Frequently Asked Questions

During interviews and at readings, people seem to return to the following topics.

Questions about being a writer...

Why do you write in so many different genres?
So far, I've just followed my inspirations, and written anything that could capture my attention for the length of time it takes me to finish a book (anywhere between one and four years, apparently).

How do you keep writing when you can't think of anything to say?
This is a question a lot of people ask me when I do talks, particularly younger members of the audience. My only good advice is to say that when you decide to be a writer, you don't have any other choice. No one's going to yell at you to keep writing (although my husband does once in a while, I generally ignore him) or take marks off for being late handing in your assignment. But stopping partway through a book is a little like being a construction worker who gives up after putting in the foundation for a house. In other words, I just sit at my computer until a spark goes off in my brain and I can keep going.

Where do you get your ideas?
My entire life is mined for writing ideas. Sometimes my friends and family hate me for that. To be honest, many of the things that inspire me are really mundane, like walking around the city, going to movies, art shows, and listening to music. Occasionally, I read a story in the newspaper or a magazine that stays with me.

Who and what influences your work?
Many people, from musicians to filmmakers to people in my family influence my work. I've read everything I can get my hands on by the following authors: Francesca Lia Block (Girl Goddess #9); Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials series); Golda Fried (Darkness, Then a Blown Kiss); Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring); Ninjalicious (Access All Areas); Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude); Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits); Marge Piercy (Vida); Sara Paretsky (Blacklist); Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street); Jaime and Gilberto Hernandez (Love and Rockets comics); and Stan Lee (creator of so many Marvel comics).

Did your grandparents encourage you to be a writer?
My grandparents on my mother's side are science fiction writers. They inspire me a great deal and have showed me that being a professional writer is a career, much like any other. You pretty much just have to work very hard and not give up in order to find success.

Did you always know you were going to be a writer?
Reading is the one thing I always loved to do as a kid. But I never actually thought I would turn out to be a writer until my mid-twenties, when a friend showed me a copy of his zine, Celtic Pamplemousse, and encouraged me to make my own. After that, it was as if I had no other choice.

Questions about specific books...

Please check out the links in the menu on the left side of this page for information about individual books...

Questions related to publishing Kiss Machine...

What's a zine?
I like the description printed on the Underground Press website: "Zines are publications done for the love of doing them, not to make a profit or a living. Most zines are photocopied. Some are printed offset like a magazine, but with a print run of hundreds or possibly thousands instead of hundreds of thousands or more. In a zine, you might find typos, misspelled words, improper grammer, and brilliant or radical or just plain honest ideas." You can read this page for a longer description.

How long have you been making zines?
Back in my early twenties, I started publishing my writing and trading my first zines. They were all one-off publications with names like "We Have Lives" and "Throat Flower." Then I found a partner in crime, visual artist Paola Poletto, and we collaborated for a few years—she supplied the art and I supplied text. When we started Kiss Machine together, in 2000, it was a humble endeavour with hand-painted covers and artwork inserts. Now it's a pretty little magazine with a glossy cover. I'm not acutally running it anymore, so please send your love letters, hate mail, and queries to Madelaine Lyons and Emma Lawson.

Why do you publish your own comics and stuff?
Controlling both the medium and the message is a great learning experience for any writer. It gives you insight into what's going on behind the scenes to connect your book/comic/work with readers. Writing is a very insular activity and so I love getting immediate feedback on my work. Self-publishing is a great way to break down barriers between yourself and readers.

Questions about other stuff...

Where did you grow up?
I was born in Toronto, and have lived in the west end my entire life, with the exception of brief excursions to St. Catherines, Ontario (4 months-4 years old), Buenos Aires, Argentina (for four months after high school, to visit family) and Montreal, Quebec (for half a year, while working on my first book).

What were you like as a kid/teenager?
As a child, I was an extroverted loner (it might sounds like a paradox) and I always had a book or ten on the go. The first place my parents let me visit on my own was the Parkdale Library, where I worked my way through the kids’ and young adult section, and onto stuff like mythology and their extensive Caribbean collection.

For elementary school, a bus took me to a more affluent part of the city, where I attended a French Immersion Program. I never really felt like I fit in. For one thing, all my classmates were white and wore the latest designer brands, while my best friends at home came from many cultural backgrounds and didn’t have the money to buy lots of fancy clothes.

On weekends, I organized garage sales, where neighbourhood kids sold their broken toys, and forced my friends to act in plays with plots plucked from my imagination. We charged adults five cents to watch us run around giggling. I liked school plays, but was always given unfortunate bit parts, like Sleepy Dwarf or "la petite fille qui pleure." In Grade 6, I rewrote the Wizard of Oz as a play on my mother’s typewriter, and cast all the kids in my class (I made myself the Scarecrow, for some reason). That production was never staged.

Later, I remember some wicked hide-and-seek and spin-the-bottle games. High school is a blur of miniskirts, expensive cars (not mine, I still don’t drive), violin lessons, choir practices, beach parties, and football quarterbacks. Oh, and skipping class to protest the first Gulf war—or just to skip class.

Do you do readings?
Yep, all the time. You can find out about upcoming events here and via my blog. I seem to update my blog a little more often.