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A Bit About Me
Lover of Dahlias, Sparklers and Moon Rises
Writer
In 2020, my short story collection Hunger Moon was released by NeWest Press and was a finalist for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. My essays and short stories have also appeared in several literary journals throughout North America.
As a writer, I am influenced as much by Virginia Woolf and Alice Munro as I am by all the books I read aloud to my sons—Dr. Seuss, Philip Pullman, JK Rowling, A.A Milne.
Story Mentor
In 2019, I founded The Writing Journey, an online creative writing school for fiction and memoir writers who want to finish their stories and get them out into the world.
As a teacher, I am influenced by my MFA training, my intuition, and my spiritual practices. I believe in finessing the craft. The more you understand the tools available to you, the more you’re able to elevate and uplevel your writing. And the more likely it is to get published. (This is why I don’t prioritize or teach publishing or marketing.)
Spiritual Being
My spiritual being-ness is at the centre of my work. I create altars and court the muse, respecting that this creative process is mysterious and alive. I also believe that the body is where our stories live. And that the body is honest and present, full of intelligence and information.
In my work with writers, I hold space for their humanity and their divinity. Asking deep questions so they can dig down and discover who they are and what they really want to say.
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A Bit About Me
Hi, I’m Traci.
And I invite you to flashback to the mid-nineties.
Spring, and another year of university under my belt. I’m cleaning up my bedroom for subletters. Ani Difranco on my discman. Tulips outside my window. I’m getting ready to leave for another treeplanting season, pitching drafts of old papers into the recycling, and wrapping the cord around my Mac.
I look up from my computer to a sticky note taped to the wall. Then these words float into my awareness: BE A WRITER.
Okay, I think. That sounds reasonable. I’ll be a writer. How hard can it be?
Back in the early nineties, I’d written in travel journals. Doodled in notebooks. Scribed long descriptive letters and spontaneous poems. And I thought it would be easy to write stories and novels.
But it wasn’t until the following spring, after I’d given birth to my son, that I committed to becoming a writer. For real. While my son napped (he was a wonderful napper), I wrote. Inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, I filled notebook after notebook. I played with language and imagery, memory and description.
After years of notebook filling (I literally had a tower of them), I became feverish. I wanted my stories to leave the confines of my notebooks and into a published, sharable form. But I struggled. Some stories got published. Most not. And I couldn’t figure out why.
Fast forward a dozen years—and many rejected attempts later. It dawned on me that my stories wouldn’t magically lift whole-cloth from my notebook. Writing fiction and creative non-fiction was a craft. So I did what I always did when I wanted to learn something. I read books. A bazillion craft books. My writing got a little better. But not where I wanted it to be.
In the early 2010’s, I decided I needed a mentorship. I took the plunge and enrolled in an MFA program, and sent a story to my first mentor. I’d written iterations of it over the years but it never really worked. I couldn’t figure out how to end the story. In a panic, I brought in a character out of nowhere to save the day. My mentor read the story. Loved where it was going UNTIL the saviour swept in. It’s cliché and too easy, she said. I don’t want you to short change your story. She asked dozens of questions that helped me probe deeper into the psyches of my characters, into the psyche of the story itself. And she nudged me towards finding a more satisfying ending.
In that process, I learned something important. To become the writer I longed to become, to reach the level I wanted to reach, I had to feel and write each story from the inside out. Meaning, I had to go to the depth of my being for the answers I was seeking. I had to weave those answers into my stories with all my craft and language skills. I could no longer afford to short-change my stories and hope no one noticed.
And neither can you.
Menu
A Bit About Me
Hi, I’m Traci.
And I invite you to flashback to the mid-nineties.
Spring, and another year of university under my belt. I’m cleaning up my bedroom for subletters. Ani Difranco on my discman. Tulips outside my window. I’m getting ready to leave for another treeplanting season, pitching drafts of old papers into the recycling, and wrapping the cord around my Mac.
I look up from my computer to a sticky note taped to the wall. Then these words float into my awareness: BE A WRITER.
Okay, I think. That sounds reasonable. I’ll be a writer. How hard can it be?
Back in the early nineties, I’d written in travel journals. Doodled in notebooks. Scribed long descriptive letters and spontaneous poems. And I thought it would be easy to write stories and novels.
But it wasn’t until the following spring, after I’d given birth to my son, that I committed to becoming a writer. For real. While my son napped (he was a wonderful napper), I wrote. Inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, I filled notebook after notebook. I played with language and imagery, memory and description.
After years of notebook filling (I literally had a tower of them), I became feverish. I wanted my stories to leave the confines of my notebooks and into a published, sharable form. But I struggled. Some stories got published. Most not. And I couldn’t figure out why.
Fast forward a dozen years—and many rejected attempts later. It dawned on me that my stories wouldn’t magically lift whole-cloth from my notebook. Writing fiction and creative non-fiction was a craft. So I did what I always did when I wanted to learn something. I read books. A bazillion craft books. My writing got a little better. But not where I wanted it to be.
In the early 2010’s, I decided I needed a mentorship. I took the plunge and enrolled in an MFA program, and sent a story to my first mentor. I’d written iterations of it over the years but it never really worked. I couldn’t figure out how to end the story. In a panic, I brought in a character out of nowhere to save the day. My mentor read the story. Loved where it was going UNTIL the saviour swept in. It’s cliché and too easy, she said. I don’t want you to short change your story. She asked dozens of questions that helped me probe deeper into the psyches of my characters, into the psyche of the story itself. And she nudged me towards finding a more satisfying ending.
In that process, I learned something important. To become the writer I longed to become, to reach the level I wanted to reach, I had to feel and write each story from the inside out. Meaning, I had to go to the depth of my being for the answers I was seeking. I had to weave those answers into my stories with all my craft and language skills. I could no longer afford to short-change my stories and hope no one noticed.
And neither can you.
My Approach
Over the past five years, I’ve been working with writers from all over the world. Listen, I don’t dispense conventional advice. I won’t try and force your story into places it doesn’t want to go.
Instead, I create a safe space for writers like you to explore the depth of your being. I offer you ways to give the best expression to your soul stories.
Stories the world is waiting for.
I believe in your story.
Which is why I don’t offer templates or silver bullets. I train writers to deeply read their own work, so they can trust their story.
I believe in your story.
Which is why I don’t offer templates or silver bullets. I train writers to deeply read their own work, so they can trust their story.
