Photo Credit: Gerry Kingsley, Studio Nine Eight, Sudbury.
I live and write in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. My publications include You Must Imagine The Cold Here (Your Scrivener Press, 1997), braille on water (Penumbra Press, 2001), The Narcoleptic Madonna (Penumbra Press, 2012), Some Other Sky (Black Moss Press, 2017), and These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019).
My first literary mentor was the late Timothy Findley, through the Humber School for Writers, back in the late 1990s. I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to him, and always will, because he helped me to realize that I was a writer above all else.
In 2016, I took part in a historical fiction intensive with Lawrence Hill at the Banff Centre in Alberta and visited Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre, to work with brilliant poets John Glenday and Jen Hadfield as my mentors.
From 2016-18, I was named the fourth Poet Laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury, and was the first woman appointed to that role. As laureate, I worked with the Northern Initiative for Social Action (NISA) and Open Minds Quarterly (OMQ) to raise awareness of how creative writing, and poetry in particular, can help those with mental health struggles to rise up creatively. I also worked with the Greater Sudbury Airport to put up ‘airport poems’ on the windows of the security area. In addition, I collaborated with Health Sciences North to display stanzas of poems in the windows of the palliative, oncology, and long-term care wards of the North Tower. Beyond the scope of my projects, though, I hope that I helped to raise the profile of the literary, poetic, theatrical, musical and visual arts in Sudbury. One of my key goals was to bring a sort of ‘poetic graffiti’ to the city, so that people who normally don’t read poems were exposed to them in a playful manner.
In the last four years or so, I’ve fallen in love with writing plays, thanks to Playwrights’ Junction at the Sudbury Theatre Centre (STC), under the guidance and direction of Matthew Heiti. So far, I’ve had two short plays presented there in staged readings, Ghost of a Chance and Sparrows Over Slag. I’m continuing to work on my plays, and received an Ontario Arts Council Theatre Creators’ Reserve grant in January 2017 to work on “Sparrows” and get dramaturgical input on the piece. Sparrows had a staged reading at the Sudbury Theatre Centre in May 2018 as part of the PlaySmelter New Work Theatre Festival (organized by Pat the Dog Theatre Creation). My first novel, a piece of historical fiction titled The Donoghue Girl, is now looking for a press to call its own. So far, it’s still out there looking for a home. Currently, I’m taking time away from formal classroom teaching to write the draft for the second novel in the trilogy.
At present, in Spring 2019, I’ve received funding from the Ontario Arts Council Theatre Creators’ Reserve program to complete the first full draft of my play, Letters to the Man in the Moon.
In April 2019, I’ll be taking part in the Battle of the Bards at the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront, and reading in Windsor at Biblioasis on Friday, April 26. The Sudbury launch of my new book of poems will take place at Laurentian University on Thursday, April 11 at the Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre.
In May 2019, I’ll be traveling to Newfoundland, to work on my writing projects, and to launch These Wings in St. John’s on May 16 at Broken Books.
I am a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Writers’ Union of Canada, and PEN Canada. In my spare time, I love to cook for friends, travel, write, hike in the woods, canoe, snowshoe, and listen to (and sing!) traditional Irish music. I also practice yoga regularly, and love dancing. I mostly love to walk…wherever and whenever I can…but especially out in the woods because I love birds and trees.
Dear Ms. Fahner,
I hope this is not an inappropriate method of contacting you, but I am technologically impaired and this was the best I could do. I was hoping to be able to email you with a question about a poem you wrote. If that sounds ok to you, send me an email.
Cheers
I was supposed to go to the Main Lending branch in Sudbury for a lesson but it said ‘Wednesday’ for some reason. I’m truly sorry and I hope it was a good showing.
Hello Ms. Fahner,
I am a fellow Sudburian who currently lives in the Minnow Lake area. A friend of my in-laws mentioned that you may have some information about the history of the house my husband and I purchased in 2012. I see from your blog that you did grow up in this area, and it seems like you have some great memories to share.
Thanks,
Caitlyn Quinn
I did grow up in Minnow Lake. My parents lived at 1704 V
Bancroft, and my grandparents lived at 1690, right next door. Are you around that area?
I am in that area! I have added you to Facebo0k just to keep my address private.
Can you send me a friend request, please? I think I deleted your message by mistake…
I can’t seem to add you as a friend on Facebo0k. I sent you another message, but perhaps you accidentally blocked me? My email address is my name as you see it here WITHOUT capitals or spaces, @gmail.com. Send me an email and I can respond to you there.
Alternatively, clicking on my name above the comments may take you to my Facebo0k page, and you can just add me there.
*I purposely didn’t just write out my email address because that is a surefire way for me to get spammed.
will do. thanks.
k.
Hi. I tried emailing you, but no response. You can email me via the poet laureate page at the library website. I’ll get it for sure, that way, and we can maybe chat a bit there. Thnx. Kim 🙂
Hi Kim,
I was so struck by your poem “Mine since birth, this city” that is on the glass at the Sudbury airport departure lounge, that I was able to commit it to memory while waiting to check in! I think it was the line “Nickel labyrinth underfoot” that hooked me, but the rhythm and scan made it easy to internalize. Bravo!
Thanks for your very kind words. ❤️