In this post, we’ll be hearing from Canadian author Merilyn Simonds. She shares with us her inspirations, describes her writing process, and gives us a sneak peek into her next work in progress! Check out her author bio:
Merilyn Simonds is the internationally published author of 22 books, including the novel The Holding, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the Canadian classic nonfiction novel, The Convict Lover, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Among her best-selling nonfiction is A New Leaf, the story of her gardens north of Kingston, and Gutenberg’s Fingerprint, a meditation on reading, writing, and the future of the printed book. Her most recent book—Woman, Watching, whichwon the Foreword Indies Editor’s Choice Nonfiction Award for 2022—is an innovative memoir/biography of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, an extraordinary recluse who changed the way we see birds. Simonds memoir, Walking with Beth: Conversations with my 100-Year-Old Friend is forthcoming from Random House Canada in September, 2025.
Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, who is the focus of your novel Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay, was a neighbour of yours. For this book, you’ve woven your own memories of Louise into a biographical narrative. How much research did this manuscript require? Were there any parts of the research or writing process that gave you pause?
Woman, Watching is not a novel, although it’s hard to say exactly what it is: not a biography although it is biographical, and not a memoir although there are threads of my own memories and observations through the book. Louise was what we call “a country neighbour” which is not the person next door, as in the city, but anyone within driving distance. We lived on opposite sides of a large lake, and about an hour apart by car. But at a time when writers were thin on the ground in northern Ontario, we were certain writerly neighbors.
The research was fascinating and daunting: it absorbed a couple of years, mostly going through Louise’s 26 boxes of text archives and dozens of boxes of image archives at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. Covid intervened, closing the archives, but the archivists arranged to have hundreds of pages of letters reproduced digitally, A close reading of Louises’s vast correspondences—mostly with her mother whom she wrote to every Sunday for 40 years, but also with professional and amateur ornithologists around the world—provided the foundation for the book. I also searched high and low to acquire all of her scientific and popular articles and books, many of which provided first-hand accounts of her field studies of birds, which I reproduced in the book. Unlike most biographies, I was intent on allowing the reader to get to know Louise as I had, through her own voice.
The whole project gave me pause! Louise asked me to be her biographer in 1990 and it took me 30 years and the writing of about 10 other books to find a way to make good on that promise. I am not a scientist by profession or by nature, so the scientific literature she excelled at was often a challenge. I didn’t want to get that wrong. But the biggest challenge came from parts of her life that felt extremely private. How much should I tell? If she were alive and writing a memoir, what would she reveal? It helped to have known Louise: she was forthright, honest, principled. That helped me decide to include even the painful parts.
Beginner writers are often told, “write what you know.” Merilyn, your book, The Lion in the Room Next Door, is a collection of short stories inspired by your own memories. Tell us about the process of writing that collection.
I actually believe that writers need to write what they don’t know. Writing for me is an exploration, whether of another person’s life, Like Louise’s and Beth’s in Walking with Beth, or an exploration of my own memories, not for the facts of them but for what they might mean.
As I was writing The Convict Lover—a process that took eight years—an image would suddenly pop up. The first was a lion walking down a hall. I pushed the image away and returned to Kingston Penitentiary, but the lion kept popping up. I finally stepped away from the prison and wrote the story of the lion in the room next door—there really was a lion in the hotel room next to where my family lived for six months, but no one ever saw it but me, so the story is about memory and what it means. I returned to the convict and the girl who brought him solace, but again and again some image would pop up—a gun, a machete, a Volkswagen van, a dead child—and I would have to write the story in order to clear my imagination for the book at hand. I think that the intense process of imagining the prison and more particularly the life of Peggy, a small-town girl much like me, shook loose significant, unresolved moments in my own life.
A lion is often associated with courage, and writing about real-life experiences certainly takes a tremendous amount of it. At what point did you decide to write memoir and creative non-fiction?
I never really made that decision. All my life, I’ve written the stories that took hold of me, some personal, some not, although even those were grounded in my own curiosities and life experience. I have always found “real life” fascinating, protean. Once the vague mass of a story is there, insistent, I have to give it shape, and often that means inventing a form. I was lucky to come to writing in the late Seventies, when literary forms were exploding. And it was a time when writing was still more a calling than a career, so I never expected to make a living at it. I never felt constrained to write a certain way or for a certain audience.
But you’ve also written literary fiction, your novels Refuge and The Holding being examples. How do you decide which project to tackle next? Do you zero-in on a single writing project at a time, or do you keep a rotation?
That sounds so intentional. The truth is I never know what is coming next or when it will rise up. Lately, I have thought each book would be my last, then Louise popped up. And after Louise, those weekly walks with Beth, and now, when I really really thought I was done, a man who has fascinated me for years suddenly pushed onto centre stage and said, Okay, it’s my turn now!
So yes, I always have ideas that are gestating, but I don’t go looking for a next project. They come looking for me, and sometimes I’d shoo them away if I could. But I can’t. Stories will have their way with me.
Besides writing, tell us about another art form you currently practice. Are you any good at it?
When I was writing about Louise, who was a very good bird artist, I tried my hand at drawing birds, to try to see what she saw. But once I had a sense of its importance to Louise, I dropped it, long before I could have got good at it. I appreciate art, our house is full of art. I appreciate film and music. Both my sons are artists, one visual, one sound. I find image, sound, movement highly provocative, inspiring and they always lead me back to words.
Merilyn, what’s the most fascinating comment or suggestion you’ve received on your own work? How did it help you grow as a writer? What advice do you have for emerging writers about receiving feedback on a piece of writing?
I remember having lunch with Ellen Seligman, the queen of Canadian editors. She had just bought The Lion in the Room Next Door. We were halfway through our salads when she leaned close and said, out of the blue, “Are you editable?” I said “Sure!” although I had no idea what she meant. In fact, I was and am editable, and now I do know what it means: a writer has to be able to re-envision their story, to open up to new possibilities. I love the editorial process and have had great editors: Jan Walter with The Convict Lover, Ellen Selligman with the next 4 books, Susan Renouf at ECW with Refuge and Woman, Watching, and now Anne Collins at Random House with Walking with Beth. They have all helped me make my books better.
So my advice is, be 100 percent invested in your story when you are writing, then let it rest, and when you come back to it with an editor, be open. The decision about what to do with editorial comments is the writer’s, but the work will not advance unless a writer is willing to consider the suggestions of a perceptive editor.
New writers often aim to finish a scene or short story within a single sitting, leading them to frustration. Merilyn, how do you truly know when a piece of writing has reached a state of completeness? How often do you find yourself returning to the same scene in a work-in-progress?
I have only written one story in a single sitting—”Miss You Already”—which descended on me while sitting, waiting my turn onstage at a literary festival. It was like a revelation and the story ended up being published in several languages. Once in forty two years. Otherwise, for me, writing is a slow search for a path. If I keep returning to a scene, I know something is wrong. It is a pebble in the shoe. Sometimes, it just needs tone pulled out. Some scenes are there because I want them to be there, not because they need to be there. Beware of loving your own ideas too much. But yes, I do know when a work is done. It has a roundness, the words, when I read it, slip easily off the tongue. Sometimes, they take my breath away. When that happens, I know the story is alive in itself.
For new writers, the idea of completing a full-length book is both exhilarating as well as daunting. Your novel, The Convict Lover, took many years to write. What helped feed your ambition to complete the manuscript? Were there any surprises along the way? Can you share some advice for writers who are just starting out with a book manuscript?
I once read that Isabel Allende starts every book on the same day of the year, and sets icons on her desk. I took a page from her book and often dressed in Peggy’s clothes while working on The Convict Lover. I had her beaded flowers and the framed photo of her dog on my desk. Every time I looked at these, or listened to the marches she loved, I felt that tingle of excitement and couldn’t wait to dive back into the work. These may seem like silly prompts but you do what you have to do to keep the heart of the story alive while you flesh out the words.
Who are your all-time favourite authors? Which contemporary writers do you recommend checking out?
Various writers have been important to me, over the years: I never know when a book will be significant. I am drawn to the unusual, the experimental: Jim Crace was a revelation, as was John dos Pasos, especially 1919. Rachel Seiffert. Edna O’Brien, especially The Little Red Chairs. Irish writers in general with their facility in language and story: Anne Enright, Colum McCann, Colm Toíbín. John Berger for his mind. Gabriel Garcia Marquez for his magic. I spent a year recently reading only Mexican literature. Now I am reading the surrealists: Leonora Carrington and her literary godchild China Miéville. I regret that I can’t read every book in the world in the language in which it is written.
In addition to being such an accomplished author, you’ve been diligent in giving back to the writing community. Kingston Writersfest has upcoming events on August 24th and September 18th through 21st, 2025. Tell us about your involvement with this Festival. Who will be appearing? What sort of activities are planned? Who should attend?
With Jan Walter, my first editor, I co-founded Kingston WritersFest in 2009. Recently it went through a bad patch financially and almost closed its doors. Jan and I and some stalwart supporters were able to raise the funds to get the festival back on its feet, and now a wonderful volunteer team is planning its revival. On August 24, Margaret Atwood will kick off the season with an event called A Word After a Word After a Word is Power. The festival itself will continue many traditions developed over the past 16 years, along with some fresh ideas.
The Writers Studio has been expanded, with a range of master classes—90 minutes, half-day, and full-day—lead by extraordinary teachers, many from university creative writing programs. Parallel to The Writers Studio will be The Readers Salon, where avid book-lovers can take a deep dive into a particular work or a way of writing. And of course, four days of Authors Onstage events.
The festival is for writers and readers—both will find much to inspire and delight them at Kingston WritersFest.
Merilyn, what can you tell us about your current work in progress?
Walking With Beth: Conversations with my 100-year-old Friend will be released on September 23. I love this book, which is about friendship, art, managing life in all its messy glories.
I have a novel set in Mexico—The Colour of Earth, The Colour of Bone—with my agent.
And I am just barely beginning something—it has no form yet—inspired by a fascinating man who gave up wealth and position in England to build a magnificent garden in the jungle. My working title is Architect of Dreams. I have no idea if it will ever be written.
Is there anything else you’d like to share or promote?
I’m about to narrate the audio book of Walking with Beth. I am so excited about this, as the audio books I like best are those narrated by the author—such as Liz Hay’s Snow Road Station. I hope I am up to this new challenge!
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Cover Image: Photo by Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com
Pauline Shen 