In your story “Bookends” you detail the unconventional yet heartwarming connection between Buck and Dennis. What initially drew you to write this story and include themes surrounding the power of human relationships?

I feel like most of my stories center around the “power of human relationships”. Working with children and youth is to learn to read behavior. Finding the emotion behind behavior is a daily practice and once you begin to get better at it, you can go deeper and deeper through the layers of human relationships. I am endlessly fascinated with our connections and our communication. I’m not sure where the seed for this particular story came from, but trying to get inside two non-verbal characters was an interesting challenge. In particular, shining a light on their “love” for one another without relying on the usual tools.   

On your website you've written, "My fictional characters have taught me as much about my life as the real people in it." What lessons were you able to take away from the characters of Buck and Dennis?

I learned that I like to eat my pancakes the way Buck did. He cut them into squares, separating perfect squares from imperfect squares, and saved the perfect squares for last. I decided to try it in order to write the scene, and it gave me a sense of order and control that felt very comforting and soothing. Buck and I already had some similarities in our eating habits; I also dislike it when different foods touch each other on my plate. My friends bought me one of those plates that has three sections on it. I don’t even think it was a joke. They really get me. Seriously, though, all that to say that I think we’d all be calmer if we just cut our pancakes in the way that pleased us and stopped worrying about doing things “properly”. I tend to write nonconforming characters and send them out into the world to see how they fare. If they survive, I follow.   

In this story, you touch on the idea of silence -- how it can be its own form of communication, how it can be beautiful. What drew you to include this in the story?

I like silence. (I can hear all my friends and family gasping and guffawing.) Yes, I love talking, as well. But I really do enjoy the quiet. The absence of words. If I’m alone, I rarely listen to anything – music, podcasts, what have you. I’m very content to sit on my deck and listen to the birds and the insects and the wind. I’m of the opinion that words can sometimes mess up our communion with others. I have friends with whom I can sit in silence and feel completely filled, reconnected, content. I have friends from whom a hug - with no words - is all I need. I believe that being together is enough for our souls to communicate all the important stuff: I’m here with you. I see you. I love you. When we’re busy thinking of things to say because silence makes us uncomfortable, we miss those most precious messages – ones that perhaps the person isn’t able to say out loud. Problems with the language centre of the brain is only one of a myriad of ways in which we become unable to say what we need to say.

You've mentioned that you used to teach at a school for at-risk children and youths -- do you feel that this experience has influenced your writing? If so, how might this story reflect that influence? 

Yes, my time at the Regional Support Centre is very much a part of this story. In fact, it is part of all my writing because that job changed my life. In particular, “Buck” has bits of various children and youth I worked with who were identified as “on the spectrum”. They were all verbal, unlike Buck. They helped us understand the “logic” behind behaviour which seemed inexplicable. Behaviour comes from feelings which come from thoughts and since we all see the world through our own unique filter, we all interpret incoming sensory data in our own unique ways. There are some especially interesting interpretations in those we refer to as “neuro-divergent” and Buck is an extrapolation of all those kids I got to know at the Centre who were generous enough to share their interpretations.

How do you weave your personal experiences into your storytelling? Are there ever any slivers of your own life reflected in the stories you write?

Yes, definitely there are bits and pieces from my own life in my writing. Perhaps this story less than most, but yes.

Things from my life that were difficult to live, are easier to process in third person. I have often given characters things from my own past to see how they handle it. Once I had a 14-year-old protagonist who lost her dad to cancer, which mirrored my own experience. In a feedback group, readers kept saying that they were having trouble connecting to my main character. It took me months to figure out that I was not connecting to my main character. Not with my usual compassion and curiosity. I was writing her as though I was a bit miffed with her. Turns out I was! I had given this character room to grieve and act out in ways you might expect from someone so young. And because I was never really allowed to grieve, the adult me was impatient with my character. I let her be a kid, but I felt disdain for her antics. Maybe it was jealousy. I don’t know, but when I forgave her for “being a kid”, I was able to write her in a way people connected to. And I was able to forgive those who expected too much of me. Writing is how I process my wounds, my relationships . . . my world.

Considering "Bookends" among your other stories, what is your goal when you write? What do you hope readers take away from your stories?

Hope. Hoping for hope.

In my short stories, I like to dance on the line between light and dark because I believe that every shadow in our lives brings gifts with it. And gifts can bring shadows, can’t they? Even in stories where I have left the ending ambiguous, there is a sliver of light and the reader can choose to end the story standing in that light or they can choose to assume the worst. This is interesting to me because I believe that we all see the world, not as it is, but as we are. (Anais Nin) Where we find ourselves standing at the end of a story is more about us, the reader, than it is about the piece. In most of my stories, hopeful hearts will always find what they’re looking for.

Read Monica’s short story, “Bookends” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 1.