friendship matters
the story behind the story part II
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Over the next four months, I am going into the “story behind the story” of the creation of my book. Read the first instalment, story matters, here. Read until the end of this newsletter for an excerpt from my book!
There is a reason I titled my book this is a love story.
It’s about struggles with mental illness, yes, but it’s also a story of hope. Hope I draw from my friendships and other relationships in my life. I purposefully decided I didn’t want section breaks in this is a love story because I wanted it to read like a narrative, with a beginning, middle, end, climax, and resolution. The beginning is the “problem”, journeying through poems and essays about anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles. The latter half is the resolution, found in my friends.
My book is not only about my friendships, but is created entirely in collaboration with my talented friends. Today, I want to introduce you to some of them, and let them speak for themselves on their experience reading and working on my book.
Even though this is a love story is not an anthology, it features the work of two of my writer-friends, Amelia Warkentin, and Erin Toews. I commissioned both of them to write a few pieces about mental health or friendship, to add more perspectives, but mostly because I just wanted to include my friends.
Amelia Warkentin
Contributor: Poems My friend ED, Ode to a Cinnamon Bun, and Twins: 15 months Apart.
“The written word is a good friend of mine. Having struggled with my own mental health, writing on the topic came naturally. When Alyssa asked me to contribute to her book and told me what it was to be about, I was thrilled. Alyssa and I became friends while attending university together. I knew of her writing abilities and had always been impressed with her organizational skills. Alyssa’s book holds true to who she is—honest, thoughtful, and fun. I feel honoured to be a part of it.”
Erin Toews
Contributor: Poems Space, Impaction (Life-Jumping), Restoration, and Tilt-A-Whirl.
“Stories are important for fostering empathy, but for a topic like mental health understanding what someone is going through is also crucial for breaking down judgment. When we understand what others are going through, we have the tools to act with grace.”
A large part of writing and publishing a book is many stages of editing. I self-edited a few times before sending my book out to critique partners and beta (initial) readers in about two batches. After I’d revised it a few times, I hired professional editor Kyla Neufeld (also a friend of mine!) to take a professional’s eyes to it. Kyla said, “I wanted to contribute to this book because Alyssa is a friend and I was interested in the subject matter. I also do a lot of editing work with sensitive subjects and knew I could approach this project with professionalism. I think the mix of personal essays and poems works to explore friendship and mental health from many different facets, which adds depth and dimension to the conversation as a whole. And, working with Alyssa was great! She was receptive to and respectful of my input and expertise. I had a wonderful time working on this book.”
Kyla Neufeld is a poet and editor based in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory. Her work has appeared in The Goose, Vallum: Contemporary Poetry, Geez Magazine, and Rune Bear. You can find her at kneufeldediting.wordpress.com.
My book is better for all of these friends’ contributions, for sure.
Jenny K.
Friend and critique partner (also October 2021 featured storyteller)
“When Alyssa explained her concept for her book to me, I was struck by the depth and simplicity of the idea. I have been thinking through my own idea of love and what it means to me, and I was fully interested in the book from the start. As someone who was just reading the book to give feedback, I had a separate document ready to write down any feedback I had, but I kept finding myself getting so lost in the poems and expressions that I read through the whole book without taking a single note, and had to reread it completely (which was not a hardship). What I found was a full, vibrant, beautiful expression of love and loss and pain and joy, and I am extremely grateful I had a chance to read it early on.”
Tavia McKinnon
Beta reader
“I’ve been fortunate to be involved in Alyssa’s book process both as an early reviewer and through our weekly writing meetups for mutual accountability. I’ve always been interested in reading her work – maybe because I like writing, too – and while I’ve edited writing for friends before, I found reading Alyssa’s book draft to be especially moving because it is personal, vulnerable, and brave. As her friend, it is hard to read about challenges she’s gone through, but it also feels particularly meaningful to see themes of hope, resilience, and love emerging through her writing. In looking back at our email exchange, my first response to Alyssa’s book was to say that I’d found it ‘beautiful and poignant, and by poignant I mean that sometimes I teared up and sometimes I laughed and often I felt like, “yes, that’s it, exactly!”’ I feel like that quote sums up my experience working on the book pretty well. Following her book journey during our writing sessions has been inspiring, has helped me with my own projects, and I’d say has also brought us closer together – so thank you, Alyssa, for inviting me in.”
Amber Wallin
Illustrator
Amber said she enjoys the challenges, as well as the mix of business and jokes that come from working with me, and the opportunity to use her skills for something she loves. She believes in being a part of this project because she believes “mental well-being is very important but the need for relationships, mainly friends and family, is a huge theme that book talks about in the sense that it good for your well-being to have these connections, which is kind of lost in this generation.”
These are just a few of the people who have been critical in the creation of this is a love story, but there are many more people part of it, from the friends that inspired the essays and poems, to other artist and creative friends that give me advice and commiserate with me on the unique struggles of creative career aspirations. And of course there are the friends I’ve featured in love letters to storytellers, too.
It's not new to say that as much as writing is a solo art, it’s also impossible to do alone (or at least much, much more difficult).
Now, to thank YOU for your involvement, I want to share with you one of the poems on friendship included in this is a love story. It is one of my favourites. 😊
how to measure friendship (audio version here) by distance? the number of footsteps to a neighbour’s door no farther than an arm’s reach or a leg stretching to kick a snoring roommate person plus proximity? by time? here with you from waking to sleeping missing a minute means our unmooring the longer we stand together the more melded our hearts? by knowledge? textbooks of answers to mundane questions your favourite colour is blue since when how many blanks I can fill on your forms the number of memorized facts? by interactions? hey, smile, name, nod basic acknowledgement of existence brief connections eventually counted as something more? by depth? meters descended into your soul heart laid bare enough to see all your scars how far i’ve fallen into the agony of your existence? by silence? diving deep into a chasm of no words trying to find telepathic understanding how many ounces of courage and not giving up? please give me a ruler a scale a beaker container to capture make me sure of what i have to the decimal place
Happy September!
Alyssa