Meg Stainsby, MFA 2015

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

It deepened my appreciation for the need for precise and concrete detail

It compelled me to try poetry (finally!) — which then led me to swift success in terms of winning the first poetry contest I’ve ever entered. Lesson learn — write fearward!

The summer residencies (OptRes MFA) were rich opportunities to dive into a community; I especially appreciated the coaching and experimenting with reading at the mic to other writers

What’s your latest published/performed work?

-Two poems (titles below) in the RCLAS e-zine (fall 2019)

-Latest book review (on two Canadian memoirs) published by EVENT Magazine (spring 2019)

-“Writing My Father” (cnf) is to be published imminently by The Ormsby Review (online)

What are your most recent awards?

-“Tillie’s Colander” (poem) won 1st place in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s (RCLAS’) WriteOn! contest, 2019

-“Late Comfort” (poem) was given honourable mention (same contest/year

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

Member of the EVENT Magazine advisory board since 2010

Contributed a cnf piece to local poet Bonnie Nash’s (ed) collection, Concussion and Mild Head Injury: Not Just Another Headline (2016)

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

Currently enrolled in a PhD in CRWR at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (that whole mouthful is the institution’s name, otherwise UWTSD) in Lampeter, Wales

Thesis: a memoir of intergenerational trauma and living with posttraumatic stress disorder

Well into the writing; expected completion June 2021