Canada Calling: Terry Griggs

Terry Griggs is a Canadian author who has written for both children and adults, and in a range of forms: short story, novels, fantasy, and most recently fiction that has been described as a “biblio-mystery,” “noir farce,” and a “slacker cozy.” A number of her books have been nominated for awards, most notably the Governor General’s Award and the Writer’s Trust Fiction Award. In 2003 she received the Marian Engel Award from the Writer’s Trust of Canada. This award is for a Canadian woman author who has contributed a substantial body of work to Canadian literature.

PDD:
If there were a Mount Olympus of literature, you’re certainly there: awards, teaching at the Banff Centre, seen as a literary writer, etc. Have you encountered any negative comments from your co-writers about delving into crime writing; as in, “How could you stoop to that?”

Terry:
Mount Olympus? How kind of you. I am pretty earthbound, though. 

No negative comments from co-writers so far re my delving into crime writing. Some, I know, might be scratching their heads, but most are used to me doing the unexpected. (Possibly they think I’m selling out--I wish.) I’ve had a few puzzled questions from interviewers. Readers, marketers, publishers, do tend to want to keep a writer in an identifiable place. But I’m interested in all kinds of fiction and I love the idea of reaching a new audience, as I did when I wrote a series of kids’ books. And while I find the mystery genre full of absorbing and accomplished works, Thought You Were Dead is not in itself purely that—it draws on other forms: farce, myth, orphan narrative, literary, quest.

PDD:
You speak of “passing through” books. Passing through what? From where to where? Are you referring to the mystery of the human heart and mind, the waiting for consequences of decisions-made, etc. as opposed to the dead body, police procedure, forensic evidence, etc?

Terry:
By “passing through” I’m merely referring to the writing journey from page one to the end. Yes, mysteries of the “heart and mind”—that’s a good way of putting it. Mystery in the sense of what compels and intrigues us, what we’re drawn repeatedly and irresistibly toward. But . . . I have also often pulled elements of the mystery genre itself into stories and novels: a disappearance, an investigation, a wrongful accusation, justice affirmed in the end. Admittedly, the authorities come in for some joshing. In The Lusty Man my police officer spends his investigative time sitting in a boat in the middle of the lake with a paper bag on his head.

PDD:
For you, research is foraging, and the results are multiple notebooks for each book you write. I’d love to hear you expand about how different elements come together as you forage.

Terry:
There’s an interview I did on the Random House book club site a while back, in which I compare this process to a bird building a nest. Some nests are really quite artful, bits of this and that woven in—cellophane, cigarette filters, flowers, stems, spider webs, feathers—and I suppose I do a similar thing. When I have a sense of what I want to write, I start looking around, picking up this and that, reading stuff, making notes. It can be anything that might be potentially useful or inspiring—a poem, a quote, an observation, a comment overheard.

This seems to have a stimulating and generative effect, giving me a better sense of what I’m up to. Ideas for scenes, characters, conversations, jokes, are interleaved with all this. Words alone I find particularly rich sources—their provenance, their range of meanings, their possible narrative uses. I read up on particular subjects and take notes that I may or may not even refer to again.

In one of my notebooks for Thought You Were Dead I have info from books such as, Forensic Anthropology: The Growing Science of Talking Bones, and Your Guide to Cemetery Research, and Scottish Roots: From Gravestone to Website and Canadian Women Invent! While writing, I keep making notes which helps to give a clearer view of the way ahead.

PDD:
A lot of your work deals with male/female differences and with ambiguity. Why those two themes?

I doubt that my view of the male/female differences is my own. I just seem to write about it, and in fact male/female contentious situations often structure the works. Wasn’t even much aware of doing this until asked about my main concerns. I have a settled and happy personal life, so this is not me therapeutically working out any tempestuous relationships.Male/female difference is central to our whole existence, hence a central subject for investigation, or dramatization, or playful assessment. And often in my books as well there’s a switching of roles—sexual confusion—which is a feature of screwball comedy. Think of Cary Grant wearing that frilly dressing gown in Bringing Up Baby.


Ambiguous situations are a gift to writers because right there you have conflict, tension, motivation. This is the everyday heartrending stuff we all, I assume, get caught up in--the things we want and don’t want in about equal measure. My main character in Thought You Were Dead, for example, desperately wants to be part of a family, but the moment it seems possible he feels crowded. He longs to have his old girlfriend back, but only next door, not too close. He knows he should look for his missing boss, but, well, he doesn’t quite get around to it. 

PDD:
Do you have a secret passion?

Terry:
I must confess I have a secret passion for thrilling linguistic achievement, something like say, Eric Ormsby’s series of Lazarus poems. And a passion for footpaths. Grassy ones that snake along, in and around and behind. Paths that might just lead to mysterious places. If I saw one right now I wouldn’t be able to resist, I’d be gone.

PDD:
Do you have a web site or an e-mail address that you would want included in case someone wanted to contact you or learn more about your work?

Terry:
I’ve been slowly moving toward setting up a web site. I mean, slowly. But I may get there yet. By the fall, I hope. My publisher, Dan Wells, keeps giving me encouraging little nudges. In the meantime, anyone who would like to contact me is certainly welcome to do so by way of Biblioasis: P.O Box 92, Emeryville, Ontario, Canada N0R 1C0. e-mail is biblioasis@gmail.com.