By Elisa Houot
• Who is your favorite poet and/or writer?
Do I have to choose one? I’m obsessed with Nikita Gill and Yrsa Daley-Ward. I love Warsan Shire and Andrea Gibson. When I’m real romantic, I swoon over Pablo Neruda’s work. John Keats wrote one of my favourite poems, La belle dame sans merci. Emily Dickinson was my highschool ob
I want to write a book like Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless and dream of writing a collection of fairy tale retellings like The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. I want to be Roshani Chokshi and V.E. Schwab, especially the latter’s jump across age categories. My friend (humblebrag all the time), June Hur, is truly one of my favorite writers because she’s so good at doing atmospheric. Like I hate her so much that I adore her. I want to write romance like Alisha Rai, Courtney Milan, and Tessa Dare. Helen Hoang is also incredible.
• Do you think there was room for two on the closet door to save Leonardo in Titanic?
Maybe there was room on the door, but would it float? Does it matter? That movie scarred me for life and I never want to go on a boat or ship or cruise, especially at night.
• What is the poem that moved you the most?
UGH I hate choosing. I think I was just holding my breath the whole time I read TEACHING MY MOTEHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH by Warsan Shire. The whole book was phenomenal and stabs you right in the heart.
To my daughter I will say,
'when the men come, set yourself on fire.'
• What is one thing we will never hear you say?
You will never hear me say that empathy isn’t one of the most important things to me. It’s something that everyone should have for so many reasons, but especially for how it impacts the way we perceive and treat people.
Mental health and inequality were my areas of focus while I was in university and while I’m not really in that field, my passion remains. When we have empathy, we’re able to look at what people might be experiencing. It’s essential as a storyteller to understand the complexities of people and life as a whole.
• What is the last music you’ve listened to?
I listen to music all day while at work. Usually you can catch me listening to some chill pop. Music for chilling. Pop is fun. I like fun and catchy. I’ve listened to Taylor Swift’s Folklore more times than I can count. I like Billie Eilish’s earlier songs, but also vibing with Hozier, Tate Mcrae Lennon Stella, Kina Grannis, Halsey, Julia Michaels, Ariana Grande, etc.
• What is your current writing project? Can you tell us a bit about it?
The best way to describe my writing this year is one word: chaotic. You could also say I am starting over and trying to rediscover my love for writing stories, after the big realization in 2019 that a piece of my heart will always belong to poetry.
Right now, I am pants-ing a teen rom-com that’s a mashup of my favourite romance tropes. I’ve tried and failed with YA contemporary novels but I think this might be the one that gets done. Oh god I hope I didn’t jinx it with that.
Note: I did not run this by my agent, Lesley, yet and I hope she’ll like it because she’s liked everything else I’ve thrown at her so far. Hi Lesley, I can’t wait to bury you in an overwhelming amount of new books I plan to write.
• Are you a dog person, or a cat person?
I am an animal person in general. I am the person who follows several animal instagrams, gets excited about going to the zoo or the aquarium. A lot of Torontonians have a love/hate relationship with raccoons, but I LOVE them and I got to pet one after a family of chubby baby raccoons surrounded me, looking for food. I washed my hands right away, of course, but only after squealing about how much I love the little babies.
I have a cat and a dog though. The cat, Kingslee, is my adorable baby/old man who just turned 12 this past summer. I tell everyone he will live to thirty because I cannot handle imagining otherwise. My baby. Forever. Always. I pull out my baby talk just for him.
• Are you a good cook? If yes, what is your specialty? If no, what is the dish you wish you were able to cook?
I’m more of a baker than a cook! I like that baking is more specific, especially with measurements. I have the hardest time with the vagueness of meal recipes, especially my mom’s, where the amount of an ingredient is “to taste”. I do make some Filipino dishes though, like beef mechado or our version of spaghetti (which typically involves banana ketchup).
I mostly bake cookies, but I also make cakes, with hopes of making my own wedding cake one day! The oven in my home is very small though, so I don’t bake much anymore. I do, however, make lots of mug cakes, especially ones with lots of sprinkles. One thing that I should actually make again (because it’s been forever and I love them so much) are oreo cheesecake cupcakes, where the oreo cookie is the crust. It’s so good. My mom is also forcing me to make a few different types of cookies for Christmas this year. How she thinks we’ll finish it all (since it’s unlikely we’ll have a big Christmas party like we usually do), I don’t even know!
• What do you love most about writing?
Just… the creation of it all—the world, the characters, the relationships. There is so much you can do and the only limits to your imagination is you. There is so much growing we can always do to create and create and we only stop creating when we just do.
• What is your favorite movie from your childhood?
The Princess Bride. I’ve seen it so many times, I don’t even know the number. My earliest memory of watching it is asking my mom to put it on and her saying I’ve already seen it. I watch it every year! And I know all the lines.
• What was the hardest poem to write in SO SAYS THE HEART? And in SPEAK YOUR DARKNESS?
The thing about SO SAYS THE HEART is that it’s my recovery book, following a major breakup. I got out of a relationship that was about to get to its 6th year. I had been living with my partner and we were talking marriage. We kept trying to convince each other that we would always be together, there would never be anyone else, etc etc.
But when something isn’t working, that’s what you have to accept. Coming to terms with that was pure agony, but since the beginning, I told my partner that if there are any doubts about being with me, we couldn’t be together. And so it ended.
That meant SO SAYS THE HEART was painful. I cried writing half of the book. That first half? It’s bitterness and heartbreak and wondering what happened and why. The second part was when I started accepting it. Here’s the thing though: I wrote both parts at the same time, because some day were good, others were bad, and you can grieve a relationship, and grief isn’t some linear path. I was grieving, trying to heal, still grieving, and healing. Back and forth.
Some line that will always stick out are these, from Father (pg 41 in SSTH):
We are not who we were.
You are not who I loved.
And I am not what you wanted.
For SPEAK YOUR DARKNESS, it might be Prayer (pg 35).
For context, I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic elementary and secondary school. I went to church every week, went to confession, read the Stations of the Cross every Good Friday. There was always a rosary in my family’s car. I always believed in god until I was a sixteen and falling into depression. I still cry thinking about sitting on my bedroom floor, wondering why I would feel this way and why god would do that to me. I still grapple with religion and when I am at my worst, I always wonder about god.
I stopped looking for angels in the sky.
Don’t press my palms together in prayer.
When I whisper under my breath,
I no longer call out to my god.
If he’s out there, if he’s real,
Then why won’t he hear me?
That is all I can ask of him now.
• If you watched the show, who is your favorite F.R.I.E.N.D ?
I grew up watching this show but I don’t really care about it, tbh. Unpopular opinion: I don’t think Netflix needed to spend soooo much money to keep the rights to having the show on the platform.
I’ve always liked Rachel’s outfits though.
• Can you tell us more about your next writing projects, both novel and poetry?
Novel-wise, I’ve been revising a fantasy manuscript with con artists and witches, and that’s always been the project of my heart. It’s been so fun working on it again! I’ve also been working on a ghostly YA novel in verse, which should be interesting and hopefully very creepy. I have another project in the works that’s my teen rom-com with a massive trope mashup. And a new YA fantasy set after a revolution. I want to get back to writing romance soon though! Maybe something set in Casa Loma, a castle-styled mansion in Toronto.
For poetry, I haven’t started on a big project yet, but I’ve been working on short collections that will be Kindle exclusives! The first of the series, LOVE LIKE INSECTS, came out on November 1st and has about 60 pieces.
Romantic poetry has always been my favourite to write and I’m sticking to themes to challenge myself instead of reusing the same metaphors.! For those with Kindle Unlimited, it will be free.
• What is on the top of your bucket list?
It used to be going to the Philippines, but I actually accomplished that in September 2019! Now, I’m not entirely sure what I would want to before I die.
I want to see castles. Maybe Versailles? Or Neuschwanstein, the sleeping beauty castle in Germany that inspired Walt Disney. I want to see the tourist-y side of the Philippines with its beaches.
Wait omg I want to touch a snow leopard and hug a red panda. Is that crazy? Whatever.
• What is your all-time favorite book?
UGH I can never choose. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I have read it a million times. As mentioned earlier, Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente is iconic. So is The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. I think I might always love Roshani Chokshi’s The Star-Touched Queen.
I also LOVE romance books, especially when they make me cry. I think I fully sobbed through Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai and The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. On the YA side, I think I could read To All the Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han a hundred times.
• What is the song you know by heart that you can’t help but sing every time you hear it?
Wannabe by the Spice Girls. That’s my anthem.
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