Sanita Fejzić is an editor, children’s writer, poet, playwright and point of a whirlwind. She did haiku for a while with KaDo. Way back was a regular at Tree and In/Words (and various things about town). At that tine she gracefully allowed me to publish some vispo in the form of The Union of 6 & 7 in 2014. (Impossibly long ago.)
Desiré in Three Brief Acts from battleaxepress was November 2016. That came with a CD song collaboration with the poems. I don’t know if she’d agree that she’s a polymath but she busts out in all directions of creativity.
PP: What have you creating lately?
SF: This is a busy period. I have been working on the production of a series of four short plays titled “Why Worry About Their Futures?” which foregrounds the kinds of multispecies futures we’re cultivating for our children. It will be directed by Keith Barker, who is one of the three playwrights, including Carol Churchill and me.
On the poetry side, I’m finalizing the edits of a collection, Refugee Mouth, which I’ve been working on for the last couple of years. This has been a labour of love, and for the last push, I’ve been collaborating with Chris Johnson, Arc Poetry Magazine editor and longtime friend (since our In/Words days at Carleton University). He’s been helping me with edits and a structural reorganization of the manuscript. I hope to send it out to publishers by December of this year.
December is also the deadline for me to submit my PhD thesis project to my committee, with the hopes of being a Doctor of Philosophy in Cultural Studies by the Fall of 2023.
In the meantime, I’m wrapping up a past-apocalyptic short animated film that’s grounded in queer, eco-feminist future dreamings. My friend and collaborator Ambivalently Yours did the illustrations and animations, and we’re working on a graphic novel version of the film. Did I say this was a busy period?
PP: Heh, I think you may have mentioned something about that. Beautiful to see such a renaissance diversity. With all that going on, what’s life’s focus these days?
SF: Life’s been domestic wild as I travel the country of language, poetry and thinking. I had a baby last year, and she just started to walk a few weeks ago. My son started secondary school at de La Salle, specializing in music. He’s started playing the trombone, so that’s been part of my soundscape. I recently celebrated my 10 year anniversary with my wife, who’s back to work completing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Ottawa. Our hands are full, as are our hearts.
I have been juggling and playing the balancing act. Sometimes I fall and it hurts, but I always get up and try again. My list of gratitudes keeps growing everyday, and that’s been an important area of focus: to savour the moments.
PP: Indeed. Gratitude makes far more possible. I heard about your theatre production and book but what’s this forthcoming film?
SF: I’m excited to share the animated film I have been collaborating on with illustrator/animator AmbivalentlyYours and musician/soundscape artist Angela Schleihauf. Title and details will be released soon!
PP: Looking forward to news on that front. Out in digital land, what work can people read?
SF: Here’s a link to a cinepoem that will be forthcoming in a poetry collection titled Land Matters:
- “Landing and Settling in Ottawa““(Un)masking a Poet as Plural and Porous.” Creative Non-Fiction (Room Magazine, January 2021).
- “Entangled Bodies in a Stubbornly Material-Textual World.”(Canthius Feminist and Literary Journal, 2019).
PP: Any author site, social media urls or things you’d like to plug?
PP: Thanks for sharing some of your extremely limited time to give people a sense of what to look forward to from you.