James K. Moran’s speculative fiction and
poetry have appeared in
Canadian, American and British publications including Burly Tales: Fairy Tales for the Hirsute and Hefty Gay Man, bywords.ca, Glitterwolf,
Icarus, and On Spec. Moran’s articles and reviews have appeared
via CBC Radio, Daily Xtra, Plenitude, Rue Morgue and Strange Horizons. In 2012, he founded the
Little Workshop of Horrors, an Ottawa writers’ group that carves speculative
and literary work into the shape it is meant to be. Moran also runs Queer
Speculations, which workshops 2SLGBTQ+ or
queer-themed stories from far and wide. He is findable at jameskmoran.blogspot.ca, as
@jkmoran on Twitter, and jamestheballadeer on Instagram. Lethe Press published his first horror novel, Town & Train. Moran’s
debut short-story collection, Fear Itself,
just came out from Lethe Press.
Moran lives on the
unceded Territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation, now called Ottawa.
Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?
I came to Ottawa in the fall of 1992 to start
university, majoring in journalism with a minor in film studies at Carleton University.
Oh … so that’s what, 30 years, give or take, between stints crossing the
country and living in London, England? Ottawa seemed not too far from home,
Cornwall, but far enough to get away and grow up and hopefully self-realize. I
knew I wanted to write but was unsure of what form that career or calling would
take.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing,
and subsequently, the writing community here?
Let me unpack this in two bits. First …
Q: How did you first get involved in writing?
I first
got into writing about the time I could put words to paper.
In about
grade two, at Central Public School, a rough-and-tumble early 1980’s time for
primary schooling in Cornwall, the teacher, Mrs. Bartle, had us tell her a
story and handwrote each one on oversized foolscap, which she posted around the
classroom. After that, I got into writing loving pastiches of Star Wars
or the 1958 creature feature The Blob or superhero stories, as I was
reading comics as a kid, much of The Incredible Hulk and Superboy and
World’s Finest and Legion of Super-Heroes.
I would
recast all the characters with my friends. There was me co-piloting the
Millennium Falcon with my classmates. Then there was me as Captain Marvel with
Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior fighting the teachers who were trying to
take over our minds using fluoride (daily fluoride rinsing was a daily school
routine in the early 1980’s in Cornwall). Then there was me as Superboy with my
gang of secret superhero chums. I always ground these stories with my pals (and
sometime enemies) as characters and shamelessly borrowed the fantastical mythos
that I enjoyed. Now they call it fan fiction. Then, we just called it having
fun, like playing with the toys.
By grade
eight and nine, I wrote my first “novel,” which I finished longhand on foolscap
in a nearly illegible HB-pencil scrawl. Some might argue my penmanship hasn’t
changed that much. It totaled about 125 pages, soaking wet, between typed and
handwritten pages. The novel was about a darkness that falls over my hometown.
Me and my grade eight buddies, holed up in our grade school, fight off
monstrosities coming out of that darkness. And a lot of us don’t make it out.
It was my riff on Stephen King’s novella The Mist (I had discovered his Skeleton
Crew and Graveyard Shift collections in grade eight, for which Mr.
McDiarmid, my grade-eight English teacher, singled me out in class as having an
advanced reading level. Like I wasn’t having enough trouble with the regular
bullies and tormentors who saw my last name as mockable with a sample
misspelling). So, “Darkness” was a sort of coda to grade eight, I realize now.
I didn’t, then. A few in my circle of friends went off to different high
schools. We were all growing up.
My
writing flourished in high school, encouraged by English teacher after English
teacher thrilled to see a student attacking assignments with aplomb and going
well beyond the curriculum just to write (I was penning short stories all the
time, reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five in grade nine to see
what all the fuss was about). I was also under the undue influence of King, of
course, but Ray Bradbury, J. R. R. Tolkien, Clive Barker, and poets e.e.
cummings, Ezra Pound, and Al Purdy. In grade eleven, at age 17, I began writing
a novel, The Train of the Damned, with a mentor and friend. He started a
fantasy novel. We would trade chapters once a week and write each other a fresh
chapter. Hugh wanted a postmodern fantasy yarn, and I was locking into Lord
of the Ringsesque tone, and we never finished it. But the train book, we
did. For the next 15 years, I would revise and rewrite it until it became my
first novel, Town & Train. In grade thirteen, I submitted my draft
of Train as my Independent Study project, a nascent draft that my
teacher Elaine MacDonald was kind but merciless to in her critique. By then, I
discovered the whole raft of Beat Generation writers. And so continued my love
affair of literary, genre, and poetry writing across the board.
… and
then this bit …
Q: and subsequently, the writing community
here?
In third-year university, I attended a reading at
the National Library because someone I was dating wanted to go (when I was
completely unsure of my writing at the time). Local fantasy novelist Charles de
Lint was reading from his new book involving a painter character. I mention my
date because they wore a black beret, so it was accidentally a very bohemian
scene to an outside observer. I had never read de Lint but whilst I was
imbibing during my first year at the Rusty Pelican at Bank and Sunnyside (long before
it was reborn as Patty's Pub), a local mentioned his work. At de Lint’s
National Library reading, an impressive crowd attended, with certainly more
than 50 of us. He did a great job, too. I was also impressed by his references
to an Ottawa-that-was-not-Ottawa in his books.
The other reading series I found during my late
university days in about 1995, bravely on my own, was at Zaphod Beeblebrox, a
nightclub in the ByWard Market. On that particular Sunday afternoon, the venue
was tumble-weed-rolling-deserted early, with the ever-present fug of stale beer
rising from the sticky floors. I remember even calling the organizer beforehand
to do some sort of reconnaissance. He disabused me of any notions that beat
poetry was the only thing the series offered because while beat poetry was
often about “chicks and dope”, he insisted his reading series held a broader
view of things. At the reading, I recall hearing poetry being read about
ruminations on intercity bus rides and hangovers and love affairs.
(Editor’s note: Since writing the above, I
confirmed that this was the Vogon Reading Series run by none other than Warren
Dean Fulton, whom I spoke to beforehand. He even recalls our phone
conversation, which is no surprise, given the local media coverage of the
series at the time. Ottawa Xpress, a free local entertainment weekly,
had recently interviewed him. Warren mentioned beat writers, sort of to his
chagrin, because the reporter focused on that topic and as a result, Warren had
since received lot of callers asking about beat-writer content at Vogon.)
Q: How did being in such a community of
writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?
I
eventually connected with, and found, my people, whether they were poets or
spec-fic writers or lit’ writers. Bear with me for a moment, please.
In high
school, I started attending short-story workshops, run by Robert McLeod at
Glengarry District High School, and even once, I sat in the Tri-Country
writers’ group. There, I was the only person there under 30. I workshopped
“Showdown”, about two writers, avatars for Ray Bradbury and Hemingway, having a
writing duel in the street to see who was the better.
Through
Mr. McLeod’s workshops, I met a certain “Robbie” McLennan (who only had
medium-length hair) when I was in grade nine. Robbie was ahead of me by a few
years. We sat around the table in a room (at the Civic Complex that fall for
some reason) where he workshopped a short story. His “The Basic Canadian Short
Story” went on to win the Carleton University writing contest for high-school
kids. If a young writer showed some promise in their work, Robert always
recommended that they submit their story to the contest. Wes Smiderle, an
Ottawan I was yet to meet, also made an honourable mention in Carleton’s
contest later in my high-school career. I myself placed as an honourable
mention in Teen Generation Magazine’s national short-story contest for
my sci-fi piece, “Migremation Complication”, a cautionary environmental tale,
which I workshopped either when I met this Robbie, or shortly thereafter. My
grade eleven French teacher, who also taught English, had my story copies on
larger sheets and displayed on the bulletin board in our school library,
alongside the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder article in which local staff
Sultan Jess interviewed this kid about his story.
Fast-forward
to Ottawa in the late 1990’s. I have finished my university degree. I’m working
various private-and-public sector jobs, mainly in communications. Just before
returning to Ottawa, living in my hometown post-university, I ran two
short-story workshops of my own at my alma mater, St. Lawrence High School, in
about ’96-’97. But in Ottawa, I decided to explore a Sunday reading at the
Dunvegan Pub in Sandy Hill again, insisting on going it. Perhaps in my romantic
imagination, I considered myself a rogue?
As I
nursed a hangover (typical of one such as myself in my early twenties on a
Sunday), Lynne Alsford, one of the organizers of the Sasquatch Reading Series,
announced, “Attention, everyone, rob mclennan is in the building. He will be
reading in the open mic.”
My surly
and muttered response was, “Who the fuck is rob mclennan?” I was riffing on the
opening line of Blake Nelson’s novel, Exile, about a self-styled
downtown Baudelaire whose career is on a downswing. And also, I had no idea who
this rob was. Until he read in the open mic. I recall rob reading from stanzas
about flashes of light and colour, and about moving downhill through his
neighhourhood (Ed. note: I wanna say along Booth Street). I recognized
him, but it had been five or six years, so I didn’t quite make the connection,
and he had grown his hair out significantly.
After that,
I became curious, continuing my furtive forays into readings, mainly on my own,
such as ghost-story readings and poetry readings, but I didn’t know anyone else
at them, and wasn’t really connecting with other audience members.
Then I
lived in London, England, for eight months in ’98, working at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, University of London, writing a case study for creating a
Commonwealth Studies unit at the university. Being 25 on my own for the entire
time, except for one Canadian friend who visited (thanks, Steve Blois!), I
proved a prodigious drinker and carouser in Soho and the gay/theatre district
of Old Compton Street. But I also had the reading-series bug. So, I inspected
reading series in Old Blighty, from poetry slams to open mics, becoming a
regular fixture at the Poetry Café in Soho hosted by a certain John Q. Citizen,
an affable rhyming poet who looked sort of like a cross between Elvis Costello
and Moby. There, I met other Canadian expats, but also many other local
regulars, from Americans to Brits to Scottish to Irish and got to hear their
works-in-progress. I remember that time very fondly, as an expat. I wrote short
stories the morning before hopping on the bus and then the tube to get to work,
including the first draft of A Canadian Ghost in London, which appears
in my short-story collection Fear Itself, just out from Lethe Press.
I
returned to Canada in December ’98, with a renewed interest in local readings,
and sought them out. So began my sojourns to the Tree Reading Series, the Dusty
Owl Reading Series, the factory reading series, Sasquatch, the Ottawa
International Writing Festival. I even organized a few reading events along the
way such as at Screaming Mimi’s, a queer-run café on Bank St. that lasted a hot
minute. In my travels around town, I renewed my acquaintance with rob. We
eventually figured out we knew each other from before. (Ed. note: Which
is kind of hilarious that we didn’t immediately recognize each other from
Cornwall.) And rob also presumed I was gay because I was always drinking at the
affectionately nicknamed Skid Oak (Ed. note: The Royal Oak Pub at Bank
and MacLaren; where else?) with my roommate Stefan. Stef and I were admittedly
spending a lot of time together, either sweeping out the stands at JetForm
Park, where he was supervisor, sharing an apartment in a high rise on Baywater
Ave., or drinking together. rob was close, but no cigar (spoiler alert: I’m
bi). Stef and I were simply fast friends. However, in rob’s defense, he always
saw us carousing together.
But
getting to know rob again, instead of as simply as the clever older kid across
the workshop table, was a joy (He had a kid and everything! From high school!
Gasp!). He would be writing in Dunkin’ Donuts on Bank St. when I walked by. He
would be writing in the Skid Oak. To paraphrase Churchill—he would be writing
in the streets; he would be writing in the ditches; he would never surrender
his writing vocation. So, this was rather striking. Who the hell was this
working poet? If rob was writing with someone else, I would try harder to leave
him be. I mention him so much because rob should come with a warning label
(perhaps several?). He’s admittedly a gateway drug into Ottawa’s writing
community and CanLit poetry in general. Rob also deserves kudos for encouraging
so many other writers, believing in them, fostering them and publishing them.
As well, he struck me as an ardent, artful conversationalist and a prolific
drinker. I endearingly considered him “rob, the Walking Event”, because of his
public-writing sessions and the reading events he continually organized, and
the above/ground poem leaflets he would press into your hands whether or not
you wanted them. above/ground just turned 30 last fall. Does anyone else know
of a poet, editor, organizer, and publisher who has been at it for over 30
years in the nation’s capital? Through rob, I met so many other writers, from
Laurie Anne Fuhr, Stephen Brockwell, Stephanie Bolster, and Neil and Sean and
Kira and Thea of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, where I began
volunteering as well.
Because
of him, and regular attendee Zachary Houle’s urging, I took over the Tree
Reading Series in 1999 when the director, distracted by doing a PhD, simply
stopped showing up. I asked the audience, in mid-January 2000, if they minded
if I took over the series, and did anyone want to help? Darry Wright came up to
me afterwards and volunteered immediately.
Not long
after, rob formed an informal writers’ group, including beloved best friend
Clare Latremouille, jwcurry, Stephen Brockwell and Bruce Harding. That same
night we all met, I met a certain AJ Dolman, who eventually had a tremendous
impact on my life. Harding, at our first meeting, was a little shell-shocked by
his son having just come out of the closet to him earlier that day. The group
was nameless at first. We did imbibe generously (as was the usual protocol) and
one evening, we all wore silly hats at Claire’s insistence. Not long after
these shenanigans, we met at AJ’s, a line up an pile of possessions, an estate,
really, from clothes to boxes of various and sundry, stood along the curb in
front of AJ’s apartment on Metcalfe across from the Museum of Nature.
Obviously, someone had passed away or was evicted suddenly. rob found a pillow,
a lavender one embroidered with The Peter F. Yacht Club. He searched for
any information about this elusive PFYC in vain. However, he liked the name
very much and thus christened our group the Peter F. Yacht Club. The name
stuck.
And while
we were yachting, the Tree Reading Series was a boon to everyone involved, in
my opinion, from scribblers daring to stand up for the open mic set to
established writers, to scribes just getting their chops. I ran it with
Jennifer Mulligan, Darryl Wright, Kerry McNulty, Zachary
Houle, Matt Peake and Chris Krepski over five years. In the audience, there was
Wes Smiderle, Kate Heartfield, Jim Larwill, Michael Blouin, Sylvie Hill, Bob
Mosurinjohn, Pearl Pire, Amanda Earl, Charles Earl, John Buja, Steve Zytveld
now Deacon Steve), Cathy Zytveld, Tanis, Johnson, Grant Wilkins, Pam Bentley,
Kris Northey, Suki Lee, Baird McNeill, and many others. We would often overlap
with the Sasquatch organizers and regulars who attended, including Colin
Morton, Juan O’Neill, and so many others! I hope I didn’t miss anyone. If so,
apologies. And my thanks. Many of us went on to publish poetry, short fiction
and novels.
A free
series, Tree had a democratic open mic, followed by a featured writer. Anyone
could read in the open mic. I always applauded anyone who had the guts to get
up there. I still do, at any open mic set, anywhere. They deserve the applause,
and your attention. I heard a lot of open mic readers, and dozens of featured
readers. In the open mic, I read a lot of my poetry, much of it published
eventually, and what would become my debut horror novel Town & Train.
I also read several early drafts of the stories featured in my first
short-story collection Fear Itself, just out from Lethe Press. I went
through jobs and loves and affairs (torrid would not be an understatement) and
experiences while running Tree. But the conversations, the feedback, the
carousing after the readings, was all convivial and energizing—in short, Tree
was a changing experience for me and hopefully for many.
Q: What do you see happening here that you
don’t see anywhere else?
Good
question. I don’t know about other major Canadian cities, but there is a vast
and wide and supportive writing community here. For the most part, I think the
community welcomes newcomers. Like any family, we have our share of
disagreements, but there is also widespread collaboration and support. Ottawa’s
writing community remains vibrant, organic, changing, almost imperceptibly,
over time. Reading series and events come and go while some, like Tree, trade
stewardship every few years and continue well into their forties. The
stalwarts, from walking events such as rob, or organizers seasoned and green,
or impassioned magazines such as Arc: Canada’s Poetry Magazine, step up
regularly to organize readings. Some lie dormant and rise again, as the
Canadian Conference on Speculative Fiction (Can*Con). I’ve been a part of this
life cycle of readings and events and will likely be again.
However,
I remain a stalwart supporter of events when I can do so. I also support my
peers as much as I can, mainly with my writers’ groups, the Little Workshop of
Horrors where we carve speculative fiction and poetry into the shape it is
meant to be, or Queer Speculations, which workshops 2SLGBTQ+
or works from far and wide, or simply aspiring to be a mensch in person.
Q: What does Ottawa provide, or allow?
Venues to find writerly folks and a stack of events
to choose from attending and a raft of possible publication venues, from the
grassroots level to respectable pay markets. I come from a long tradition of
chatty, friendly writers who organize events or workshop their writing or
simply bring people into the group. It’s a thing I do; I bring people into the
fold, when I can, and see how it all plays out. That person sitting in the back
could Michael Blouin. Maybe they have a stack of stories and books under their
belt but have remained unpublished for over a decade and are attending Tree
just to keep their hand in the open-mic set (true story). On that note, I like
to think that Ottawa’s reading series and organizers provide an open door into
the literary community. What people want to do when they get there is often up
to them. They can be event volunteers, readers, avid fans, prospective authors,
budding poets, new emerging novelists or simply enthusiasts.
Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements
here?
Most of them!
So, my time with Tree, the Peter F.
Yacht Club, and these above writers’ groups I founded have all had tremendous
influence in the development of my work, whether it was poetry I tested out in
open mics as in the earlier days, short stories that are now in Fear Itself,
or excerpts of what would become my novel Town & Train, read at the
Blue Monday Reading Series or other venues. All of the exposure of my work, the
kicking of the tires, so to speak, and the drive to develop other writers’
ideas and craft and ultimately push their work out in the world, has had an
untold impact on my own writing across the board. I hope that members from my
writers’ groups and reading series feel the same.
In short, it’s a conversation. It keeps
going. And, along the way, the result of these conversations sees print. Poems,
short stories, novellas, novelettes, novels, and essays, oh my!
Q: How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you
approached your work?
In 2012, I founded the Little Workshop
of Horrors, an Ottawa writers’ group that carves speculative and literary work
into the shape it is meant to be. I also run Queer Speculations, which
workshops 2SLGBTQ+ or queer-themed stories
from far and wide.
Often, audience members or other authors would give
me invaluable immediate feedback, such as when I read from an abandoned novel,
“Closeted”, at the Dusty Owl Reading Series at The Elmdale House Tavern and prefaced this by saying I couldn’t place my first horror novel and
had started this one, which involved the protagonist crying openly in solitude,
pondering why men needed a deeply seated motivation to cry. Phil Jenkins told
me afterwards that there was no reason this excerpted novel shouldn’t be
published.
At an early-days outing at Tree or Sasquatch
Reading Series, I read some Kerouac in the open mic set and, in my excitement,
hastened through the run-on sentences. Open-set regular Baird McNeill
approached me afterwards with unsolicited advice, urging me to slow down in my
reading. Later on, he also told me that a scene with my hungover Det. Mackenzie
character simultaneously drinking water, taking some acetaminophen, drinking
coffee, from Train, was overbaked.
Of course, rob mclennan continually inundated me
with a fairy infinite list of poets to read as well, and suggested Tree
readers, so there was no shortage of poets to read, and there still isn’t.
Often, whether reading poetry or prose, others
encouragement to keep going. At the time, I might have forgotten that I was a
writer, or fallen out of faith, but others hadn’t. So, then I kept going
instead of stopping with the writing.
Q: What are you working on now?
Topmost thing is working with voice actor and
playwright Gavin Annette on completing the audio version of my Lethe Press
short-story collection Fear Itself. We have a routine down, and it’s going
well, and it is often amazing to hear an actor interpreting my stories.
I’ve returned to revising my second horror novel, Monstrous,
which has had its ups and downs these past few years.
As the title belies, the novel is about monsters
and human monsters who are arguably even worse than monsters. Monstrous occurs
25 years after Town & Train and involves some of Train’s
characters. It’s not a sequel, but a whole other story. In Monstrous, a
disparate group of characters, from seeming drifter John Newman to expat and
feared ghost-hunter Sara Jasmine to Scottish warlock Miguel MacIntyre to queer
student Dave and his bestie Joshua to conspiracy-theorist Dwight, is summoned
to the opening of a codicil, or the alteration to a will, by William McMammon 5
at a retrofitted inn near Picton County. What William reveals in the codicil
changes things inalterably for all of them. It’s not safe for William or any of
this seemingly unrelated circle of people at the inn, who were called there for
a reason. Monstrous is about the past and how we can move forward from
it, carry it with us, or let it go. And of course, there are gothic horror
elements, including my hermit character Drake, wandering around small-town
Brandon at night with his silver-strung guitar. There’s a gothic small-town
feel with Brandon (loosely based on Cornwall), storied characters, and
plentiful flashbacks from a pivotal event in 1989 that altered all my
protagonists’ lives. There’s a mythology underpinning this narrative and it’s
taken me some time to make sure the current storyline is as rich as the
flashback storyline. But it’s getting there.
I’m very tempted to do a blog post in the spirit of
Kurt Vonnegut’s direct dialogue with his characters. My characters would all be
standing around after the codicil reveal, outside the Auld Dubliner Inn,
looking at one another questioningly. Then they would turn to me, imploringly,
waiting for me to revise their next scene and next scene and next scene.
I’m also working on something for local publisher
Renaissance Press. Can’t say much about it, except that it too is a gothic
project. It’s about a well-known folk tale set not far off from the Hudson
River.
In addition, I have a stack of short story ideas
that demand development. Been meaning to get to them. I have also been meaning
to revive either my Little Workshop of Horrors or Queer Speculations writers’
group for over a year. But I have been swept up with grief (a death in the
family in November 2022), a new job and revising my short-story collection Fear
Itself.
As well, I have enough short stories in my workshop
to assemble another collection. Looking around for a market. It would be
another mix of not only horror, sci-fi, and fantasy pieces, like in my
brand-new collection Fear Itself (from Lethe Press), but also some
literary pieces.
Recently, I have returned to penning poetry. (I
decided, some years back, to only do poetry when I thought I had something to
say. That has resulted in an on-off relationship with the idea of writing
poetry, but suffice to say that with enough self-doubt, lack of focus, grief,
and sadness behind me already, I am tentatively trying poetry again.)
I have an ongoing project called To The Young
Men of Cornwall, where I write poems—eulogies, really—about the series of
untimely deaths of guys I knew who were about my age in 2012. There was a
tragic motorcycle accident in San Francisco, a death from drunkenly fishing off
the coast of B.C., a tragic bicycle accident in Iraq, a heart attack, and
others. It was a bad year for many people I knew, and one of them I didn’t even
like (they died from brain cancer). I have drafted and even finished several of
these poems. One, “At the corner of Pitt and First, where
I Last spoke to J.P.” appeared in Another Dysfunctional Cancer Anthology from Mansfield Press. Another poem is currently
out as a submission.
So … I
circle back to Young Men so often. It’s fairly heavy. Amanda Earl has strongly encouraged me to
keep at it.
For freelance writing (I’m also a part-time
journalist), I’ve been doing book reviews for Strange Horizons Magazine and
Arc: Canada’s Poetry Magazine. I will also soon review Daniel Allen
Cox’s new memoir, I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer
Ex-Jehovah's Witness for Canada’s only queer literary magazine.
So, that is what’s on my writer’s desk right now.
And thank you so much for this interview.
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