Six Questions interview #106 : Allana Stuart

Allana Stuart is a writer of poetry and fiction, who previously worked as an award-winning CBC Radio journalist. A child of the boreal forest, she was born and raised in northwestern Ontario and spent several years in Northern BC before settling in her current home of Ottawa. Her poem “The End of the Line,” about her grandfather and his legacy as a trapper was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been published in Goat’s Milk Magazine, Orangepeel Literary Magazine, deathcap magazine, and Minnow Literary Magazine. Allana is also the producer of the podcast Rx Advocacy.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? 

I first moved to Ottawa in 1998 to study journalism at Carleton University. After I graduated in 2002, I moved to Northern British Columbia to work as a producer for CBC Radio. I left my journalism career after the birth of my first child, and my husband’s work brought us back to Ottawa in 2012.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here? 

I have been writing since I was really small. I don’t actually remember when I first started, it’s just something I have always done. After I realized that my first career aspiration of “mermaid” wasn’t going to work out, I decided to focus on becoming a writer. I applied to study journalism at Carleton University, thinking that being a newspaper reporter would be a good way to make a living as a writer. I ended up falling in love with radio production, which (against expectations) actually involves a fair bit of writing. Throughout my studies and my subsequent career as a producer at the CBC, I continued to write poetry and prose. But I had less and less time and energy for it as the years passed, and once I left journalism to become a full-time stay at home mom my writing fell almost completely by the wayside.

It’s only been in the last few years, and especially during the pandemic, that have I really started to write creatively again. In January of 2021, I started a fourth-year creative writing workshop at Carleton. I wanted to commit to making writing a priority again, and I felt that having an external source to hold me accountable would push me in the right direction. My instructor, Ottawa poet David Stymeist, was a great source of support and encouragement for me. The other writers in the class were also all extremely talented and insightful, and while none of us have met in person because of the pandemic, we stay in touch and continue to help one another virtually. I also have some long-time writer and non-writer friends both in Ottawa and elsewhere who are an essential part of my support system. My husband also has a background in writing and journalism and is a huge cheerleader and thoughtful critic, although I can be stingy about sharing early versions of my work with him.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?  

Having a community of writers surrounding me, if only virtually, has helped me come out of my shell as a writer. Although I have been writing for almost all of my life, I used to find it very difficult to my put my personal and creative work “out there” for others to see. Having other poets and authors look at my writing and say “hey, this is good, here are some suggestions on how you could make it great,” has helped my confidence grow immensely. It’s also really inspiring to see what other writers are working on and what their process is. There are some amazingly talented people in this city (and this whole country) and it’s wonderful when we can learn from each other.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow? 

I know Ottawa has always had a thriving literary scene. When I first lived here during my university days I would often attend poetry readings and other writing events, although I was too shy to ever share my own work. I know that scene has only grown over time, and will continue through and after the pandemic is over. I look forward to being able to take in some more in-person events in the future, and maybe this time I will be brave enough to participate.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work? 

I recently had the immense honour of having my poem “The End of the Line” longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. While the poem is rooted in my family history in northwestern Ontario, and specifically in audio recordings of my conversations with my Grandad, I wrote and workshopped the poem while taking David Stymeist’s writing workshop at Carleton. The commentary, critique and compliments from both David and the other writers in the workshop helped me take the poem to a level beyond what I had initially envisioned, so I’m extremely thankful for that.

Also, I find a lot of inspiration in nature and Ottawa has plenty of it. While the forests here are in some ways different from those where I grew up in northwestern Ontario, the similarities are strong enough that being in the woods here reminds me of home. Some of the lines in “The End of the Line” were inspired by a snow-shoeing trek in the Greenbelt that brought to mind stories my Grandad had told me about his own wilderness experiences. 

Q: What are you working on now? 

I recently applied for the optional residency program of the University of BC’s M.F.A. in Creative Writing, after talking about doing it for years, so I am doing a lot of nail-biting while waiting to hear back about that. I’m writing a new short story, and working on finding homes for a few poems I’ve composed over the last couple of months. And I’m always scribbling down little bits of poetry, in the hopes that they’ll turn into something bigger.