Sivan Slapak lived in Jerusalem for twenty years before returning to Canada in 2013. Since then, her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Quarterly, Montreal Serai, carte blanche, and collections published by Véhicule Press and Guernica Editions. She was selected as a finalist for the CBC Quebec Writing Competition, won the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award once, and was shortlisted for it twice. She lives in Montreal, where she works in the arts and culture sector. Here Is Still Here is her first book.
QWF Membership Services Coordinator Riley Palanca spoke to Sivan about her debut book and involvement in Quebec’s literary scene. Here are five questions for Sivan Slapak:
1) Aside from your literary endeavours, you also work in the arts and culture sector both independently and through the Segal Centre. How do these dynamic roles, including your administrative responsibilities, weave into the fabric of your creative life?
I’ve had an eclectic professional trajectory, and my job description now is wide-ranging too. Anytime I’ve been called upon to create a CV, it’s been challenging to distill it; only recently did I realize its through-line: most of my work over the years, in various roles and with different populations, has been in service to individual or community creative expression.
Very often the work is immersive, interesting, and fun, and I spend my days feeling grateful for being able to participate in something so rich and life-affirming. And sometimes it manifests in tasks that are practical, administrative, and not-so-transcendent—but are also part of fostering conditions for creative work and its makers to thrive. The overall intention gives those aspects of the job meaning.
Writing is solitary but needs fuel, so for me it’s a good balance to be in a bustling environment with talented people who care about collaborative work, are also invested in their own creative projects, and who are encouraging of mine. It’s inspiring. With that, though my schedule is flexible and allows time for an artistic practice, my personal struggle has often been with giving my own projects attention. But I’m getting better at it!
2) You have been part of two mentorship pairings over the years: in 2021 with Sheila Heti through Diaspora Dialogues, and in 2015 with Alice Zorn through QWF. How has working with mentors shaped your journey as a writer?
Mentorships have been essential to my development as a writer. I was at different stages in these two programs: The plan to craft stories was recently sparked when I was paired with Alice. She offered valuable advice on my material and gave me what is so crucial to a writer in the early phase: confidence. She urged me to submit to journals, and one of the pieces we worked on together won a contest right after the mentorship ended. That was a benchmark moment, and I attribute it to Alice’s encouragement.
More recently, Sheila was the first reader of the manuscript that became this book. When you’re accepted to DD, they ask you for your dream shortlist of Canadian authors and then try to pair you with your choice. I was so nervous on my first call with Sheila—a literary celebrity reading my half-baked stuff! But I calmed down, and she was super helpful: she shepherded me through that draft’s edit with much generosity.
With writing and mentorship, I love the idea that we’re all in it together. I’ve learned that no matter where a writer is in their career, we’re all facing similar questions and concerns, and it’s useful to talk through them. Guidance and support come in different forms: while I’m not as far along as those who have mentored me, I can turn around and be helpful to someone else just starting out. We can all be a mentor to someone.
3) In 2018, you published an essay for QWF Writes lamenting the difficulties of productivity for a writer: “[T]he longer I go without writing, the more miserable I feel. What about my short story collection? What about being a writer?” Now that your debut short story collection is forthcoming with Linda Leith Publishing, how would you revisit the question you initially posed in 2018: “Is a writer who isn’t writing still a writer?”
Oh yes, that essay was written in a time of panic about this issue! My answer is, “Yes, you are still a writer.” Since the essay, I’ve internalized two things: stretches of not writing really are part of the process; you’re doing more than you think. And the other is that art takes time. Having said that, some people seem to be way more industrious than I am. But I’ve also realized that projects require different amounts of time and energy. Some pieces are shorter, or pour out in a flash of inspired activity, and some may accompany you for years–sometimes a lifetime. Ideally, it might be good to have more than one project on the go, to diffuse attention.
It takes time to formulate an idea and then put it down in even the roughest draft. Not to mention the suspended period between completing something and all the steps before it goes out into the world. It can be busy during the wait, but not always with the production of reams of new material. (But yes, you’re still a writer!)
I think the bottom line of that 2018 essay is “trust.” I still try to remind myself to do that.
4) The main character in your book Here Is Still Here is Isabel, a Jewish woman who has roots in Montreal and Jerusalem. Given your own experience as a Jewish woman who has lived in both cities, what parts of Isabel do you see reflected in yourself, and what parts do you consider distinct to the character?
The short answer is that this book has an autobiographical soul in a fictional body.
Isabel’s voice and preoccupations are similar to mine, which offered me a chance to explore issues that I had been sitting with. But Isabel is more extreme in every direction; where I would just think, she acts. And the characters who inhabit her world are fabricated or fictionalized.
There is one exception: Grace Paley once added a note to a collection that explained that everyone is imagined into life in her stories except her father. He was always real.
In my book’s case, it’s my grandmother, Luba. She appears in this as a character, but it leans close to my memory of her, and the coda of the book is her verbatim testimony.
So, while Isabel Rosen’s life is distinct from mine, we do share the same grandmother!
5) How do current global events influence your creative process and the themes you explore in your work?
As I mentioned earlier, art takes time. This book came together in increments over a decade, and the process of putting it together ended last year. It’s partially set in Jerusalem, and the nature of Isabel’s life and the friendships she makes allude to the political backdrop in Israel/Palestine, but the book’s focus is personal. That said, because of current events over the past few months, I’ve become aware of my own identity as a writer in a way that I wasn’t before.
I’ve always felt drawn closest to places through personal story—it’s what I thank books for, that through zooming in on individuals they break up the monolithic ideas we have about whole territories and elicit empathy and curiosity about different lives being led. I’m hoping for something like that with Here Is Still Here.
My next writing project is about a community of newcomers to Montreal, people who have fled their countries of origin and are just setting up their lives in Canada, and starting to forge relationships with their neighbours. That touches on some of the global issues influencing my current creative process.
Bonus question: What can readers expect to feel when reading Here Is Still Here?
Oh, that is difficult to predict! But I can share what I hope people will feel—maybe something along the lines of feedback my writing has received: “It has a deceptively light touch.” And I hope that they will feel glad they bought it, or borrowed it, and spent their precious time reading it.
Thank you, Sivan!
Here Is Still Here hits shelves March 2024 and is currently available for pre-order.