"I don’t write about my life, but my experience of life certainly influences how I imagine characters act and react. As a person who for a long time existed on the edges of the cultural world here in Canada, identity issues were bound to play a part in my art and writing. But I had made the decision from the start not to position myself at the edge, but to imagine that I was at the centre and to write from there, asking no permissions in the story. The act of writing in that way was, if you will, a kind of pleading—here I am, just like you, let me tell my story. But the story between the covers of the book was itself clean. It was my political act. I did it again and again, and if anything has changed, it is that it is now ingrained in my practice. It is no longer a conscious political act. Perhaps it is a habit, or the habit of insistence on being where I say I am—in the centre. I recognize that this may be purely subjective. Let’s argue that it’s an act. But it is my survival act. This positioning of my characters and their stories has, I now realize, come to be assumed of how I will write. (2020)"