“If you're going to walk into any room and do any kind of presentation, you just want to assume that people are really happy that you're there. You bring more of yourself. You're less focused on your content and more interested in who's in the room and what they might need. You go from rigid to fluid.” 

Farzana Doctor discusses how her career as a psychotherapist informs her writing and teaching practices. In this episode, she discusses:

• 02:14 | The lightning bolt of inspiration that helped her revise her novel All Inclusive
• 03:53 | Being respectful when writing about real-world events, such as the Air India bombing
• 06:40 | How her activism sparked her most recent novel, Seven, a multi-generational story dealing with the impact of khatna in the Dawoodi Bohra community
• 08:54 | Self-care for writers both while creating new work and while promoting it
• 13:05 | Techniques for silencing your inner critic
• 15:20 | Facilitating constructive peer feedback

Guest Bio:

Farzana Doctor is a writer, activist, and psychotherapist. From 2009-18, she curated the Brockton Writers Series and has been a volunteer with The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trust. She currently volunteers with WeSpeakOut, a global group that is working to ban female genital cutting in her Dawoodi Bohra community.

She has been writing all of her life but it became a more regular practice around 2000, when she began writing her first novel, Stealing Nasreen, which was published by Inanna in 2007.  Her second novel, Six Metres of Pavement, won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and was short-listed for the 2012 Toronto Book Award. In 2017 it was voted the One Book One Brampton 2017 winner. Her third novel, All Inclusive was a Kobo 2015 and National Post Best Book of the Year.

She's just completed a novel, Seven (August 2020, Dundurn), and a poetry collection, You Still Look the Same. She is currently at work on a YA novel.

About the Podcast:

Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach.

Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development.

Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.

Credits:

Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.

Access more free writing and teaching tips from Farzana Doctor at:

tnq.ca/parallel