We discuss Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, a book we read in a workshop together twenty years ago when our friendship began. We read an excerpt from the first letter that explores life lessons and the interaction between the inner and outer

Our conversation circles and spirals as we revisit Jessica’s book The Writing Spiral: Learning as a Writer. Rumi, T. S. Eliot, solitude and self-awareness all feed our talk about the labyrinth as a metaphor for our life path and how to arrive at the centr

We explore looking back to look ahead. Catherine talks about her just published book, Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We’re Dead: New and Selected Poems, the micro journey and the macro, the role of attentiveness and what it’s like putting a New and Sel

We talk about the heartbeat of the ground (a line from Catherine's poem "A Leash of Deer"), the pulse of everything, plus the current that connects us. Jessica shares her poem "A River Flows" and its origin story. We discover how a

Catherine shares her poem “A Leash of Deer” and the story behind it. (Yes, it started with a coaster purchased in Edinburgh.) We talk about how poems and encounters with animals open us up and bring us closer at the same time, how they expand and contract

We explore how art shapes our lives and our lives shape art. We talk about what shakes and shimmers, negative capability, and chance encounters with animals. Catherine reads an excerpt from her novel Quarry. We move from the ‘ice-cream realm’ to the weigh

We continue to explore how ancestors and family impact our writing. Jessica talks about her Métis roots and shares her poem “Search Out the Water.” This poem explores the life of her Great-x5-Grandfather, Ezekiel Solomon. She also shares an excerpt from h

We explore how ancestors and family impact our writing. Catherine reads a passage from her novel Quarry that links silence with trust and creativity. She also shares some excerpts from Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric. Jessica and Catherine talk about the dark

Catherine reads one of her all-time favourite poems “Snow” by Louis MacNeice. Catherine and Jessica explore the poem’s abundance, beauty, complexity and mystery. Jessica reads her poem “Was Grandmother Lonely Too?” and we see how snippets of family storie

What happens when we put loss and hunger on the page? Catherine reads the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop and talks about how this poem opened up new pathways in her writing journey. Jessica shares the story behind her recent discovery of the poem "The