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Saskatoon young-adult author Kristine Scarrow takes her turn as writer in residence at the Saskatoon Public Library on Sept. 1.
The library’s Writer in Residence program has run annually since 1981, with selected authors offering mentorship to writers in the community.
After two years without in-person consultation, Scarrow will bring back workshops and one-on-one meetings throughout her nine-month residency.
She chatted with the StarPhoenix about her writing and her plan for her residency.
Q: What are you most looking forward to with your SPL residency?
A: I’m looking forward to connecting with people who have an interest in writing and story and who maybe aren’t sure how to get started, as well as working with people who are looking for ways of strengthening their writing and making it the best that it can be.
I think sharing work is really intensely vulnerable. And I think a lot of people even assume they aren’t writers, but I think there’s a writer in all of us. So the ability to connect with people and to help them connect with the writer and the stories within themselves is really important to me.
Q: How does the writer in residence program encourage writers?
A: Writing can be fairly isolating as a profession or as a hobby. I stayed as a closet writer for a long time. I was too scared to go to conferences or workshops or a lot of things. And once I started, it’s only grown since then. It’s really helpful, I think, to be immersed in a community of like-minded people. This is where you’ll find support and community and where you’ll grow.
Q: Is there anything unique you will offer in your term?
A: I had been the writer in residence at St. Paul’s Hospital for five years and one thing that I’ve been studying is how writing — therapeutic writing and expressive writing — can be healing. So one of the things I hope to bring to the residency is just how beneficial the creative act of writing is. I’d like to do some workshops related to that.
I think with the pandemic and all these global uncertainties, we need the healing benefits of the arts more than ever right now.
Q: How has writing been beneficial to you?
A: It’s calming to me, it’s affirming. It’s sort of my happy place. I think it’s always been how I best make sense of things, whether going through tough times or as a creative space. It seems to be where I work best. I think connecting to the arts has always been when I feel healthiest and happiest and how I make sense of the world.
Q: What inspires your writing?
A: I tend toward realist fiction, so I spend a lot of time observing people and relationships and life situations. And I always seem interested in human behaviour. So what inspires me when I’m writing, I think, is always trying to get to the heart of something. And hopefully, what I write is true to life somehow.
Q: You published four YA novels before getting your MFA in writing. What has that taught you that you can bring to your residency?
A: I’ve learned that I can write across multiple genres. I’ve learned some determination and tenacity there, and I’ve learned that writing is a buildable skill. And that’s really exciting, because I feel like that’s something that I can take forward, to teach others a lot of the things that I learned on how to make writing stronger and working in new genres. You can take risks and you can do scary things and it’s worth it.
Q: What’s next for your writing?
A: I just finished a short story collection as my thesis for my MFA and they’ve gone out for consideration for publishing. For the residency, I’m going to be working on an adult medical fiction book, especially about how many medical professionals have been impacted by the pandemic and PTSD and that sort of thing. And then I have a YA book that was midway through before the MFA that I’ve just picked back up again. I think that’ll be probably my next year or two.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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