Fiction writing can be a really powerful reframing tool — writer Katie Zdybel joins us to talk about this idea and reframe our own writing lives in the process. We also talk about finding the right headspace for writing, living in the Yukon, seeing beauty in the landscape (and sometimes not!), and using fiction to build better relationships with the sadnesses that are a part of life. It’s a gentle conversation and one you don’t want to miss.
Katie Zdybel’s recently released first book, Equipoise, was shortlisted for the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction and received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Stories within the collection won the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Award and The New Quarterly’s Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award, as well as having received publisher nominations for the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize and two National Magazine Awards. Her writing has also appeared in EXILE Quarterly, The New Quarterly, The Malahat Review, The Antogonish Review, and more.
Links:
Equipoise
Follow Katie on Instagram and Twitter, and check out her official website
Wedding Granola
My husband and I made this as our wedding guest giveaway - little bags filled for each person with breakfast gold!
Ingredients:
1 cup of large rolled oats
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 cup of shredded, non-sweetened coconut
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
A good pinch of salt
A heaping tsp of cinnamon
2 tbsp of olive oil or coconut oil
2 tbsp of honey or maple syrup
Directions:
Preheat oven to 365.
Mix all ingredients together with a spatula to make sure it’s really evenly combined and then spread on to a baking tray that you’ve covered with parchment paper. (There are so many substitutions you can make - chopped almonds, flax seed, chopped pecans…it’s a forever list! This one is what I had in the house).
Bake for 13 min, and give a little a turn on the pan at about the 9 min mark for even baking.
Turn off the oven at 13 min and leave the pan in the heat for up to an hour to let the granola get really crisped up. Serve over yoghurt or oatmeal or just eat handfuls like I did last night while trying to get my marking done!
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