Local Writers interview With: Piers Hill

What is your story?

First off, I’ll go with my name Piers Hill, I was born and raised here (Regina). You know from a young age my parents really instilled reading into us. I was not a fan at the beginning, it took quite a while for me to get into reading and writing and all of that in general but when I was younger, I was in speech therapy, because I couldn’t pronounce certain words, I stuttered a little bit. I also have a little bit of dyslexia too, so you know just piling everything on top of each other, reading wasn’t exactly young Pier’s idea of fun. I would think, why would I be doing this? Staring at a page when I could be playing video games or playing with toys or going outside, that kind of thing. But in like grade 7-8ish, my family and I went to Japan and in Japan, I saw a character in an orange suit that I later found out was Naruto and when I got back, I was like I want to read this and my mom was like as long as its reading I’m fine with that. And I blew through the first couple volumes of it and then I was like what else is there? I need more. And then my dad recommended the Hobbit to me and I was a big medieval fan in general then I started reading the Hobbit and it took me 6 months to read the Hobbit. And you know it’s not like a long book but weak reading skills Piers and also just like no time that I dedicated to it right. When I did read it, it blew me away and I started getting into other stuff or other stuff that is related to reading and eventually, because they are so connected that got me into writing too right. I did write in elementary school and high school but only in high school did I really realize that theoretically if I put effort into this, I could do something with it and possibly have a career. I’m 26 now, still not at a career point but working towards it. So, it was one thing in high school that I thought of and a little bit after high school I was like I’m really going to try and put effort into this and it’s been a couple years now but I mean the effort is being made and I’m seeing more progress now and it is wonderful how when you work at something you see progress right.

What books do you remember reading when you were growing up, and how do they influence you today?

So, before I got reading myself, my parents would read to us as a family and to me individually to try and get that going. And okay so there are 3, one and I'm a little sad this is it but the Harry Potter series, sad because of everything that has come out. The books were coming out when I was growing up and it was something my family read together. That was our summer, we would pick up whatever Harry Potter book came out and we would go camping and read by the fire and work through it all throughout the trip. It’s that bittersweet of I don’t look at it with the same fondness I had before but to say it didn’t influence me growing up would be dishonesty. The second book was The Tale of Despereaux because for some reason little young Piers had a thing for mice he liked mice stuffed animals and everything mice and that was the one I would sit still and let my mom read and I’ve reread it a couple times since then and I was like oh I forgot how unique of a story it is it's one that I bring up to a lot of people and their familiar with the name but not the story. Then the other one is after I started getting into reading my parents bought me, I can't even remember which one but there's so many of them but they're called beast quest they're like little short like 6-to-8-chapter books and I can't remember anything that happened in them I can’t remember any of the characters names but the one thing that I can remember is they were one of the first books I stayed up like late to read. I can't name anything that happened but it was just one of my core childhood memories with reading and I have assumed it probably influenced my writing in some way you know.

How does your upbringing influence your writing?

So, recently moved out and I am discovering more from both what I learned in my time at university as well as my time away from my family that I am somewhat of a different person from them and I'm discovering where their beliefs may stand differently than from my beliefs and I'm trying to represent that in my writing. One of the things I learned in university is, I’m a cis white male for example, I am what everyone sees on almost every cover every movie poster right. I need to find a way to not represent myself in my writing by trying to allow other ideas to come through and it's a little bit hard obviously because I don't have that experience right. Part of that is knowing when this is a story, I can write compared to like that's not my story to tell. When I am more well-known it is something that I want to work on that is not just my voice that is present. I think that Rick Riordan does it the best with his Rick Riordan presents. Where he's like hey I don't know anything about Hindu religion or culture but I really like the idea of the story here. But you, someone who has grown up in this culture and with this religion are much more knowledgeable. I'm a better-known name but let's tell the story together and that's why he just lets them run with it and then presents it. It's him using his power to support others rather than just be power centric. There is an opportunity for people who are of the majority to speak up for the minority and doing that through writing is one of the ways to start. Circling all the way back to your original question, that is a little bit of the different values I hold from my upbringing and I guess the change that I am trying to make from who I was before university moving out and my family raised me into who I am now and what I'm trying to do right.

What authors influenced you the most, and why?

The one thing I'm going to say about this is it is constantly changing. Right now, the ones that I know exactly or like show influence in my writing is J. R. R. Tolkien you know Hobbit got me into reading and from both the way I speak as well as the descriptions I have in my writing you can tell you long-winded kind of shut up. Then how I like to say it though is Tolkien got me into fantasy and then Neil Gaiman opened the doors to fantasy for me. Tolkien is the boiling pot of fantasy, the beginning of so many peoples not only entrance to reading but to writing. Gaiman has even been quoted saying Tolkien was an influence on him. Neil Gaiman really showed me that fantasy can be more than; we have this ‘magic mcguffin’ let's go destroy it, or let's go use it, or let's go bring Dragons back with it. American Gods, I read that a couple summers ago and it is one of my favourite novels just from how different it was. So those two are big influences on me. The other one that I feel is a constant is Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Very British humour but also like even the serious stuff is humorous with him and it's just that not everything needs to be so serious. Some things with him are long and rambling and get to a point that means nothing for the story but is perfect because he wanted to write it. So those are the three that I reference every time someone asks me about writing. But one thing I came to realize recently is whoever I’m reading at the time influences my writing, incredibly. So, I recently finished and by recently I mean in July of last year so it's been a year but it's in the editing process of my manuscript for a 9-12 novel I’ve been working on. While I was writing that my New Year's resolution that year was to read all of Rick Riordan’s books, I failed, but I was still reading a lot of him that year. However, during that year I took a break and read a book by Rebecca Roanhorse (Black Sun) you (Zoe) recommended to me during the time that I was reading when I was going back and editing my manuscript and there was this weird section where the writing dramatically changed from this like almost straight to the point you know meant for younger audiences. And don’t get me wrong Rick Riordan is a great author but he has a very specific style where it's straight to the point there's a little bit of humour but more or less it's not poetic. Where Roanhorse has this beautiful writing style very similar to Sarah J. Mass' where it feels like poetry on the page like it flows and it moves and there was a point where my manuscript changed from this straightforward writing to this almost weird and changed tense. And I was like what was I reading then, why did that happen? Now I know that was written in the month that I was reading Black Sun, so there's definitely an influence of that. Right now, reading more Rick Riordan I'm trying to finish that. But I had also recently finished Bell Hooks, All About Love and a little bit of this is circling back to the conversation we had about power, and one of the things I took away from that book is leading with love and that is something that I value over for lack of a better term religion. There are strict rules to specific things but I’ve summed a lot of things down to just lead with love right because that doesn't matter race or creed or religion right it is the key component to it all and it connects us. So that is my current influence, a lot of Bell Hooks.

What is the most important part of your creative process?

One is just being passionate about what you're working on and a lot of that comes with the process in general. If you have an idea and you think it's a good idea and you want to run with it run with it and give yourself fully to it. No rules just write kind of thing in both senses of the word. It’s like until it is published and out there and in someone’s hand, no one is going to get excited about your work it's up to you and that is something that I have learned over the last couple of years I need to be excited about what I'm writing otherwise you know I don't focus on it. Because also I'm writing daily right, I have a hundred different things going on, I have a little notebook with story ideas and then I have a larger notebook where I flesh out those ideas and then I have a poetry notebook and two other notebooks that just are random thoughts and excerpts and whatnot. While I was waiting for some of my editors to send back parts of my manuscript I started working on the outline for another novel that I had the idea for and then I realized partway through that I had more passion for a short story that is a continuation from a different short story and that the other novel I’ll hopefully get back to, but that one it is what I'm focusing on now because that's what brings me joy that I'm passionate about. The other thing that I know is part of my creative process and this is like bat **** insane but just find a point to start and start there. In one of the first short stories that I completed, I had a single idea for a scene involved and I was like I like this scene and I wrote out that scene and I was like okay but how do I get to the scene and where does this go from there. The scene came from the idea that a lot of  sci-fi TV shows and movies have people smoking in space in spaceships. I had thought of you being in an enclosed space with a limited air supply and is lighting cigarettes, like the best idea? And I wrote a scene where some guy was on a ship with a woman and she lit up a cigarette and he freaked out on her and was like why are you doing that we don't have enough air for that kind of thing. I was like obviously they haven't flown together before so they would have to have recently met. It was a workaround there but find any point to start, and with poetry is often like a line will pop into my head and I’ll like the way that sounds or I like the way that sounds a little bit better if I change these words and then but how can I use that, and sometimes it just happens with the sentence written down that I have that. I write out excerpts right, as you know people take excerpts from their book right chunk of the book but I have ones for stuff that I have no idea what the story will be around this because I just liked the flow of sound, and maybe one day I’ll just release a bunch of these no story cut-offs kind of thing.

How do you want your writing to affect people?

9-12 (Hollifer’s Story) is specifically the only manuscript I finished. There are other ones that I am working on for older groups. There are other ones I've had ideas for younger groups. It's more of where the story will fit and who you think the best audience is for that book. I work in two different bookstores and I often get that question of how do I get my kid to start reading, how do I get XYZ interested in a book, and how do I really find my love of reading? It is a simple question with a hard answer. You just got to find that one book, and for me, it was The Hobbit. It's the ‘hey this is cool let's keep going with this’ and I’m not necessarily saying I want to write that and be that book for people, but to have that connection with people. It's that I can't pay it backwards. I can't thank Tolkien, he's dead, unfortunately. I could probably contact Gaiman if I wanted to, but I can't send them a reply to their book right. It's always going forward to the next generation. I don't know what I’m going to call it yet so I’ll refer to it as Hollifer’s Story, that's the manuscript I’ve been working on. If I published Hollifer’s Story and it's a flop I don't care as long as one person enjoys it. Even if I don't hear from them, I don’t care either, it's knowing that there's a possibility of someone out there enjoying my book. But yes, I'd love to hear if someone picks up my book and reads it, I'd love to hear from them about it. But even if there is some kid out there or an adult or someone who is sitting alone in the room and is reading this and goes ‘Hey this is pretty cool I don’t feel alone anymore’. You use the term inspired. I like that idea, I love that idea of inspiring people but even if it's just like hey I have something new to bring me joy from me kind of thing, I like that idea too. It’s that always going forward and hopefully inspiration and new people will come into the profession. I mentioned earlier that Tolkien is the boiling point of fantasy. Gaiman has quoted Tolkien being one of his inspirations and I’m quoting Gaiman as well as an inspiration. I don't know if I'm ever going to inspire someone but if I do it’s that chain, everyone can't get the same connection but they will eventually connect and that’s why I write.

What does authenticity mean to you in the context of community?

I definitely am in a larger community but I feel I have impostor syndrome that feeling like I'm on the outside looking in because like I'm not part of The Sask Writer's Guild and I'm not part of any university group at the moment I tried to start one with some chapters people and we had plans for a first meeting and then we've never met sometimes. But I cannot deny that I'm part of a community. I am part of the Chapter's community because I work there obviously and Penny University because I also work there too obviously. Through them, I have met different groups of authors and I can tell I'm different but similar enough because like it's hard to get away from that you were raised in Saskatchewan you’ve read these books in elementary school and most likely these books in high school kind of thing. Like obviously there are going to be similarities but there are also going to be major differences in characters or how the stories are told. Poetry-wise, I feel like recently I've been very cookie cutter I am very I don't want to say mimicking because mimicking isn’t the right word but very, I feel like if you put one of mine down and one of Rupi Kaurs down and from afar table across the room you saw them both, structurally they would look similar. I have written other ones that you would be able to tell them apart but like when it comes to a specific genre it is hard to separate the influences. A friend of mine that I was recently talking to about my manuscript asked what it is about I explained it to him and without even missing a beat he went ‘Oh that’s just like Hollow Night’ (a video game) which is one of the main influences that I had on writing this because I was like this is a cool concept for a world but also like we don’t have enough stories about bugs. Don't get me wrong I find it super impressive that he was able to call out the influence right away but I also don't want to say offended but I was also like oh I thought I made it different you know. So, there's that weird separation of you can definitely change from your community and you can branch out right but you'll still show those things up like where you came from. Going back to that authenticity it is as long as you are doing it your way, I think that makes it effective right. There are hundreds of stories told over the year and over every year there are entire English classes that sum them up like this is the classic hero structure and there are hundreds of stories that can fit in that. There's that theory that Star Wars is just Harry Potter but in space and Harry Potter is just Star Wars but with magic, because they have similar enough arcs and characters and plotlines. A young boy who was raised by his aunt and uncle discovers that he is a part of something larger than him and an elderly man that has a connection to his past and some magic in him comes up and whisks away to this other world. So am I describing Star Wars or am I describing Harry Potter, but definitely if I show you the story of Harry Potter and I show you the story of Star Wars they may have those similarities but they have those authentic differences right and that is from where you are coming from. When I was writing Hollifer’s Story there was lingo that I had to reteach myself because I was worried that it was coming from the perspective of a Canadian. For example, do you know what a cellar spider is? It's a daddy long legs, cellar spider is the American term for daddy long legs but I didn't want to write out daddy long legs because I didn't know if people would get what that was right. Like today as another example, I was typing out part of the short story I’m working on and I used the word toque and I was like is toque the correct term, and I googled it toque is Canadian slang. So, your community and those influences will show in your writing but I also think that's a little bit like what makes it effectively you, right. It's the differences that you give it that make it authentic but also where you come from that helps structure it.

Do you think building a connection between the writers of Saskatchewan's past and present writers is helpful to build the writer community?

Absolutely, I mean obviously, you know I've sat here and spoken about my influences, 3 British men but there is definitely a need for connection between older and past Saskatchewan writers. I don't mean older as in get out of here, on their way-out kind of thing, older as in more experienced Saskatchewan writers and the numerous Saskatchewan writers that are coming in and trying to make a cut of this right. I've talked to Edward Willet a couple times. He's a cool guy to talk to but like one of the things I feel bad about, I've never ever asked him for writing advice. I feel like I should because history is those things where if you don't learn from the past it tends to repeat itself right. That is the mantra of everyone in the history department at the university. It's that idea that we need to take past experiences and lived experiences and understood experiences and apply them to the modern day. Not everything can fit right but when you do find something that fits you can shape away and make it more modern or understood. I feel there's a separation between older well known Saskatchewan writers and the ones coming up and this could be because I’m not part of the Sask Writers Guild but there are some of them that are. But I feel if we learn from the experience of people before us, we can definitely learn what is prevalent and what is needed in writing. It's not just like how your writing is but it's like what's present in the public spheres. Like I said earlier it’s that learning from the past influences the present and it doesn't necessarily need to be written by authors because a lot of learning can come from what we're doing right now; it's shared stories. It's an oral tradition and there are a lot of stories in First Nations communities that are never written down but there is a line just because they definitely could influence young authors into finding their own voice and writing their own stories but those oral traditional stories need to stay in that format right. So, it's that weird balance of yes, we need to connect with each other and we need to bridge those gaps but also, we don't want to disrespect the original intent of those ideas. There are stories that we can tell and there are other stories that other people need to tell in other formats and it's that balance of finding where old Saskatchewan storytellers come from and where young Saskatchewan storytellers are going. It would be great to have resources for this and I'm sure if I got into the Guild and found some of their resources to make these connections but I feel like there needs to be more than just 'Are you a member of the Saskatchewan’s Writers Guild? No, well okay'. If there was a workshop that talked about the oral tradition of storytelling, I would love to go to that, that would be a beautiful thing to attend and a wonderful thing to learn. Also, if there was a workshop that's like hey this is how I write poetry. Zoe- Like Nicole. Yeah, a lot of them like Nicole’s are online though. I am from a generation that can easily access online content, but I have the knowledge of where it is and I have a connection with the person that made it right. I can very easily text her to send me the link to her thing and I'm going to go through and in a matter of a day, I can be on there. But some young authors have never met Nicole and don't follow her on Instagram, or don’t follow Penny University on anything right and those are the outlets that those coming through so they're looking for local connections looking for writing poetry and all that they have available to them is the knowledge that the Saskatchewan Writers Guild exists and nothing about what it is and maybe I can try the university right yeah which the university has another barrier of cost and getting accepted. So, it would be wonderful to have these connections between old and young and all in between. Zoe- to open up more conversation? Exactly yeah but it is a struggle too because of the world that we live in there are systemic systems in place that I won’t get into but there is more behind the scenes that probably should change before we can get through and like don't get me wrong, I love Saskatchewan I love living here but whenever people hear ‘Saskatchewan authors’ and I was guilty of this for years. People think about people writing about Saskatchewan but some of us don’t and it would be great to hear from those who don’t, those who live here and write about other stuff.

How would you describe Saskatchewan’s or Regina’s writing community?

There needs to be more interlocking between them and I think there is a little bit of interlocking like there are definitely people here in there that are part of many communities. Like there's a group of I think three of them come into Penny University every Sunday and they sit down and they write but I have no idea what their names are or anything about them. But I do know that they're there to write and they are their own little group but it would be cool if they had a connection to something else right. So, there definitely are these wonderful groups out there but I feel like we have little pods. It's that at least having the community connection you know it's not just writing too it's like I think there needs to be just more art connection in general. I mean like 13th Ave. and Cathedral is great for that but before I moved into that area I was in the South and nothing was going on. It’s very dependent on where you are and who you know that you find out about community events. For example there's a painting event that’s coming up that I didn't realize about until a week ago because someone I followed posted about it. There definitely are stories to be told here and you mentioned heritage, I love that word, you can get more than just your family heritage, and don't get me wrong I love looking into my family heritage. I have a D&D character that I named Great the Power of 8 after my grandfather on my mother's side. But you can also find heritage in the community you’re in and who you can connect with and even the land itself because it is just this beautiful land that has more to offer. So, I love that REM is trying to do this. 

How do you develop your characters? Where do they come from?

Everywhere is too broad but not. So, a lot of the characters come from my friends and some poems come from my friends. I actually have a collection of short poems that I refer to as the tarot card poems which is funny because none of them are named after tarot cards. I find a noun that I think describes them and then I write a poem called [enter the noun], and that is them. But also, I have found when I'm writing specific characters certain friends come to mind, for example, there's a friend I have and in the short story that I'm working on there's a character called Zaira and she's based on this friend I have from my first job at Safeway that I've kept in touch. But when I first designed the character, I had this thought in my mind of this friend and they look nothing alike in appearance wise like Zairas this African American girl with big hair and my friend is this small petite white girl but personality wise I was like this is who I’m trying to emulate. Another character in the same short story is based on my roommates and not style-wise but again personality-wise. I have characters like that and I have characters that I see other characters in other works of fiction and I go I like that but what if they were like this. I love these characters but it's the idea of playing with them and learning what I can change or break to make them my own. It is one of the big effects I have but also half the time I don't have them completed before I start writing. I find characters are especially in fiction fluid right, they change as you write, and there are points where I've been writing and I was like I have it planned for this to happen, but I don't think that works here anymore. In Hollifers Story there is a point where a character called Penner and he's a cockroach. He was going to con Hollifer out of all of his stuff and then leave them in the bizarre alone and then I went no, I don't like that anymore for Penner and it was about at that point where I was about to write that I was like no I think he's going to do something else here. I liked having that authenticity available of being able to change on the fly and let your characters speak for themselves. Let them grow as you go and sometimes you will start with a character that is very basic and as you go on develop him into this complex character with goals and aspirations. 

What is one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring poets/writers?

One piece of advice I’d give to aspiring writers and poets is just to do it. To sit down and write, because writing is a skill and like riding a bike you develop the skill over time the more you do it the easier it gets the more wonderful you are at it. But if you don't do it nothing is going to happen, so just sit down and do it, even if the page is blank at the end of time at least you put the time in.