Welcome to this Issue

Spirit Ink was born out of conversations I’d had with Pam Dillon, a long-time supporter of our Wild Writers Literary Festival. Over the years we’ve met over lunch and talked about writing, creativity, our families, and we also shared some of the hard stories in our lives and I can say that I learned much about courage and gratitude from her. It was a relationship that blossomed into friendship so we could talk about things that mattered to us.

When she told me that she had a personal interest in Indigenous writing it was an inadvertent seed planted. Over time we talked about Indigenous Voices Awards that she supported and how important, and sometimes challenging it was to reach those emerging voices. As we talked about what it might take to change this, and knowing that a simple call-out wasn’t the answer, we wondered about a more intentional approach, working with Indigenous writers who were leaders in their community. With the guidance and leadership of these leaders we could offer a welcoming place to publish their work and the work of others they could mentor. Spirit Ink had taken root. So what exactly is it? Spirit Ink is a TNQ initiative supporting emerging Indigenous Writers by helping to develop their craft and providing publishing opportunities through mentorship, writer-in-residence placements, and bursaries. The aim is to have an intentional approach in encouraging this new generation of writers. We began by asking Helen Knott, a celebrated Indigenous author and activist, to be a mentor. In addition, Chyana Marie Sage, known for her evocative and powerful storytelling, has been selected as the Writer-in-Residence for 2025. Through Spirit Ink, two Indigenous Writers will be offered a full bursary at our Wild Writers Retreat in May 2025. Spirit Ink is possible with the generous support of Pam Dillon.

In this launch of Spirit Ink we come full circle with publishing the work of our Writer in Residence Chyana Maria Sage, who won our Edna Staebler Personal Essay contest in 2021 and now returns with “If Not a Heartbeat.” Here the rituals of ceremony are laced into her memories of childhood through to her eventually leaving home. It is an exquisite essay in words and allusions, bringing the reader in with a generosity, an openness and honesty. In this issue she worked with Britney Supernault, who writes under the pen name of Cree Nomad on the short story “After June” where a young two-spirit young person revisits their home town and the memory of a traumatic incident.

Helen Knott worked with emerging writer Sean Robinson who publishing under his Nisga’a/Metis name Yagaba’a had written a poetic story “The Edges” that addresses the challenges of the diminishing local fishing industry on Chinese migrants and local Indigenous peoples. Finally, we are thrilled to publish new work from Helen Knott, a moving coming of age piece with vivid and poignant characters.

Elsewhere in the issue we have two essays from former X Page participants. Our X Page program works with refugee and immigrant voices to produce writing in collaboration with editors and mentors. Cecilia Vizcaíno’s essay “From the Outside Looking In” is a homage to her step-grandmother, while Sanjana Srikant’s “Chai – A Homecoming” explores her experience as caregiver to her mother and the meaning of home.

In Lara El Mekaui’s “Optimal Anxiety: The Search for Belonging in an Uncertain World” she reveals the emotional challenges of leaving the war in her country to study in Canada while Alena Papayanis explores how we can adopt the structure required in an essay to that of life in “In Life and Writing”.

In fiction Courtney Bill explores the distinct personalities of twins in “Twin Talk,” Kathleen Keenan is curious about her new religious neighbours in “Solstice,” Curtis McRae reunites father and son in “A Sensitive Man Drinks Yellow Flowers,” while Glenn Willmott brings us a coming of age story in “Almost Sexual” and James Dunnigan a meditation on grief and loneliness in “Nat in New York.” In Stephen J. Price’s “The Hawthorne Effect” a violent act reveals a betrayal, and there is further treachery in Parastoo Geranmayeh’s “The Bermuda Triangle.” Daniel Bay looks at the dynamics of boyhood in “With Church Change,” James Southworth exposes problems at work and with his son in “The Sailboat,” Kari Lund-Teigen brings us “Knee- Deep (A Love Story),” a climate crisis story told slant. MJ Malleck’s characters misbehave at a historic tourist site in “Penance,” and Nayani Jensen reminds us of the precarious early days of flight in “Two Bodies in Flight.” In poetry we have Lauren Marshall with “Coquina Heart” and “Bunn’s Creek,” Angela Long with “The Landing of Mars Perseverance” and “Divorce,” Bobbie Jean Huff with “Waiting” and “Madonna Lilies,” Ling Ge with “Four Seasons on Lake Huron” and “Moonlit Night,” Eleonore Schönmaier with “Bloom” and “At Play,” Laurie Koensgen with “Uprooted,” Lauren Peat with “We Return in September to a Question,” Leannah Riah Fidler with “Southern Ontario” and “Tow Hill,” and Rebecca Rogerson with “That year of first communion” Jessica Lee McMillan is here with her Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse honourable mention “Ambient.”

In Chyana’s essay in referring to the ceremony which interweaves her essay she says. “…I share what I hope to learn. Others share what they want to release, or sometimes, we say nothing at all. Silence with tears. Silence with heaviness. Silence with acceptance. Sometimes the greatest power lies in the things that remain unsaid.”

This is what we hope for with Spirit Ink. Need I say more.

—Pamela Mulloy