Kathryn Mockler's Blog, page 8
May 18, 2025
Violent Femmes
Violent FemmesWhen I was in high school, I bought the Violent Femmes self-titled album. Excited to listen to it, I threw the album cover on the coffee table and blared it on our stereo.
When my mom came home from work, she looked down at the album cover and said in disgust, “Violent Women? Why would you listen to an album called Violent Woman?”
At the time, I rolled my eyes. But later listening to the lyrics—some of them are pretty terrible at times even incel-ish, but the music still sounds good.
Flash forward to a little under forty years later, and my mother and I have gone for a walk in the halls of the hospital while she is waiting to placed in long term care in Toronto.
A worker at the hospital is playing some songs in the waiting room for patients. There are two women there—one is a visitor, the other a patient in a wheelchair. They look about my age and are very welcoming as we sit down and listen to the music with them.
The women were kind of a cross between rocker and punk chicks and looked like they would be fun to party with. They were full of laughs and energy.
The man played“Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes, and the two women started singing and even I did too. My mom didn’t know the song, but it’s upbeat, and she was smiling as he played.
When he finished, I told them the story of my mom saying, “Why would you listen to an album called Violent Women?” and everyone laughed including my mom.
After he left, we stayed and chatted with the women. They too were from London and told me that the musician plays at the Richmond Tavern sometimes. The one who I’ll call Dee said the Richmond used to have a bad reputation but it’s fine now.
We exchanged ages and realized we were both 54. I forgot to ask what high school she want to.
Dee said back in the day, she went to the Rideout once when there was a stabbing and she never went back. She said the Rideout was way worse but the Richmond had the bad reputation. I agree. I only went to the Rideout a couple of times, but it was also know for being violent—stabbings, shootings, fights.
I asked them if they used to go to the Brunswick or Key West which were some of my old haunts where I drank underage, and they both did.
Dee gave me a high five and the other woman told a story about a guy who used to go to Key West said he kept photo of Priscilla Presley on his wall because it looked like her. Creepy.
“You do look like Priscilla Presley,” Dee said, “Especially when you had dark hair.”
“Do you remember Woody from The Brunswick—the bartender?” Dee asked.
“He passed away,” her friend said.
“I heard,” I said.
“They turned the wrong bar into a parking lot,” she said.
We all agreed.
“When I get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is go to the Richmond. It’s a good time.”
We parted ways with good cheer, and I hope to see them again because they were fun and full of life.
My mother left the interaction smiling too because the woman who looked like Priscilla Presley paid her special attention and even said, “Bye, Mom,” as she wheeled herself into the elevator.
“Music,” Kathryn Mockler, 2025Kathryn Mockler is the author of Anecdotes.Support Send My Love to AnyoneSupport Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it
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What am I going to do with her?
“Tissue box” by Kathryn Mockler, 2025JanetThere is a patient in the bed beside my mother’s who I’ll call Janet who is suffering greatly and is likely on the wait list for long-term care like my mother. She’s blind in one eye and not able to move around on her own but seems to be more cognizant of her surroundings unlike my mother who needs to be reminded repeatedly that she’s in the hospital.
Janet can’t use the call button and screams “help me, help me” at the top of her lungs to get the attention of the nurses or psw’s.
Of course they are busy and do their best to attend, but often Janet yells while they are in the middle of helping someone else. If her requests are simple like “cover my feet” or “open my package of apples,” I’ll step in—not out of any great goodness in my heart, but just to stop the sound emitting from her mouth.
Although I try to be friendly to Janet and always greet her when I arrive or leave, I have come to detest the sound of her voice. I’ve never heard a voice so loud from someone so small. It is both deep and high pitched at the same time—demanding and incessant. It immediately makes you want to cover your ears and scream yourself.
When she is yelling, it is impossible to have a conversation. On most days, my sister who is not in town can hardly talk to my mother on Facetime because of the noise.
Sometimes my mother will say, “What am I going to do with her?”
I just shake my head because I have no fucking idea.
One of the nurses said to me, “I’m worried she’s affecting the other patients and your mom.”
She is.
When I visit, my mother and I go for walks in the halls or sit in the waiting room outside the sub-acute wing where it is quiet and there’s a nice view of the city. London also known as the “forest city” appears to still have a lot of trees despite all the development.
*
The other day, when Janet was sleeping, I pulled out some earplugs for my mother, but she didn’t know what they were.
“Do I eat these?” she asked of the soft, blue oblong-shaped items, and her question ignited the fury in me that the doctors and administrators here were planning to send her back to an independent living situation.
“No,” I said and wrote a note on a sticky pad that said, “These are earplugs.”
My mother couldn’t read my hand writing and looked at me very confused when she read the note out loud, “These are cars?”
So I re-wrote the note neater and when she read, “These are earplugs,” she laughed and laughed and asked, “What do I need with those?”
*
One day I came in and Janet was not only screaming at the top of her lungs, but also making a fake baby crying wan wan sound and banging a box of tissue on the hospital table in front of her as hard as she could which made a loud slapping sound as it hit the surface. I had never seen her in this much distress.
A psw who was helping another patient across the room looked back at Janet with disdain and said, “I’m not coming over there.”
Janet asked why not.
“Because you just slapped me. And you hit two other nurses today.”
Then the psw said to me, “I’m sorry you have to listen to her.”
A silence fell over the normally noisy hospital room, and I felt bad for Janet who for the first time in a week was not screaming.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said.
“She’s been carrying on like this for hours.”
Later that day, I saw a nurse sitting beside Janet’s bed holding her hand. She said, “I know you’re having a very bad day.”
“I’m having an awful day,” Janet said her voice cracking. It sounded like she was crying.
“What is one thing I could do for you right now that would make you feel better?” the nurse asked. Her question made tears form in my eyes.
This I realized was the same nurse who had whispered in my ear to keep pushing the hospital because she knew my mother should not be sent home.
“Nothing,” Janet said.
“There’s not one thing I could do for you that would make you feel better?”
“No,” Janet said but something softened in her voice.
*
Once when Janet’s granddaughter was visiting and asked her how things were going, Janet said, “Bullshit. Bullshit is how things are going.”
My mother whispered to me, “What did she say?”
“She said bullshit,” I repeated and we both chuckled.
Then Janet said, “When the nurses don’t come when I call, I scream all day. I scream from morning to night.”
Her granddaughter didn’t say anything.
She’s doing it on purpose, I laughed to myself—a little enraged, a little in awe.
Kathryn Mockler is the author of Anecdotes.Support Send My Love to AnyoneSupport Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it
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May 17, 2025
May Gatherings
I’m so pleased to report that we raised over $800 for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund with the I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You Fundraiser and Draw!
Congratulations to Kevin Wilson!
Look for Kevin’s interview in the coming weeks!
Thanks everyone who donated.
There will be another fundraiser and draw for June!
My NewsGreat to see that this auction is getting some press:
Authors are auctioning signed books to raise money for Crips for eSIMs for Gaza, Lit Hub
Canadian writers launch online book auction to raise money for eSIM cards for Gazans, Quill and Quire
From The Toronto Star: “Online auction: Authors for eSims - More than 100 Canadian writers have donated autographed or special edition novels, memoirs and poetry collections in support of ”Authors for eSims,” an online auction raising money to buy and send eSims (digital SIM cards) to Gaza, where infrastructure, including Wi-Fi and cell service, has been devastated by Israeli bombardment. Giller Prize winners Madeleine Thien, Omar El Akkad, Sarah Bernstein and Souvankham Thammavongsa are among the participating authors. The auction, organized by novelist Thea Lim and poet Jody Chan, runs until May 18 and has already raised more than $9,000. “We’re really heartened to see so many people rallying around this collective effort that ‘keeps all of us alive to Gaza’s struggle,’ in the words of participating publisher Norm Nehmetallah,” Lim told the Star. “Mutual aid projects offer all of us the chance to intervene quickly and directly in an ongoing and devastating catastrophe — we are not surprised that so many people are jumping at the chance to help.” —Richie Assaly
Thanks to for inviting me on her podcast !
Thanks to Ben Ladouceur who included Anecdotes in his recommended reading list “Books Can be Powerful” on 49th Shelf
Anecdotes , by Kathryn Mockler
Kirby NewsThis book was published after I had written several drafts and signed the contract with my publisher. I was hooked by the opening line: “The boy is dead, and we will spend the rest of the story trying to find out why and what happened and how it affected the people in the boy’s life.” I can’t think of a more unexpected opening line for a book. Reading that, I wondered, where the hell is that story going to go from there? Where can a whole book possibly go from there? The answer is this: every single page of Mockler’s book has a twist, a turn, a slap in the face. It’s unexpected lines the whole way through. Reading this book was a well-timed reminder for me, that all writers should try to break whole new ground, on every page if possible. It made me a braver author, and got me out of a rut. For that, I will always love (and recommend) this book. —Ben Ladouceur
Don’t miss Kirby reading in Toronto and London in June!
JUNE 11th 8PM - Natural Born Sinners Erotic Reading Series at Three Dollar Bill1592 Queen Street W in Parkdale (Toronto)
JUNE 14th 6PM - Kirby and Angie QuickSoft Fest at Dough EV
621 Dundas St London, ON
What I’m Reading: Bonememory by Anna Veprinska (Univ of Calgary Press, 2025). Alibi Lullaby by Norma Cole (Omnidawn, 2025). Future Howl by Sue Goyette (Gaspereau Press, 2025).
Featured EventCoach House Books 60th Anniversary Party!
What I’m ReadingCongratulations to Canisia Lubrin on winning the Carol Shield’s Prize for Fiction for Code Noir!
carolshieldsprize
A post shared by @carolshieldsprizeA beautiful Modern Love story by Souvankam Thommavongsa.
Divorce Is a GiftWe could have had a nice life together, but I wanted more for him.
Read Inside the campaign that upended CanLit’s ties to Scotiabank and Israeli arms in The BreachA friend introduced us at a dinner. I noticed his southern accent. I loved the sound of it: warm and kind and soothing. I had only heard that accent in a hero from a cowboy movie and in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor. To hear it in the Canadian city where I lived was captivating.
The grassroots campaign that took on the Giller for its ties to the genocide in Gaza forced a broader reckoning in the Canadian literary community
But the movement also achieved something that can’t be measured in numbers: it created a community of artists, authors, and organizers drawn together by a common cause and sustained by the discovery of their collective power outside of the established cultural institutions.
I adore Liberation Toolbox! YK Hong offers excellent advice for detangling from big tech.
Read Already Ready When They Come for You from by YK HongNotice there was no “because” in Baldwin’s statement. Instead, as I understand it, it is that by the time they come for me, they have already come for you. When they come for anyone, everyone should already be fighting back. By the time they come for the first person, everyone should already be ready.
Liberation ToolboxOppression is Changing Your Internet SearchesOppression is changing our internet searches. Online searches on many different topics are already yielding vastly different results than they were even a month or two ago…Read more17 days ago · 17 likes · YK HongExcellent tips from on “Reading Like a Book Reviewer”
No Failure, Only Practice#50: Write Better Fiction by Reading like a Book Reviewer Hello friends! My apologies for not getting out an April newsletter: I had a family emergency that had me flying back and forth across the country three times last month. Thanks for your patience while I catch back up! The good news is that there’ll be two newsletters in May: this one, and then a guest post mid-month, from an excellent writer with a new…Read more15 days ago · 63 likes · 12 comments · Matt Bellis on Substack and writing terrific essays in !
&thropoceneSLOW GOSSIP / SLOW SOCIALSI was wondering what “Slow Gossip” could mean. A concept analogous to “Slow Food.” As you likely know, “slow food” as a concepg was created to defend regional food traditions, gastronomic pleasure and quality food. It’s a concept in opposition to “fast food” and the genericizing and processing of capitalism. …Read more11 days ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · Gary BarwinSupport Send My Love to AnyoneSupport Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it
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May 15, 2025
A total fucking disaster
A Total Fucking DisasterMy mom is in the hospital, and I’m staying in a little apartment in my hometown in the neighbourhood I grew up in where I’m just having flashback after horrible flashback of my childhood.
My most recent involves the time I went to the grade six Halloween dance as a creepy old man and thought I was invisible.
My friend had old man and woman masks. These costumes were to be our last resort if we couldn't find anything better. Well, the last resort became the reality: she was the old woman and I was the old man. For some reason, I thought wearing this mask made me INVISIBLE.
It did not.
As soon as I got to the dance, I realized I had made a terrible costume choice. The other kids wore cute clown and witches and princess costumes. Someone even dressed as a cloud and then there was me with this old man face in a mask I could hardly breathe in.
No one recognized me or talked to me. The mask was terrifying. The head was giant and smelled like rubber and may very well have been the face of Ronald Reagan. Sometimes I still see this mask in my dreams.
When my friend who was the old woman went to the bathroom, I stood in the middle of the gym with tears streaming down my face behind the mask looking at everyone's costumes thinking they were all great and wishing I had a better one to show off.
While no one could see my tears, they could see me staring. After a few minutes, a group of girls came over to me and demanded to know why I was staring at them.
I couldn't say, I was staring because I thought I was invisible and all your costumes are better than mine, so I said sorry, I was in trance, which I guess satisfied them because they went away.
I'm grateful that they confronted me because I would have thought I was invisible for the whole dance and I only thought I was invisible for the first part of the dance which allowed me to somewhat survive the terrible night instead of it being a total fucking disaster.
What was your worst Halloween costume?
Kathryn Mockler is the author of Anecdotes .Support Send My Love to AnyoneSupport Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the subscribers and contributors who make this project possible!
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A Total Fucking Disaster
My mom is in the hospital, and I’m staying in a little apartment in my hometown in the neighbourhood I grew up in where I’m just having flashback after horrible flashback of my childhood.
My most recent involves the time I went to the grade six Halloween dance as a creepy old man and thought I was invisible.
My friend had old man and woman masks. These costumes were to be our last resort if we couldn't find anything better. Well, the last resort became the reality: she was the old woman and I was the old man. For some reason, I thought wearing this mask made me INVISIBLE.
It did not.
As soon as I got to the dance, I realized I had made a terrible costume choice. The other kids wore cute clown and witches and princess costumes. Someone even dressed as a cloud and then there was me with this old man face in a mask I could hardly breathe in.
No one recognized me or talked to me. The mask was terrifying. The head was giant and smelled like rubber and may very well have been the face of Ronald Reagan. Sometimes I still see this mask in my dreams.
When my friend who was the old woman went to the bathroom, I stood in the middle of the gym with tears streaming down my face behind the mask looking at everyone's costumes thinking they were all great and wishing I had a better one to show off.
While no one could see my tears, they could see me staring. After a few minutes, a group of girls came over to me and demanded to know why I was staring at them.
I couldn't say, I was staring because I thought I was invisible and all your costumes are better than mine, so I said sorry, I was in trance, which I guess satisfied them because they went away.
I'm grateful that they confronted me because I would have thought I was invisible for the whole dance and I only thought I was invisible for the first part of the dance which allowed me to somewhat survive the terrible night instead of it being a total fucking disaster.
What was your worst Halloween costume?
Kathryn Mockler is the author of Anecdotes (Book*hug Press).
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May 9, 2025
Hope is like spotting a leopard in the wild – an animal that prefers to hide much of the time.
What is your first memory of existing?Being a baby, alone in a semi-dark room. I’m just waking up from an afternoon nap and I am aware of my mother’s presence and absence. I know she is outside but I also know she doesn’t want me to need her. I know she’s not coming to hold me.
What is your first memory of being creative?I have no memory of not being creative. I feel there was never a time when I was not creating.
What is your referred emotion to experience?Hope. It’s so rare to feel hopeful about anything. When I feel a bit of hope I think: There is more to see, discover, build and enjoy. There are many parts of this world and this life that leave me feeling despairing every hour of every day. Hope is like spotting a leopard in the wild – an animal that prefers to hide much of the time.
What is the best or worst dream you ever had?I once had a dream that I was visited by my warrior ancestors, their faces painted in red war paint. I’ve never had that dream again and I so long for their presence in my life. It was the most beautiful message, finding out that they were claiming me as one of their own!
What do you cherish most about this world?Kinship. Knowing that there are millions of people around the world who are kin. Those who see our lands as great gifts and treasures, who feel we don’t own the land but the land holds, feeds and guides us. That we those of us whose lands have been destroyed by colonialism are relatives and can hold on to each other.
What would you like to change about this world?Land borders. They were created for division and profit and they are not even real at all!
What advice would you give to your younger self?Men are socialized to be sociopaths. They are not brought up in a world that teaches them empathy for women. Never put your whole self in their hands.
Do you believe in ghosts?So much! So so much! I wish I had one or two who visited regularly and who I could have a close relationship with.
Who would you like to send your love to?To children in war zones. I was hiding under cars and coughing from tear gas when I was in the first grade. I think someone, somewhere was sending me love and fighting for me to grow up in a safer and kinder world. If I could, in whatever way, I’d send my love to children whose lives are being devastated by state violence. Or any other kind.
What are you working on now?I had written a collection of short stories about indigenous women’s lives and I was in the middle of editing it when I went to visit South Africa. I decided to go and take a tour of the old prison now a museum at the Constitution Court. So I walked around the prison and the women’s lives, their spirits, were so present and their voices so powerful, that I knew they were calling me to take those experiences out into the world. That’s how I arrived at the character of Kewame, who had been imprisoned in her teens but is now a mother battling ghosts of the past while trying to figure out motherhood. So that’s how the book was born and that’s when it became a novel. I wanted to explore the interior life of a woman warrior feeling lost in the softness required to navigate motherhood.
The book will be published by M&S in January, 2026.
Kagiso Lesego Molope Kagiso Lesego Molope is a San novelist and playwright. She was born and raised under apartheid in South Africa and now lives on the unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinabe territory. She has published four novels, all of which centre the indigenous people of South Africa. She wrote the first play ever produced about Maya Angelou. Her next novel is titled WE INHERIT THE FIRE (McLelland and Stewart, 2026), a story told by a mother who is a former political prisoner, and her daughter who is growing up at a time when she is seeing the freedom her mother fought for become a reality.Support Send My Love to AnyoneSupport Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it
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May 7, 2025
"Crossing the Bar"
My grandmother was a very religious woman who loved poetry. Tennyson was her favourite. At her funeral, I read Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar”.
My mother is starting to forget her parents are dead.
There’s a lot of advice out there that says don’t tell Alzheimer’s patients their loved ones are no longer alive when they ask for them because it can cause distress.
This is probably good advice for some people with the disease, but I’ve learned, at this moment in time, lying to my mother about her parents is not helpful.
She is between two worlds—the world of knowing and the world of not knowing.
Once when she asked where her parents were, I said they were busy—thinking this was better than saying they were dead.
“Are they even alive?” she asked me disgusted.
“No,” I confessed.
“Well, then why did you say they were busy?” she snapped.
I told her I was trying to not upset her.
She said she preferred the truth.
*
When she asks if her mother is still alive, I now say no.
This prompts her to remember that I read “Crossing the Bar” at my grandmother’s funeral. She will say, “That’s right, you read that poem, and you read it beautifully.”
We find the poem on my phone and read it together.
Even though I am a poet, sometimes I forget how powerful poetry can be. That one poem tethers my mother to her mother’s funeral in such an important and unexpected way.
I remember rehearsing the poem over and over so I wouldn’t mess it up. My mother heard me read “Crossing the Bar” a hundred or more times before the funeral, which is why it has probably stayed so vividly in her memory.
*
The other day, when my mother asked where her parents were I impulsively pointed to the sky and smiled.
She looked at me confused.
I said, “They’re in heaven.”
She laughed. “Both of them?”
“Sure,” I said then I asked her what she found so amusing.
“How do you know they are there?”
I told her I didn’t know for sure, but Grandma was religious and that’s where she wanted to be.
Despite being raised in a religious family, my mother did not raise me with any kind of religion. She said I had to figure it out for myself but declared herself “agnostic”. Once during a Christmas dinner when my mother was drunk she blurted to my grandmother, “But the Bible’s fiction. You’re not meant to take it literally.” This sent my grandmother running from the room in tears.
“Do you believe in heaven?” I asked.
My mother rolled her eyes as if I had presented her with the most absurd question. “I did when I was a kid,” she said then asked, “Do you?”
“To be determined,” I said.
“That would be my answer too,” my mother said.
And we both laughed.
*
Today while she was eating dinner, I played the Poetry Foundation’s audio version of “Crossing the Bar.”
I asked her what she thought the poem was about.
My mother who had majored in English in university said, “It’s a metaphor for death and accepting death.”
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One of these days we'll both be fine.
I guess I’m starting a new project called One of These Days We’ll Both Be Fine which was something my mother said to me earlier this year when we were both having a bad day. At the time it was slightly sad, a little funny, but also comforting.
I had actually started a version of this project years ago with notes here and there, but I’m writing about my mother, her alcoholic years, our relationship now, her dementia, navigating the health care system, creativity, and what’s going on in the world in short sometimes humorous vignettes dare I say anecdotes (that was the title of my last book).
The more I suffer or my mother suffers, the more I feel in tune with the suffering of the world. My activism wants to kick in even more rather than stop during this difficult time.
Right now I’m participating in a fundraiser for Authors for e-Sims for Gaza and running my own monthly draw via an interview series to raise money for organizations that I care about.
*
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my mother. She was one of the subjects of my first book, a novel in verse called Onion Man (which I’m planning to serialize as a podcast) where I wrote about her alcoholism when I was a teenager. And of course I wrote about her in my story collection Anecdotes.
I always find that writing projects are like pets for me. They find a way to find me. I don’t usually have to go looking for them.
This is the only section of Send My Love to Anyone that will mostly sit behind the paywall which has more to do with privacy and the personal nature of the project than a desire to make people pay.
***If you’re a child of an alcoholic who is now dealing with this same parent’s dementia, a particularly triggering form of caregiving and you’d like to read along, hit me up for a comp.
I don’t know what it is about Substack, but it gets me writing. I think part of it is that it’s live but also it feels like no one’s looking.
People are always going on about growing on Substack, For me it’s best to keep it a manageable size and connect with those with whom you share values with or have something in common.
This platform can sometimes feel like a void that occasionally waves back which is a perfect mix for me.
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May 6, 2025
The woman in the bed beside my mom asked me if this was where they took people to die.
View from the 10th floor of the hospitalToday was not a good day.
They moved my mother to the 10th floor which caused her to be more confused.
The floor is better though. Basically it’s where they hold the people heading to long-term care homes which means we’re no longer fighting with the hospital and we’re heading in the right direction. This floor is generally less hectic and quieter.
The woman in the bed beside my mom asked me if this was where they took people to die. I said no that she was in the hospital and the hospital helps people get well.
“It’s also where they go to die,” she insisted, and I couldn’t argue with her.
Later this same woman screamed at the top of her lungs that she wanted to go home. I’ve never heard anyone scream so loud and for so long. She was a tiny woman too.
My mother turned to me and said, “I’m frightened to stay here.”
“Don’t worry, Mom, I said, “you could take her.”
Even though she laughed, I could tell she was shaken.
I gave her some fennel tea and then…
