Featured Writer: Liz Johnston
On creating space to write and writing advice.
Welcome to Women Writing! It’s my great pleasure to feature poet Liz Johnston in today’s issue of Women Writing.
About the author…
Liz Johnston grew up in Revelstoke, B.C., and now lives and writes in Toronto. Her stories have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Humber Literary Review, Grain, The Antigonish Review, and The Cardiff Review, among other publications. She is an editor of Brick magazine. The Fall-Down Effect (Book*hug, 2026) is her first novel.
On a writing routine …
As well as a writer, I’m a freelance editor. When I first went freelance, I had this idyllic vision of writing in the mornings and editing for clients in the afternoons. Instead, it tends to be that when I get work in from a client, that takes precedence. I set the writing aside for a few weeks, however long the editing project takes, and am really only able to focus on my writing once I’m done, in the gaps between working on projects for my clients. That said, I do journal for half an hour or so pretty much every morning, and I try to use that time to think about my fiction, though often worries about life and work and the world, or even more banal thoughts about the shape of the day to come, fill those pages. In those gaps between editing projects, the days start the same way, with writing in my journal, and then I’ll have breakfast, hop in the shower (if it’s not a workout day), and park myself in front of the computer, usually rereading and revising whatever I’ve drafted the previous day before I begin adding new material. A few days a week, I’ll interrupt my work to go for a mid-morning run or do some other kind of workout. I don’t think this is the best for my writing, and I wish I could shift my routine to getting out for a run first thing in the morning—every now and again, I’ll pull myself out of bed in the early morning to get in for the opening lane-swim hours at my nearby pool—but the pull of those slow coffee-and-journalling mornings is just too strong. After my workout, I’ll get back to the computer for an hour or so, break for lunch and a walk with my partner, who also works from home, then try to buckle down and keep writing until five, though by later in the afternoon my attention will certainly be flagging, and I’ll be more apt to check social media and get distracted by emails.
On writing spaces …
Mst of the year, my desk straddles the living room and kitchen of my apartment. We’re on the top floor, and I’m between two large, south-facing windows, so I get a lot of light, and I can gaze off at the sky or the tops of the trees behind our building. I have a SAD lamp, just to the side of my monitor, for greyer days. There’s a corkboard on the wall where I can look up from my computer screen to see a calendar with the big things coming up for the month, a list of more long-term to-do’s, and a couple quotations I take heart from. One, Robert Hass’s translation of Basho: “If the horror of the world were the truth of the world, there would be no one to say it and no one to say it to.” My weekly planner is usually splayed open to the right of my mouse so I don’t lose track of meetings or deadlines. I have electronic calendars too, of course, which I’m always trying to get to sync up, but I’d be lost without the physical planner. If I’m working on paper, or if the sun’s in my eyes and I don’t want to pull the blinds, I’ll relocate to the couch or recliner. I like having the flexibility to move around. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I don’t. There’s very little rhyme or reason to when I listen to music.
On writing communities …
I don’t think I could be a writer without community. In some ways, yes, writing is a solo endeavour, but it’s my community that pushes me to get better, encourages me to hang in there when doubt arises, helps me navigate the business side of things. It’s my community, more than any publication, that makes me feel like a “real writer.” I’m a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, and even just reading their newsletters or tuning in for the odd webinar can sometimes give me a sense of shared struggle and purpose (as well as great practical information, of course). A lot of my writing community are people I met through Brick magazine, where I’ve been involved in various capacities since 2012, from doing circulation to becoming the managing editor and now sitting on the editorial board. These writer friends have pointed me to some of my now-favourite writers, swapped writing for feedback, become accountability partners, talked about craft, commiserated over rejection. I’m also part of a writing group that formed through an online writing course I took during early COVID-19 lockdowns. Of the original class of twelve, five of us continue to meet on Zoom every three or four weeks to workshop one another’s writing. The regular commitment is about more than the feedback I get on my work; there’s something vital in these relationships that have lasted for years around our common pursuit. Knowing that we’ll be meeting always motivates me to do work on a manuscript, even if I’m not scheduled to turn something in for workshop.
“A piece of advice I need to remind myself of from time to time is to be fearless when it comes to story, to go toward tension and conflict, to go into the dark.”
On challenges …
For me, the biggest challenge is privileging my own creative work over the editing work I do for others. Freelancing is notoriously feast or famine, and I probably take on more editing work than I should out of fear there will be a shortage in the future. Even when I’m in a position, financially, where I might not need the work at that moment, I find it difficult to pass on a project because it feels like I’m passing on more than that; it feels like I’m foreclosing all the opportunities that might come down the road from having said yes to that client now. I guess what I’m saying is I need to get better at saying no and trusting that I’ll be able to get the paying work when I need it. Maybe one day I’ll consider a career change (from the editing, never the writing!), but as long as I’ve got enough gaps between client work to make progress with my fiction, I’m not in a big rush to change things up.
On the best writing advice …
I was always a big reader, so maybe I never needed to be told to that writers should be readers or that I should read widely within my genre. But I still think it was useful to hear it, to start thinking of reading not just as something I do for pleasure but as part of my job. Reading is still a pleasure, of course, but now I read with a sense of purpose and an attentiveness to craft I’m not sure I always had. A piece of advice I need to remind myself of from time to time is to be fearless when it comes to story, to go toward tension and conflict, to go into the dark. A mentor told me this after generously reading an overly timid manuscript, and as obvious as it might be—that stories need conflict, that tension creates narrative pull—I still sometimes have to overcome the fear that might tempt me to avoid putting that tension on the page.
On the worst writing advice …
I suspect it’s actually pretty great advice, but I’ve just never been able to do it: Don’t revise as you draft; write a shitty first draft, and then go back to revise once you’ve got the whole story down on the page. I just can’t do that. I feel completely stuck when I try to push myself forward knowing that what I’ve written is crap. And so I stick around revising, polishing up a scene or a sentence, even though there’s a good chance that scene or sentence might have to be reworked again—if not cut—once I have a full draft to review and start editing. I know my way is a terribly inefficient way to work, but for the life of me, I can’t stop revising as I go.
On advice from personal experiences …
This comes more from my experience as an editor, receiving submissions for Brick especially, but I would tell women writers that when someone asks to see more of your work, they’re not just being polite. Maybe they’ve just rejected your manuscript, and that hurts, but if an editor asks to see more, then they’re drawn to something in your voice or your style or the things you’re writing about, and they think they may want to publish your writing in the future. Even if they reject you again, you can keep sending more. This is a huge generalization, but in my experience, cis men will receive an encouraging rejection and then send a new submission right away, sometimes within the week; women and genderqueer writers rarely take up that invitation to send more at all. I’m not sure exactly what that’s about, but I encourage my fellow women writers to take editors at their word when they invite you to try them again.
On rekindling creativity …
Usually, I read to rekindle my creativity: I look at novels or short stories that are in conversation with what I’m working on somehow or that do something with craft, with voice or structure or characterization, that might help me think through a craft problem I’m working on. Sometimes research itself can be the spark that moves me back to creation. I don’t purposefully go see art or theatre to get inspired, but I always do catch a creative buzz when I go to a gallery or see a play or a concert.
On a recent publication …
My debut novel, The Fall-Down Effect, comes out April 21, 2026. It follows siblings Sylvia, Fern, and River from their chaotic late-1980s childhood when their mother leaves their small mountain town to commit herself more fully to her environmental activism, through middle child Fern’s own radical act of protest twelve years later, to 2020, when a forest fire forces a fraught, baggage-filled family reunion. When I can eke out time around my editing work and preparing to launch The Fall-Down Effect, I’m working on a new novel, about a woman and her university student daughter, both collapsing under the stress of their daily lives when the anniversary of the husband/father’s death in a workplace accident brings this old trauma to the surface.
Liz’s online spaces …
Writers of all stripes—fiction, nonfiction, memoir—this one’s for you! Write On 2026 is a free online series hosted by Book Coaches Canada, with sessions designed to help you plan, draft, revise and publish like a pro, with zero stress and max creativity.
With lessons from over a dozen experts in all things writing and publishing, you’ll get craft advice that will make your story shine and mindset tips that will keep you going when the words won’t. It’s like a virtual coffee date with the world’s nicest book coaches, who’ve all come together to support your literary aspirations.
Come as you are and bring your questions, your half-finished drafts and your dreams of authorship (and your favourite mug!). By the end, you’ll have practical tools to improve your craft and fresh momentum to make real progress on your book.
Are you ready to take your story to the next level? Write On!
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Happy writing!
Thanks for the encouragement to send more work when they say that with a rejection. It’s hard to get beyond the “no” to realize it’s a “not this one.”
Great interview. Thanks!