Why I Write
Q & A with author Lindsay Zier-Vogel
LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL is a Toronto-based author and the creator of the internationally beloved Love Lettering Project. After studying contemporary dance, Zier-Vogel received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. She is the author of the acclaimed novel Letters to Amelia, and her first picture book, Dear Street, was a Junior Library Guild pick, a Canadian Children's Book Centre book of the year, and was nominated for a Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award in 2024. The Fun Times Brigade is her second novel.
Describe your writing space. What do you love about it?
My writing space changes depending on the season, which sounds romantic and writer-ly, but it very much practical. In the warmer months, I write in my sunroom, which is glorious in the spring and fall, and early mornings in the summer, but also too cold in the winter, and too hot in the middle of the summer. I do love my sunroom though. It has art from Argentina, and all my lanyards from book festivals, the world’s largest, and heaviest coat tree, and art and cards from friends, and watercolours of some of the rings my grandfather made. In my non-sunroom months, I’ve started in writing in my son’s room because it has the best morning light.
How important is it to have ‘a room of one’s own’?
What I’d give for a true writing room of my own! For now, I have to make do with noise-cancelling headphones and my nomadic laptop.
What is your writing practice like?
When I’m inside a project, I like to work on it six days a week, not for hours and hours, just an hour or two each day. I like the consistency of being inside a project, and feel disoriented if I’m away from it for too long. I write in the mornings, before my days are filled by to-do lists and piles of emails. I’ve also structured my weeks so that I have all day on Thursday to write. Thursdays are my favourite days.
Do you quantify your process by word count or hours spent writing?
I really like hitting goals and checking off boxes, which is not always a good thing. I got so hung up on word counts once upon a time, that I would end up writing and writing to hit my word count, but the words would be garbage. So instead of hitting a word count, or even a time limit, I like to focus on what the project needs—work on this scene, write about this character’s childhood, edit a section, etc
What is your creative process like?
I begin by filling a jar with scenes I want to write, or ideas I want to explore, and every day, I pull out a slip of paper and write. I call it my “jar method” and it keeps me from getting in my own way. After I have a pile of documents and scenes, I then find a starting point and begin building a section. It feels like I’m building a Lego tower at the beginning. Once I have something semi-readable, I then workshop it with my writing group, The Semi-Retired Hens, whose feedback is always invaluable.
What is the easiest and most difficult part of the process for you?
Starting is easy for me. It’s the murky middle, when I have a full, messy pile of documents strung together, and I need to establish tension and momentum that is the hardest and takes the most time.
Why do you write? What do you love about writing?
I love words and I love telling stories. I always have. And the things I love most about writing is that it’s non-stop problem solving—I put my characters into messes I have to write my way out of; I set myself up a structural framework I then have to figure out; I write a bunch of scenes and then have to figure out how they connect. I love the problem solving aspect of writing so much.
How do you manage writing with other demands on your time?
This is a constant, shifting equation. I know that writing first thing in the day, before life and emails and work start piling up, is the only key to me writing consistently. I also have found that blocking off my Thursdays just to write helps me manage when other days have less writing time and more demands from other parts of my life.
What has influenced you most as a writer?
My parents were both voracious readers, which they passed along to me. Reading widely, and having books be my escape has shaped me into the writer I am. Also, meeting Jean Little in Grade 4 was the moment I knew I wanted to write.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
I really love working in various genres which doesn’t necessarily lend itself to strong connections between each book—I’ve got two (adult) novels out—Letters to Amelia, and The Fun Times Brigade, and a picture book, Dear Street, and I’m co-editing on a collection of nonfiction essays (The Deep End: Reflections on Swimming, out with Book*hug Press in 2027), and I’m working on a middle grade novel—too many genres to have any cohesive connections. BUT, I think that my adult novels are definitely connected—Letters to Amelia focuses on pregnancy, The Fun Times Brigade focuses on early motherhood, and my current work-in-progress explores parenting young children—so each book takes up where the last narrative left off.
Best advice you’ve ever been given.
I was just at a chat with Neko Case, and she answered a question about what to do when the motivation disappears, and she said to work in a different medium, and it feels like that’s exactly where I’m at in my writing career. I love bouncing between the huge, cumbersome middle part of a 350-page novel, and a lighter 100-page middle grade manuscript, and a 1,500-word essay, and a 500-word picture book.
What does success look like to you?
Success is being able to write and publish more books—specifically the work-in-progress that is in shambles on my computer at the moment, and finding a publisher for my poetry manuscript. I’d also love to publish more picture books because doing school and library visits is my favourite thing in the world.
Tell us a few things that would surprise us to learn about you: the person, the writer.
People are often surprised that I have a background in dance. My professional dance career ended shortly after it began, and in retrospect, my voice as a writer was always clearer than it ever was a dancer, but I will forever miss being able to fly across the floor in a jumping combination.
Also, I really love basketball. Not playing it, but watching it. (Related, I loved Emily Adrian’s The Second Season, and Matthew Salesses’ The Sense of Wonder!)
What was a transformative book for you in your life?
There have been so many books that feel like they’re part of my marrow. Among them, Everything Here Is Under Control, by Emily Adrian, The Mother Act, by Heidi Reimer, and The Golden State, by Lydia Kiesling encouraged me to write about motherhood in ways I will forever be grateful for. Also, Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers rocked me to my very core (the parade scene will haunt me forever—IYKYK).
Who are your favourite writers writing today?
I love how Amy Jones wields large casts of characters. I love andrea bennett’s poetry, and their essays in their most recent collection, Hearty, will stay with me for a long time (especially the trifle essay). I’m forever inspired by Vikki Vansickle, and how she moves between voice and genre so seamlessly. I also love everything that Xochitl Gonzalez and Catherine Newman write.
What books are you currently loving?
Teri Vlassopoulos’s Living Expenses. I read it while it was in-process and it’s somehow even better now. Teri is one of my favourite writers.
If you were a bookseller what 5 books would you hand-sell to readers and why?
Samantha Garner’s The Quiet Is Loud: a spec lit wonder.
Julia Zarankin’s Field Notes From an Unintentional Birder: which is about birding, but also about immigration, piano, and grief, and middle age, and finding yourself
Vikki Vansickle’s The Lightning Circle: a novel-in-verse set at a camp (oh, it’s magical!)
Carrie Snyder’s Francie’s Got a Gun: it is so taut and paced miraculously and I could not breathe until it was done. It’s masterful.
Teri Vlassopoulos’s Living Expenses: No one writes relationships quite like Teri. This book explores infertility, and grief, and relationships, with a side of feeding turtles in the ocean and it is wonderful.
What advice do you have for writers?
Writing and publishing are separate entities, and I find it very helpful to keep them as separate as I can. I can be in control of writing, whereas much of the publishing world is out of my hands.
Also, apply for grants! It takes years to write books (well, it takes me years!) and advances keep getting smaller, so apply for grants along the way!
Thank you Lindsay.