Guest Blog Posts – Creative Nonfiction Collective

Interview with Gloria Blizzard

August 28, 2025

Essay Collections, General News, Guest Blog Posts, Members, Members Blog, Publishing

Author Gloria Blizzard, CNFC member, discusses her 2024 book Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas (Dundurn Press). Listed in Ms. Magazine‘s July 2024 “Feminist Know-It-All” column and praised by critics for its lyrical prose and insightful exploration of identity, belonging, and the diasporic experience. Blizzard reflects here on the creative process behind her essays in this Q&A with CNFC Chair and President Nancy Dutra. Gloria Blizzard is an award-winning writer and poet, and a Black Canadian woman of multiple…

Interview with Linda Trinh

April 14, 2025

Craft, Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Publishing, Spirituality

In her memoir Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (Non) Buddhist Memoir, Linda Trinh says she had everything she thought an immigrant woman should want: motherhood, career, and security. Yet, she felt empty. Growing up in Winnipeg, Linda helped her mom make offerings to their ancestors and cleaned her late dad’s altar. These were her mother’s beliefs, but what were her beliefs? Via collection of essays, Linda plays with form and structure to show the interconnection of life events, trauma, and spiritual…

Keeping The Fire Going – Britt Gillman on the writerly life

February 10, 2025

Essay Collections, General, Guest Blog Posts, How to Be a Happy Writer, Members, Members Blog

Britt Gillman is a writer living in Ontario. Her work has been published in EVENT, The New York Times, Eavesdrop Magazine, kerning and elsewhere. In 2023 & 2024, she won nonfiction prizes with Prism International and EVENT Magazine. She is a member of The Writer’s Union of Canada and the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society. She is working on a book-length manuscript of personal essays. Instagram: @britgillman ~ I live in an old home. Sometimes, it appears in my writing in…

Interview with Caroline Topperman

January 8, 2025

Craft, Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Uncategorized

Your Roots Cast a Shadow: One Family’s Search Across History for Belonging by Caroline Topperman (HCI Books, 2024) is a fascinating and immersive exploration of mixed-heritage belonging as Caroline and her husband move from Vancouver, BC to Poland, where they both have roots. There, they hope to find a sense of home but after the honeymoon stage of being in a new place passes, Caroline is confronted with the reality of their choice: she grew up speaking the language, but…

Interview with Adelle Purdham

November 5, 2024

Essay Collections, Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Publishing

Adelle Purdham’s new essay collection, I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself was just released with Durdurn Press and is a powerful and necessary examination of Adelle’s internalized ableism, which is brought to painful light when she find’s out she will be having a baby with Down syndrome. By interogating herself, she encourages us to examine our own prejudices and move beyond them. This book explores the unexamined stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Adelle Purdham…

Interview with Lucy E.M. Black

September 25, 2024

Craft, Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Publishing, Resources

Author Lucy E.M. Black was a corporate trainer before becoming a career educator. She is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet, and The Brickworks. Her short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada in literary journals and magazines. She lives with her partner in Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations. Lucy E.M. Black’s most recent publication, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth (Demeter Press,…

Making an Impact: Kim S. Kierans and a Life in Journalism

September 5, 2024

Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog

Nancy Dutra speaks to fellow CNFC member Kim S. Kierans about her book, Journalism for the Public Good: The Michener Awards at 50. Kim Kierans is a senior fellow and resident at Massey College, where she writes and produces The JCR: A Massey Podcast. She is an Inglis professor emerita in journalism at the University of King’s College, where she taught for 24 years. Nancy Dutra is a coffee snob who loves writing, reading, and occasionally singing about the human condition. Her…

Interview with George Lee

May 24, 2024

Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Publishing

Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in fall…

Interview with Robin Pacific

April 3, 2024

Guest Blog Posts, Interviews, Members, Members Blog, Publishing

Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/ Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023 and her collection of short stories, Widow Fantasies, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill in September 2024. Hollay…

Why I Write: CNFC members reflect on why they write, and how they keep going

March 11, 2024

Guest Blog Posts, Members, Members Blog

Nancy Dutra loves writing, reading, and occasionally singing about the human condition. She is a contributing author to SOCAN Words and Music magazine and is a freelance writer and editor. Her album, “Time Will Tell,” charted on the Euro-Americana Roots Music List and received favourable reviews from CBC, Exclaim, NOW, and No Depression. ___ When I speak, I’m verbose and repetitive. When I write, however, I’m concise. With each successive draft, my point of view gets sharper, more straightforward, more precise.…