Visit with Alicia Elliot

Visiting scholar Alicia Elliot took time away from her month-long (hectic) schedule at UBC to come write with us Feb 8, 2018. That’s her holding our chapbooks in the middle back row!

Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer living in Brantford, Ontario. Her writing has been published by Room, Maisonneuve, Grain, The New Quarterly and The Malahat Review. She has a monthly column with CBC Arts, and her essay “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” won Gold for the 2017 National Magazine Award. She’s currently working on a collection of short stories and dealing with the fact that her only daughter is nearly a teenager. Her narrative nonfiction debut, A MIND SPREAD OUT ON THE GROUND, explore the links of colonialism, mental illness, art and abuse through a blend of cultural criticism, literary criticism, and political and historical discourse along with the author’s personal narrative. The book will be published in spring 2019.

Alicia read us an excerpt and invited us to try the technique she used of writing in second person (“you”), also known as direct address. We did and we loved it. There were 24 of us packed into the room and piece after piece knocked our socks off. Alicia also read some of Tenille Campbell‘s work from the book #IndianLovePoems, and we loved those, too!

Alicia answered our questions about publishing, drawing on her experience on The Fiddlehead board, and shared her process of becoming a writer. We are so thankful for her words and her wisdom – it was a busy visit!