Swapping Stories

Heather Grace Stewart is the author of Strangely, Incredibly Good whose book, like Dry Stories was published by Morning Rain Publishing. Authors like to talk shop and, while we're sharing a fantastic Mothers' Day offer, there is no time the present to make that shop talk public. Here is my interview with the fabulous Heather Grace Stewart.

Kate Baggott: When I'm writing, my idea of the perfect audience is always in my mind. In particular, I think of having the complete attention of the person I loved most at a specific moment in time to tell them whatever I want to say. Other writers tell me that the reading audience is secondary to their involvement with their characters whose lives become all-consuming. Who does your imagination interact with while you are writing, your audience or your characters or is your process completely different?

Heather Grace Stewart: It's all about the characters for me. Even with my poetry, I get lost in the meaning of the poem, or in its anecdote. As I write my novels, I'm always imagining where the characters are, what it feels like, and what the character is going to say next. Funny, when I write a magazine piece, I write for the audience. I picture who will be reading as I'm formulating my lead- I think, how do I best inform them about this particular story? But for my fiction, I never think about the audience. That would just throw me off. I am led by the characters and sadly, they
often take over my thoughts for three to six months. They are the cause of burnt pots, forgotten showers, and uneaten sandwiches, but I still love them like my kids.

KB: We live in an era when parenting is constantly being examined, advised and judged. It's a wonder kids managed to grow up at all in the time before blogs existed. Motherhood and living the creative life, though, have always been portrayed as two forces in conflict. Have you been conflicted by the experience of being a writer-mother or a writer-daughter?

HGS: I feel lucky to be able to juggle the hats that are stay at home mom, writer, and speaker. I'm really blessed to be able to combine those
three jobs, and yes, sometimes it's difficult to balance writing(because when the writing is there, you can't ignore it) and being available to our daughter (because when she has a question, you gotta answer it immediately!), but I've been working from home as a journalist and author for eleven years now, so I've found a routine that works well. One trick that's worked well for me is to get to work right at 7:30 once our daughter is on her bus to school. I try not to be distracted by social media early in the morning, because that's when I usually get my best writing done. I try to leave social media for past five, when projects and homework are done.

KB: You are a prolific writer who manages to arrange events to meet with your readers all the time all over the place! I've gotten notices that you're appearing in BC, then I get one that you're in Kingston, ON. How do you manage to get out there and meet so many people in so many different places?

HGS: Thanks for saying that, because it's not easy to find new readers, and I'm always feeling like I should do so much more touring. I started touring with Carry On Dancing (2012) thanks to some grants from the Canada Council and the League of Canadian Poets. Once I did that with that book, I realized how great it is to actually meet your readers in person, so I did the same with Three Spaces in 2013. I had to think of places that might be interested in having me speak. I approached the Ban Righ Centre at Queen's, my alma mater, and they graciously hosted me. Then the Queen's Media and Journalism Conference (QMJC) approached me later that spring, and so then I went looking for other places in Kingston where I could speak or sign books on the same weekend, and chose Novel Idea. My 2013 Three Spaces tour, which took me to Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa, was a good start for learning who to call and how to arrange it all.

When Strangely, Incredibly Good came out, I knew I should and wanted to do the same, to try to meet more readers. I called my local library and arranged a special reading there in the fall, and thankfully, Queen's University's Ban Righ Speaker Series asked me to speak in Winter 2014, so I arranged to speak on the same weekend as the QMJC, where I'd been invited to guest speak for a third year. It's not easy to arrange these
events all in one weekend, but, and this goes back to the parenting-writing question - I don't want to be away from home too many weekends, so I try to arrange the events all at once. I tacked on a visit to Kanata at the end of this year's tour, because I grew up there, and hoped to reunite with many old friends at Chapters Kanata. I did, and it was such a memorable day!

As for B.C., I was going to be there to visit my husband's family over Christmas anyway, so I asked my family about local bookstores, and my family was very supportive, and encouraged me to arrange a book signing.

It took several phone calls and emails, but I managed to arrange a January signing at Black Bond Books in Maple Ridge, and it was my most successful independent bookstore signing yet.

It takes courage to make that first phone call to an organization or book store to ask them to have you sign books or speak, but, I think it's the first step to meeting your audience. Our audience as authors isn't just on social media; there are so many people who don't even use social media who we need to reach out to. I have a lot of fun touring, but can only afford to do so once a year or so, so I spend many afternoons for many months planning these trips so I can get the most out of my three or four days on the road.

KB: What's your favourite memory from the road?

HGS: There are so many! I meet a lot of Via Rail employees who ask what I do, and so I pull out a book, and we get talking. I love meeting new people and hearing their stories. Cabbies who tell me all about their difficult lives and PhD's from other countries; employees in hotels who get so excited I'm an author (which is so hilarious because it truly is not that glamorous) they grab their friends in the back room to say, "she's an author!" or ask to take a photo with me! One of the most rewarding moments of my career so far was being asked to return to Queen's University to encourage young writers. Last year, I spoke about following your passion to a group of university students. I wasn't sure I was getting through to them, but at the end, one of the students asked a really intelligent question, and then asked to take a selfie with me, and they all crowded in, took it, and posted it to Twitter, I thought, maybe it's not just about selling books, or getting rave reviews. Maybe it's about making a connection and a difference in a young person's life. And that's the kind of thing that keeps me going, on the rough days. Writing and encouraging others to write: It's like the milk in my Earl Grey tea; I wouldn't have one without the other.

Here is Heather Grace's bio and links to more of her work.

Heather Grace Stewart

Heather's debut novel, Strangely, Incredibly Good, was released by Morning Rain Publishing in June 2014. She is also the author of the Amazon Kindle best-selling poetry collections Three Spaces,Carry on Dancing, Leap and Where the Butterflies Go, a best-selling Kindle screenplay, The Friends I've Never Met, two non-fiction books for youth,
and a book of children's poetry.

Born in Ottawa, she lives with her husband and daughter near Montreal. In her free time, she loves to take photos, scrapbook, cartoon, inline skate, dance like nobody's watching, and eat Swedish Berries - usually not at the same time.

Visit her blog at http://heathergracestewart.com and her official website, http://heathergracestewart.me

Facebook: http://facebook.com/heathergracestewart

Twitter: @hgracestewart