Jazeen Hollings
The School of Creative Writing is pleased to congratulate Jazeen Hollings, MFA. Jazeen’s graduate thesis is a novel entitled The Deeper We Go.
With the grace and poise of a flamingo lacking knees, Jazeen, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, retired from her seven year stint as a video editor to join the program and dedicate herself fully to her writing practice. During her time here, she discovered a deep love of poetry, found a quirky, albeit slightly unhinged, humour-injected creative nonfiction voice, and became insistent on teaching creative writing after grad school. She produced a novel, a screenplay, is currently working on a chapbook, and runs her own creative writing workshops that blend academia, personal exploration, and militant creative support.
The Deeper We Go is a family dramedy novel set in the once booming Ontario mining town of Elliot Lake. Eleanor, a single mother trying her damned best, struggles to provide financially and emotionally for her ambitious ballet-obsessed teenage daughter, Anna, and for her delinquent adult son, Michael. She desperately tries to hold the family together as Anna descends into a frightful opioid addiction and Michael’s mishaps turn violent. Part family drama, part political commentary on boom to bust towns, the novel’s core pulses with themes of motherhood and the importance of letting go.
Contact
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