Write, Publish, and Shine

Writer and Room contributor ViNa Nguyễn discusses their choice to deliberately write about joy as a writer who writes about grief and nostalgia.

We also talked about their experimental writing and, in particular, the brilliant piece, A Nesting of Bracketed Bodies, which I published in Room's “Ghosts” issue; they also read from the work for us, so prepare your earbuds for some delightful fiction writing.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/85

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Listen if you’ve been looking for books to support your writing practice, or maybe a list of books to give another writer in your life, or if you’ve been wanting to read with a community of writers, too, and need some guidance to get started.

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Lina Lau, writer, mother, and owner of too many notebooks, has published short memoir in X-R-A-Y, Prairie Fire, Hippocampus (where she is now a reader as well), Carte Blanch, and Little Fiction/Big Truths.

We discuss how flash memoir writing captures a moment and the characteristics required of memoirists. Lina also reads a 100-word story, bringing us into the experience of writing and publishing this work on Five Minute Lit.

Show notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/89

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Welcome to our last instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities.

I’m so happy to end this with the wonderful Cicely Belle Blain, the final member of my writing community who kindly agreed to join us to discuss limitations and disabilities when it comes to writing.

Reading from Cicely’s bio: Cicely Belle Blain is a Black/mixed, queer femme activist, equity and inclusion consultant, and writer. Their bestselling poetry collection Burning Sugar was called “an intimately powerful debut” by Quill and Quire. With laughter and fearlessness, they harness a passion for justice, liberation and meaningful change via transformative education.

They talk about their consulting work as well as writing and how the fairly recent journey of learning about their ADHD intersects with both of these practices.

Cicely also reads work on the theme of grief, aptly bringing to the fore the subtext of what is often the experience of having limitations and disability.

Their bio mentions their passion for justice, and so, of course, they shared their sage perspective, which underscored the enormity of this series of themed episodes—not asking for simply understanding of their or others' individual limitations and disabilities but solidarity with those attempting to resist the expectations of writing, the publishing world, social media, social capital, deadlines, and capitalism.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/97

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Welcome to our semi-final instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities.

In this episode, writer S.L. Shuter, a member of my Writerly Love Community, talks about embracing an identity related to her diagnosis and the push back she received for this.

Set L. Shuter is a writer, filmmaker and storyteller from Toronto. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The University of King's College and is currently querying her horror-comedy medical memoir, Ovaries Gone Wild. Her essays have appeared in The Toronto Star, Chatelaine Magazine, Understorey Magazine, CBC, and Creative Nonfiction Magazine.

Set reads from an essay about access to medicine related to her condition published in a special COVID-19 edition of Understorey Magazine.

Listen to how she embraces humour related to her limitations but more recently finds more kindness for herself as she writes and makes films about chronic illness.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/96

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Welcome to the next instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities.

In this episode, Crystal Randall Barnett, a member of my Writerly Love Community, adds to the conversations we’ve been having in this series of episodes on writing slowly and listening to your body.

Crystal Randall Barnett is an emerging writer from Ontario. She has been published by The League of Canadian Poets and Blank Spaces and her first-place short story appeared in a 2023 fiction anthology from Chicken House Press. Her writing is physically impacted and creatively influenced by her disability, Persistent Post-Concussion Syndrome.

Crystal shares how she adapted her reading habits when her experience of persistent post-concussive symptoms made reading on the page a barrier. She also shares a simple hack to make audiobooks even more accessible—one I’ve implemented for myself.

And she reads from a poem I had the pleasure of publishing as an editor with Room.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/95

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Welcome to the fourth instalment of this string of episodes on the theme of writing with limitations and disabilities.

Andrea Martineau is a writer, poet, bibliophile, and phytomaniac (I had to look that one up: a plant lover!) with a penchant for heritage buildings and their paranormal tenants. Her poetry has previously been published and shared in untethered magazine, Blank Spaces, [SPACE], Figroot Press, and The League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause.

Andrea is a wonderful part of our membership community, has such clarity around her practice and finds ways to work with her limitations. She calls on us to believe writers with limitations and disabilities when they say what they need or need to pause or bow out from doing something during a flare-up or when it doesn’t work for their health and wellness.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/94

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Welcome to my next conversation in this run of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations.

In this episode, I sit down with Amy Yuki Vickers, a new writer in our community and a recent alum of my Lit Mag Love course. Amy is the author of the blog and newsletter The Intentional Hulk, writes short stories and personal essays, and is at work on a memoir.

And, as she says in her bio, because she’s autistic, she see-saws between intense occupation and recovery. This is just one subject we discuss in our conversation. She shares her experiences as a writer and how she has set up her writing life to work for her.

All of the notes for this episode are up at rachelthompson.co/93

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Welcome to the next episode in this run of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations.

In this episode, a wonderful Writerly Love Community member, Olwen Wilson talks with me about following joy and writing with a chronic condition. We discuss labels and their conflicting appeal/repellent nature. And, what I suspect will be a through line of all these episodes: listening to our bodies and how we’re feeling. Olwen reads a slantly-written short piece then generously gifts us with details on a practice called Rainbow Walks. Listen in to hear from a writer who does things their way, someone I deeply admire for this spirit.

Show notes: https://rachelthompson.co/92

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Welcome to the first interview in my series of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations.

I sit down with a wonderful Writerly Love membership community member, Shantell Powell, a two-spirit author, artist, and self-described swamp hag who grew up on the land and off the grid. Her publication credits include Augur, Solarpunk Magazine, MetaStellar, The Deadlands, and honestly keep racking up—we talk about how she does this in the episode, and she has an excellent hack for writers with ADHD to track submissions that I think is brilliant and would be helpful to many writers, myself included.

We get into her often very visceral writing; she reads a piece that I would describe that way, visceral, and speculates a little about why that flavour comes out in her work. For this series and focus, we talk about how she works with her various limitations and disabilities, which include neurodivergence and now long COVID-19, among other conditions and limitations.

Listen in to hear from a singular writer whose writing practice shows that there is not one way to be a writer.

Show notes: https://rachelthompson.co/91

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