You briefly shared that you primarily write from a cabin in the woods. How has this separation from city life affected your writing process? What do you find comforting about it?

I adore living in the woods, but perhaps not for all the reasons one might expect. As a creative, I appreciate the expected peace a cabin offers after working in the city. The forest also reminds me of the need for seasonal change—that putting something to rest for a while doesn’t mean the death of a project, that the greatest growth sometimes occurs after the darkest of days. But the unexpected benefit of moving to a home edged by trees is that it’s corralled me to my neighbours. Perhaps it’s because they are fewer and we all walk our dogs through shared trails, or maybe it’s that I’ve lured them with zucchini bread and tea to chat about a new book each month, but I have found a vibrant community within my attempted seclusion. This is something I find exceptionally comforting.    

You also host The Hope Prose Podcast where you invite writers to discuss both real-life and fictional stories. How has the podcast helped you develop the kind of writing you’re interested in exploring? Are there any specific guests or episodes that have especially inspired you? 

Hope-filled stories have always been therapeutic for me. Whether they are acts of kindness shared in the lunchroom or interwoven narratives from a full-length novel, these were and continue to be the stories I want to create. So when my writing friend, Alex Moran, and I started the Hope Prose Podcast four years ago, we wanted to reserve a spot for sharing hope through words, rather than the typical headlines of loss and failure we might see online or in the news. We also knew that as early career writers, we wanted to learn from writers who had mastered the art of sharing reality, with all its pain and conflict, while always finding a silver lining to wrap us in.

Through these interviews, each author somehow knows the exact words we needed to hear in that moment. This is the genuine gift of hopeful storytellers—intuitive listening. It’s impossible to choose just one guest from so many talents, but I will say Hope in the Mail by Wendelin Van Draanen is a fantastic memoir for writers seeking a light through the querying tunnel, while Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons will remind you of the power of hopeful stories.     

In your blog, you offer a variety of workshops; from the revision process to detailed book reviews. Which posts do you find the most enjoyable to write?

I love helping other authors on their journey, whether that be through pointing them to the novel that will inspire them to write their own story, or helping them with an aspect of craft I needed to learn in a much more convoluted way. If I had to share a definitive choice though, I’d say book reviews. One of the best ways we can support each other as creatives is through highlighting the brilliance authors spend years perfecting. If I don’t like a book, because of a difference in opinions or style, you won’t see a review from me, but if I do, I shout about everywhere. I also highlight books I adore through #firstpagefriday audio-inspirations on my Instagram @tara.k.ross.  

Being a speech-language pathologist, podcaster, and blogger seems like a whole lot of work! How do you manage to balance it all while still finding time to write creatively?  

Often, I don’t. I say yes to more things than my serving tray can handle and it topples over to create an astounding mess, but I am trying to remember that forest wisdom from above. I work in seasons. September is all about organizing my family, our podcast and my work schedule. Once a new rhythm is in place, I try to set aside a day each week for brainstorming new projects, recording podcast interviews or writing social posts. Come November, I am usually ready to dive into longer projects and I have often used the inspiration of #nanowrimo to get started on those. The late fall and winter become my hibernation/drafting season, where I allow myself to get lost in the work, usually having stockpiled podcast interviews from the fall. Come late winter, I take a break to read and refill, often taking a course or tackling shorter writing projects like my story, “If Not Now, When?”. Come the spring and summer, I often feel renewed and I am ready to dive into revisions. As we all know from the weather, those seasons can spill into one another, and I try to be gracious with myself on those days.

Within your piece, “If Not Now, When?” there’s a level of opposition between the family and the natural world that feels almost personal. Can you talk more about this dynamic?

For sure. We first noticed during the pandemic, when families were confined to their brick homes and patterned concrete yards, a big green gap existed in our urban planning. We were all craving wild open spaces to breathe and heal, but conservation areas and national parks were over-run with us city-dwellers. RVs and motorhomes were selling for more than high-end sports cars and owning a piece of cottage country, or better yet, moving to it, became a life goal priority. Over those isolation years, four families from our street moved to the country and we felt left behind. When my husband found a job, just that touch closer to nature, we also made the choice to move and found our own escape cabin. In our first year edging the woods, we acted as gracious visitors, thankful for the daily forest bathing and renewing views, changing our environmental practices in turn. But how quickly we can forget the gifts surrounding us. How easily we can fall back into consuming without consequences.

Last summer, wildfires impacted our lives firsthand, where smoke from northern blazes prevented us from being outside for periods of time and we felt like we were back in our patterned concrete playpen. It was like the forest was crying out in frustration at our apathy and selfishness. I wanted a similar tension to exist within this story. I wanted it to feel personal.  

How is your own family and sense of community reflected within “If Not Now, When?”?

My partner and I have always had a tenderness for the natural world and we try to instill this compassion into our children. We are fortunate to live within a small village that is striving to be one of the first carbon-neutral communities in Canada. We regularly dialogue about how our daily choices impact the environmental future for not only ourselves, but for the rest of the world. Depending on what we have read or heard in the news, each of us takes a turn at the Lorax tree stump. I am passionate about trees, having read Peter Wohlleben and Diana Beresford-Kroeger, and promptly naming all our mother trees as sisters. My husband is acutely aware of our agricultural crisis and holds us all accountable for eating consciously, while my daughter regularly states that if an environmental apocalypse occurred, she would save the animals over any of the humans who caused the mess. Despite these passion projects, life has many facets and daily stresses. We ebb and flow in our level of concern, but if we write about it and dialogue in community, we will hopefully inspire lasting change that goes beyond escaping to our remaining sanctuaries.  

As a mentor, what is your favorite word of advice to give to aspiring writers? 

The world needs your story more than you might know, so please keep going.

Read Tara’s short story, “if not now, when?” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 1.