and I just write like when the urge hits and it maybe it was a former professor at

00:25:36.080 UBC who said right where the heat is and that was big for this book because the first scene I wrote

00:25:44.120 is when Monique meets Cadillac at the banquet because that's where the heat was and and then

00:25:51.020 I kind of built it out around that it's kind of like I put up the bones like I put up the

00:25:58.320 beams of the house and then I go in and fill it all with drywall and insulation foam and

00:26:04.640 stuff after the fact so it's a bit all over the place but it gets done I don't think there is a

00:26:11.620 right or wrong way to write and I think that's what's so glorious about it but I'm definitely

00:26:16.520 I definitely go by the seat of my pants and do you have like if you feel the the voice the peeling

00:26:23.380 of the bell as you put it or and you're sitting down to write where the heat is do you have a

00:26:28.100 do you ritualize anything in any way like are you do you have your witchy which sides I don't when

00:26:35.640 it comes to writing and that might actually be something to consider in the future you know

00:26:42.980 you think about it you really are opening yourself up to stuff and I never think about protecting

00:26:50.380 myself in any regard it's just kind of like falling in head first I sleep very poorly when

00:26:58.800 I'm writing when I'm really deep in writing that's a mix of things that's like not being able to

00:27:03.660 exercise or get physical because I'm spending my time writing. So I'm not just going to blame it

00:27:07.860 on the writing, but your brain becomes so full that other aspects of your life start to become

00:27:13.640 more colorless in response, I think. And that is a really, really good question. It's something

00:27:19.820 I'm going to have to consider going forward, I think. Yeah. It's nice to make some ritual space

00:27:28.640 yes in life to interact with creativity I like how Monique thinks about it you know that I

00:27:34.080 really related to that that like yes I mean it's all in the mind but what ifs and so for my my own

00:27:40.820 practice like a bit of a communication with the plants out here a little bit of you know smoke

00:27:47.640 a little bit of whatever like those things those things yeah help me shift my brain somehow I don't

00:27:53.600 know if they help me sleep though nothing helps me sleep it's just yeah yeah yeah just straight

00:28:01.760 exhaustion helps me sleep exactly yeah it's interesting you said it feels like the rest

00:28:06.560 of the life is sort of drained drained of color for a little while it does sound a bit like a

00:28:10.920 possession it really you know when you're in it I think this is why I do writing residencies

00:28:17.700 it's easier to write when there's nothing else you know where you just can be kind of a ghoul

00:28:25.860 hunched over your computer or however you write you know I have some friends who write by pen

00:28:30.400 and paper and that was why you know going away to remote I was like you're going to Norway in

00:28:36.300 the arctic in winter it was perfect it was great there was nothing to do about the island really

00:28:42.000 except you know sit and write and watch the snowstorms and the northern lights so it is

00:28:49.380 it is a possession and I think it's it's really helpful when you remove yourself from other people

00:28:54.900 if you have the means to it's it's a great privilege to be able to pay to go somewhere

00:29:00.340 but even if you you know lock yourself up in your apartment you say I can't deal with any of you

00:29:05.240 that's also helpful as well yeah I read that piece you wrote about Lady Gaga and men draining

00:29:12.400 your power yes that was written when I was in Norway actually oh really yeah yeah I related

00:29:20.100 to it hard but as someone with like a four-year-old and a partner I was like how do I

00:29:25.580 carve out the spaces you can't you can't get rid of that I know that was god that piece came to me

00:29:33.180 like a like a lightning bolt and it was I got some really interesting feedback on that it was

00:29:38.860 very split but a lot of people even you know people who were married or had partners or

00:29:44.360 children related with it so I was like okay I'm tapping into something there that's another thing

00:29:49.880 like I've not really been dating because I've been busy writing two books so it's kind of it's

00:29:56.400 kind of a trade-off and that's one area of the life that kind of loses color when you're deep

00:30:02.860 writing at least for me i mean it sounds like it's a choice for you yeah yeah yeah very much so

00:30:09.300 it's like there's really only one font of creativity and what do i want to pour it into

00:30:14.780 right yeah i just dropped my kid off at daycare we we just she just started daycare so she's been

00:30:21.640 home with us full time because the pandemic and stuff for four years yeah so she just started

00:30:26.620 daycare last week that's a big step how she how's she handling it oh she's good thank you for us

00:30:32.840 she's all right she's like she's a bit sad on the way there and then excited when she's there

00:30:38.600 perfect yeah I feel like I have to walk around my house and like untangle my nervous system

00:30:48.420 from my family for a little while you know and I I think that's what like a witch's broom is sort

00:30:55.400 of about too you know like I just have to clean yeah and untangle and get my and then I can like

00:31:01.060 sense things in my own life and body again without it being all sprayed out across the house so i in

00:31:07.000 that sense i really related to what you wrote there yeah that's really apt and like maybe that

00:31:12.240 is one of my rituals for sitting down and writing i have to write in like kind of a clean organized

00:31:16.060 space otherwise whether that's mental emotional or physical it's something because otherwise it's

00:31:22.460 just all over the place i feel that yeah i will open it to folks if you have any questions

00:31:29.620 our responses i had one question just about your writing experience you're talking about how the

00:31:34.560 characters kind of came to you i have another friend who's a writer and we talk about this

00:31:39.580 often she says the characters kind of take the story where they're going do you find that that's

00:31:45.060 the case or can you reel them in and kind of control the story where you want it to end up

00:31:49.140 that's a really good question and i think with this historical fiction it's like there's so

00:31:54.460 little about these people that's at least about Monique and Cadillac's a difficult character too

00:32:00.460 because he lied we think about everything so there isn't really that much about him either

00:32:06.620 so I just kind of let them take but okay I really let him take me where he wanted to go and that

00:32:14.340 was somewhere pretty dark but then she also went somewhere pretty dark I think I'm thinking back

00:32:22.900 you know to other things I've written I don't think I've ever been able to rein my characters

00:32:28.740 in completely I think that they very much and maybe that's because they're kind of part of me

00:32:34.840 maybe they're my id but they do what they want to do they do the things that we aren't brave enough

00:32:41.060 or you know mad enough to do and you know bless my editors and agents who are like yeah great

00:32:49.380 oh yeah that scene yeah great perfect you know there's been a lot of discussion on the internet

00:32:56.680 lately about like well you know my agent tells me what to write my editor tells me what to write or

00:33:02.900 you know is that right or wrong I think really when it comes down to it's the characters that

00:33:07.280 tell you what to write and and it's just it depends on how hard you're listening to them

00:33:12.640 you know we have folks in our community who are doing graduate research in some cases about

00:33:19.160 uncovering which history is in different parts of the world and then trying to figure out like

00:33:24.360 well what do I do when the archives end you know like what do I do when all I have is like

00:33:30.620 two mentions and a birth date and I go and sit in a graveyard and feel a lot of complicated things

00:33:36.880 trying to figure out how to balance that in I guess in programs that aren't fiction

00:33:42.160 is different you know yeah do you have advice from a fiction perspective about how they can

00:33:47.520 negotiate that that is you know it's interesting I just read I keep saying oh that's so interesting

00:33:53.520 because every question is so interesting you're obviously one of us I shouldn't say I just read

00:33:59.200 this I think was last year okay well in my mind a ghost in the throat it's kind of a mix of fiction

00:34:04.320 and non-fiction and it's about a female poet and I can't remember her name and she wrote like the

00:34:10.980 most well-known keen like mourning poem in Ireland but there's so little known about this woman who

00:34:20.560 was real and the author she's not a researcher she is at the time like a stay-at-home mother

00:34:27.620 but she makes it a point to travel to different museums travel to different you know graveyards

00:34:33.760 places of residence to try to do research on this woman who's been lost even despite writing one of

00:34:41.480 you know the country's most famous poems she's been overwritten by history so that's a really

00:34:46.100 good book I think to start with it's a beautiful read I think fiction gives you a lot of liberties

00:34:51.740 and I was very lucky to be able to have the privilege of writing an author's note saying

00:34:59.340 I changed all the times. I changed, you know, I changed this. I changed that. I didn't write about

00:35:03.780 this, this event that happened. I didn't write about this, but it's still like, if you're kind

00:35:09.020 of like a perfectionist, like me, it's still very frustrating because you think who was this person

00:35:15.020 and are they actually real? And it's also, it makes you very angry because women or, you know, 0.99

00:35:22.540 people who weren't white men have been like kind of erased from the record. So, so one of the

00:35:28.460 research rabbit holes I went down was I wanted to find a Wendat name from the time. And I thought,

00:35:37.620 okay, how am I going to do this? I'll look at marriage licenses. I'll look at marriage licenses

00:35:44.300 of white men who married Indigenous women. Well, guess what? The Indigenous women's names aren't

00:35:50.700 put on any of those marriage licenses, which is like so dark. And that's one of the sort of 1.00

00:35:56.160 angry making things of researching from a time period where white guys were controlling what

00:36:03.860 was written down so I guess my main advice is you try your best you really just try your best

00:36:11.840 you do research you try to put yourself in in different people's shoes and you try your best

00:36:18.300 then maybe you say that in your office note like I tried my best here and sometimes your best isn't

00:36:23.780 good enough and people are going to hate it and that's okay as long as you know I think you know

00:36:28.680 yeah I think trying your best is kind of the best advice for so many yeah the things that we've tried

00:36:35.720 to grapple with you make me think of this other question I have and it's not one that I expect

00:36:41.120 you to have an answer for but maybe we can think out loud about it together but I I think a lot

00:36:46.120 about like the privilege involved in you know even in doing what I do you know I'm trying to

00:36:52.760 do a podcast and write books about feminist history. And now I look back at my family

00:36:58.240 history and like there was poverty there, but there's obviously white privilege. There are 0.51

00:37:02.300 stacks, stacks of systemic privilege, you know, from the perspective of my grandparents,

00:37:07.880 they were very poor, but they didn't have the perspective to look around at all of the stacks

00:37:12.400 they had climbed on, you know, all that violence. And so I try to think about like, well, how does

00:37:21.120 a person who has been traditionally marginalized underprivileged violated how does that person get

00:37:28.520 the time to travel around to all the places that their their characters were maybe left a mark in

00:37:35.720 the different museums how do they get the time to like write all day and go you know it's hard

00:37:41.300 I can't do it how do we do that work to write those better stories and write those imbalances

00:37:46.000 to write those better stories oh it's a difficult question and you know I I should also say like I'm

00:37:52.380 grateful to Canada's arts granting programs because I wouldn't be able to do a lot of my

00:37:57.920 research without the first book was Ontario Arts Council and the second book was Canada Council

00:38:02.000 so thank you Canada Council for the arts shout out to you but it is true like even writing a grant

00:38:07.140 application takes a lot of work and a lot of time. And, you know, I, I'm privileged in that,

00:38:16.080 like, I just work one job. I work full time. It's just one job. So I have, you know, I have hours

00:38:20.280 off to do stuff. I think Canada is making, making strides to sort of right some wrongs, but I don't

00:38:28.740 know. It's hard to tell because the pendulum swings in so many different directions. And I

00:38:35.120 think the groundswell of alt-right sentiment we're seeing is really worrying me I don't know

00:38:41.780 it is a difficult question and it's hard to see the future but it is something that I definitely

00:38:47.340 keep in mind writing both books writing the first book we were guests on the Moose Cree First Nation

00:38:54.660 land like it was very much like I am a white person writing about something that I don't know

00:39:00.900 a lot about and with this book you know it was a really difficult decision what to do about you

00:39:08.700 know the settlers were living alongside the Haudenosaunee like this was they were in a

00:39:14.640 period of truce but it it was you know cheek to jaw living in a way and and and for me

00:39:23.540 I wanted to include you know indigenous people at the time but I didn't want to include too many

00:39:30.520 because then I'd start telling a story that wasn't mine so striking that balance who knows if I did

00:39:36.980 it correctly probably not but it is something that's in my mind all the time you know yeah

00:39:43.840 totally I noticed that sort of tension there like you want to meet those people and hear the voices

00:39:49.820 but you know you're not the right person to give us those voices and so you can feel that

00:39:54.600 that I thought it was gracefully done thank you it's tricky though man it's probably not I wouldn't

00:40:00.980 say it's perfectly done because I don't think there is a perfect but I don't think there is

00:40:04.400 either and and you know I was talking with one of my blurbers about this and he was like I I think

00:40:11.320 you did you know you did it you did it the way you wanted to do it and I just thought well I think

00:40:16.540 Monique would have just been kind of horny like I think I think she just would have been so

00:40:24.240 flabbergasted by seeing like clean male flesh that maybe that this is how we should frame this

00:40:29.540 interaction yeah she's just a person she's just a person who's been wrapped up her whole life

00:40:35.840 who feels feeling person and she's finally meeting men who like wash themselves and like look nice

00:40:43.200 so that was that was the tack I took who knows if it was the right tack but right right because

00:40:50.520 like objectifying sexualizing the one time these people come into the story is like pretty

00:40:56.220 complicated like yeah I thought about that too but it did seem like it did seem like it was kind of

00:41:02.920 like respectfully done and the people seemed like real people and it seemed like pretty accurate to

00:41:08.460 who Monique was yeah I think I think with the build-up in that story you're like oh yeah of

00:41:14.340 course that would be her reaction oh I did have one more question can you tell us a little bit

00:41:18.540 about dirty work yeah I would love to I love that book so it was a memoir which you know I hate

00:41:25.080 saying because it's like okay you were like 28 what did you write a memoir about but I worked

00:41:30.660 up north in northern Ontario at a fly-in fishing launch it was just south of the tip of James Bay

00:41:36.740 so not quite in polar bear territory thank god i had fished there as a guest the summer before

00:41:43.020 and fallen in love with it and then applied to work as a housekeeper and it was about my summer

00:41:48.460 in what i think is the most beautiful place on earth to be honest or one of the most beautiful

00:41:54.000 places on earth and sort of the difficulty of adapting to and i'm putting this in air quotes

00:42:02.460 the wilderness which is to me a little bit of a colonial term you know it's it's a place I'm not

00:42:09.540 used to and what it was like to interact with like bears face to face and and being close quarters 0.68

00:42:17.580 with all these young people and kind of this soup of hormones during like a crazy summer so

00:42:25.460 that's so interesting I still love that book to bits with Monique I just kind of feel almost

00:42:31.820 ambivalent about it now I don't know if that's the difference between memoir and fiction but

00:42:36.980 yeah so that's dirty work and I it still makes me laugh when I read parts of it I don't know

00:42:43.160 if an author should admit that do you think you'll write memoir again probably not I don't think so

00:42:49.580 I I don't really know what else there is in my life okay I do there's like what at least one

00:42:54.300 thing I could write about but I never would so I don't think I'd do it I'm so glad that was my

00:42:59.280 you know introduction into the publishing world it felt very exciting and very fun

00:43:05.940 so I feel very grateful for that yeah it's funny to think like maybe we all my co-author Amy we

00:43:12.820 met playing music together and she told me like everybody has one solo album in them like everyone

00:43:18.460 should make a solo album everybody has a set of their own songs and I've heard other people say

00:43:24.200 like everybody could write their first book because everyone's life is totally unique and like

00:43:29.660 we all want to read everyone's first book because it's like show me inside your brain and your soul

00:43:35.820 and your body but like not everybody has a second book yeah like you might be you're a writer if

00:43:43.020 you're if you're gonna tackle beyond that first personal yeah story very much so I like that a lot

00:43:49.740 so I got my solo album out it was my first one and you know what a way to enter the publishing

00:43:56.760 world and now it's stories and hits and channeling nothing but the hits nothing but the hair

00:44:03.120 thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and for doing the research in

00:44:11.500 and doing the channeling and doing the digging into the peeling bells inside yourself to give us

00:44:18.180 this very kindred witch oh it was my pleasure i love talking about it yeah thanks we love getting

00:44:26.800 to meet her and getting to meet you through her so thank you for being here you're welcome and

00:44:34.960 blessed if i can be 0.84

00:44:36.340 you must be a witch

00:44:43.260 The Missing Witches podcast is created by Risa Dickens and Amy Turok with insight and support

00:44:51.180 from The Coven at patreon.com slash missingwitches. Amy and Risa are the co-authors

00:44:57.680 of Missing Witches, reclaiming true histories of feminist magic, which is available now wherever

00:45:03.000 you get your books or audiobooks, and of New Moon Magic, 13 anti-capitalist tools for resistance

00:45:10.600 and re-enchantment, coming fall 2023.

Missing Witches - November 03, 2022

WF Anna Maxymiw： Minique, A Novel ＂Everyone Is A Little Bit Dangerous.＂

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