By Thandiwe McCarthy, Frye Correspondent
The person I’m checking in with today is Conor Kerr who is a Metis/Ukrainian writer living in Edmonton. He teaches creative writing as an assistant professor at the university of Alberta. He’ll be in Moncton at the Frye Festival 2025 sharing his book Prairie Edge which was the finalist for the Giller Prize. I was able to catch him for a phone call to ask some questions about life in the literary world as a writer.
1. What story had the greatest impact on you?
I’m gonna honestly say Eden Robinson‘s Traplines. And the reason why is that I had never really read anything like that. At the time when I first became aware of it I was in high school and then in my undergraduate years the stories of indigenous peoples were written from a non Indigenous perspective, an they were kind of just throwing stereotypes out there, really, like hammering to those kind of things.
And Eden’s story was one of those first ones that I read that was wrote by an indigenous person for indigenous peoples and really captured the nuances of knowing what that is. And so it’s kind of that reflection of yourself within story which I’d never really seen before, which was very, very cool.
2. Let’s hear about the writing practice an why it works for you?
Yeah, I write daily. I’m a very big fan of daily writing. I feel now, at this point, if I don’t write daily, that it becomes… I don’t feel good, like it’s just been built into my routine over the last few years, and I only started doing daily writing when I was doing my MFA at UBC, just to be able to keep up with the deadlines of that program and cranking out short stories.
And after doing that for two years and then rolling that into my next novel and other work, it’s just so ingrained in me that it’s a necessary part of my daily life. I usually have two kind of spurts either I write in the morning, kind of first thing when I’m fresh, I wake up, I walk dogs. We have a couple cups of coffee, try to beat all my friends and family at Wordle. And then I’ll sit down. I’ll usually crank out quite a few words, I can do 1500 to 2000 a day, no problem. And then I’ll go back and trim er out and edit them down.
And then I often write late, I’m useless from 11am till 5pm like, absolutely useless. Like I can talk on the phone, that’d be fine, but I could not string together coherent thought on a computer, that’s for sure. And then I usually teach at night so after I’m done teaching, I’ll go to a local pub, and when I’m there, I’ll do some more writing. But I try to try to keep that habit going. It’s helping me to crank out quite a few books in a short period of time here too, which is cool.
3. What part of your writing career brings you the most joy?
Oh, honest, I’m a big fan of going to the festivals. That’s a very new thing for me. Last year was the first year I started, I’ve been invited to a couple before that but was going through some personal things, going back to Alberta from BC, and I couldn’t make a few of those festivals. But this last fall I was going to a whole bunch of them, meeting other writers, getting to chat, meeting other people within that industry. It’s just a lot of fun, meeting people who are into books.
But this past year, too, I’ve been doing a lot of book clubs, and in particular prison book clubs, and I find those to be a very cool. I’m very glad I’ve been able to experience that, going out and chatting about prairie edge or one of my other books with a group of inmates, and I find the discussions are often incredible. You know, we get right into the themes, they read books a lot better than I’ve found with some adult book clubs, and we have some incredible chats and conversations. And also, just like being able to give back in a way, to kind of create more of that sense of literary pride and literary urgency within people who might not necessarily have ever felt those kind of things before. It’s pretty fun. I really enjoy the conversations, and I enjoy chatting with people out there.
4. Frye Festival, what are you looking forward to?
I’ve never been out to the Maritimes or New Brunswick. So I’m kind of excited to go to Moncton for the first time ever in my life. I’ve been all over this country. I’ve been pretty much everywhere outside of there. So, I’m really excited to go to a new place and to meet new people. And everyone I kind of yap with and chat with is like oh, you’re gonna love it out there, the people, the food, the friendliness, it’s right up your alley, everything that kind of comes with that. So that’s what I’m first and foremost looking forward to. That an the opportunity to meet some new writers, new people, and hope that people read and like prairie edge at the same time.
It was great checking in with Conor and I hope everyone supports his books, available at your local bookstore and online. An if you want to run into Conor an other authors come to the 2025 Frye Festival April 24 – May 4 in Moncton, New Brunswick. Hope to see you all there,
With love and Respect
Works mentioned
- Kerr, Conor. Prairie Edge. Strange Light, 2024. (see on Tidewater Books)
- Robinson, Eden. Traplines. Knopf Canada, 1998. (see on Tidewater Books)
Cite this article : McCarthy, Thandiwe. “The Frye Festival Check In: Conor Kerr”. Discours/e: Digital Catalogue for Atlantic Literatures and Cultures, 20/03/2025. <https://discours-e.ca/2025/03/27/the-frye-festival-check-in-conor-kerr-2/>
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To cite this article:
Conor Kerr
Conor Kerr is a Metis/Ukrainian national award losing author from Edmonton. He is the author of the poetry collections, Old Gods, An Explosion of Feathers and Beaver Hills Forever, and the novels Prairie Edge and Avenue of Champions.
Eden Robinson
Eden Robinson, an internationally acclaimed Haisla and Heiltsuk novelist and short story writer, is the recipient of a 2018 honorary doctoral degree from UBC for her literary contributions. A graduate of UBC’s master’s program in Creative Writing, she has received numerous awards, including the 2016 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award. Her most recent novel, Son of a Trickster, was shortlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Thandiwe McCarthy
Thandiwe McCarthy is a 7th generation African Canadian spoken word poet, writer, public speaker, and the culture correspondent for Maritime EDIT magazine, where he highlights Black community leaders and artists. Known for his unique “Vibe Harvesting” performances, he creates poetry spontaneously at events across the Maritimes.
Thandiwe has co-founded the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance and organized the provincial event Emancipation Celebration. He played a key role in having August 1st recognized as Emancipation Day in New Brunswick. Though he has stepped back from volunteer work, his contributions have left a lasting impact on the community.
The “Still Here Initiative,” celebrating fifteen generational Black New Brunswick families, is gearing up for a national art exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and a globally distributed book published by Goose Lane Editions, both launching in July 2025.
Thandiwe’s memoir, “Social Oblivion: Raised Black in New Brunswick,” is available now.
