The House Absorbs Energies Within : An Interview with Heidi Wicks

All Lit Up: Congratulations on your new book, Here. The stories are interconnected and span a hundred years in a single mansion. How do the shifting occupants of the mansion reflect the broader changes in Newfoundland society over the past century? Were there particular historical events or societal shifts you aimed to highlight through these characters? And what challenges did you face in authentically portraying some of the different historical periods?​

Heidi Wicks: Great questions. Very early in the writing, I knew I wanted to have confederation as a prominent event and to be reflected in the story. The before and after. I really thought about Memorial University in parts of the writing, as its responsible for a lot of the changing population of the province (and I thank it for that). Community is prevalent in this book, and the university is many communities within an ecosystem, of sorts. Within the province so it’s all connected. The way students had to take speaking tests, and their dialogues weren’t accepted…feels strange to us now. Like how humiliated must they have felt? They couldn’t even talk right to go to university. How were they supposed to feel adequate? That’s why I love the story of how the folklore department formed, and how it provided students from rural Newfoundland to see their lives as academia.

ALU: As a lifelong resident of St. John’s, how have your personal experiences and observations of the city influenced the narratives in Here?​

HW: Well, every word written is filtered through my brain and fingertips, ha. So there’s that! But over events like Snowmageddon, for example, and the pandemic, I was so thankful for the strong sense of community that exists in St. John’s. Even if it’s in pockets or borroughs of people—in my borough, everyone helps each other in times of pain or in times of need. I think we as NLders like to feel helpful, and resourceful, and the need to care for each other. I was part of all that during Snowmaggedon, helping to shovel people out. We do it every winter, we help shovel each other’s cars out. I’ve lived other places—Calgary, Toronto, London (UK), and London was the closest of the three where I’ve seen that, “Are ya alright, love?” akin to our, “How ya doin my ducky?” Such terms of endearments from strangers, essentially. It’s a hint that there’s something special about a place, I think.

ALU: Can we talk about the mansion itself? Having set all the stories in this single house on Circular Road in St. John’s, I can’t help but think of the mansion as a character. How did you conceptualize the mansion’s role in the narrative? Did you intend for it to serve as a silent observer, a character, or perhaps both?

HW: That was something I was a bit stuck on initially. Would the house talk to them? Have its own personality? I wasn’t aiming to write a haunted story, and I didn’t want the house to be “alive.” I wanted it to absorb the energies–the loves, the fights, the tensions, the brightness and darkness that played out over the years. Hold onto them, and swirl into the energies from those who lived there before. There are little indications of this, like the great gold mirror at the foot of the stairs. It has seen all. All the people, tortured or not, are held in that mirror for all time. So I think the mirror might be somewhat alive. The personality of a discerning parent, or maybe someone like Gaundi. The mirror wants you take a deep look at yourself and into yourself and it helps you see your truth. Same with the tunnels. It’s rare that people take that crawl through. It’s only described once and happens twice. But it’s kind of the heartbeat of the house. It reveals truths and revelations for those brave enough to crawl through.

ALU: Otherworldly elements like a time-traveling tunnel and a mirror revealing other spheres are some storytelling devices that appear in the book. How did you balance these fantastical components with the grounded, historical aspects of the setting?

HW: I tried not to put those things–the images with the mirror and the tunnel interactions – in too frequently. They’re meant to be flourishes, ribbons, glimpses of truth. They only appear in the book when someone has something to learn, and needs a little extra help let their truth find them and be revealed. I hope I did that somewhat subtly!

ALU: What’s your process of going from a blank page to a finished story?

HW: Oh–pretty twirly whirly! Haha. Usually a story with me starts with a single sentence. Or just a few words. “Midnight Toast” started that way. A story where they were eating midnight toast at the beginning and the end, and the action was set on New Year’s Eve. So I had the frame of that one right away. I knew I wanted it to be about a couple at a crossroads. From their I started forming their personalities, and what their harmonies and dissonant chords were. Then I wrote a story for how they met and began to incorporate the hippies into the picture. Once I had a draft I let my parents read it. I really wanted to bring out the fashion and décor of the 70s in NL. In the house, but also in what people would wear to go to school at MUN and where they’d hang out in between classes. Where they’d shop, what they’d listen to, that sort of historical accuracy was important to me. Then I brought it to my Write Club, and then I kind of worked on it over and over and over and over again! This one went through various iterations before the version that ended up in the book.

ALU: Did you carry any lessons or insights from writing your debut novel Melt into your new book?

HW: Well, the structure of the house and its inhabitants came fairly early, and the time periods and historical events I wanted to cover, as well as the stories—but my process ended up being very similar to Melt by the time I got to the story edit phase. The biggest note my wonderful story editor, Kate Kennedy, had was that there should be more of a connection between the stories and the timeline they happen in. So even though it’s interconnected short stories, they all have some connection to each other and felt very similar to writing a novel.

For both books, I remember Lisa Moore’s advice which was something along the lines of, “You’ve just got to work at it and work at it until you get it to the very best place you can get it and you feel proud about releasing it into the world.”

I definitely feel like I’ve grown and matured as a human and writer. I hope readers will notice a difference. And there was much more research involved with Here, of course.

ALU: In an interview with Memorial University’s Gazette, you mentioned an interest in writing a screenplay or TV pilot. Do you see Here or Melt translating to the screen, and if so, who would be your dream director?

HW: Ooo, I love this question! I have thought about maybe turning some Here stories into a screenplay. Blundstone Confusion is the one that keeps sticking out, about an all girl rock band whose lead singer has connections to the fairy world (Newfoundland, not Disney fairies of course). I would love for Wanda Nolan or Ruth Lawrence or Elizabeth Hicks to direct it, if it ever happened.

ALU: What are you reading these days?

HW: I just recently returned from Mexico, so I’m finishing Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna. She’s an amazing writer, I really have so much respect and awe towards her. And I just moderated a panel at the SPARKS Literary Festival in St. John’s with three wonderful, vivid, sharp, hilarious writers from Newfoundland—Terry Doyle’s, Jim McEwen and Violet Browne. It was a treat revisiting their books. And, I got a new recommendation at SPARKS that’s next on my list—Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, another Mexican book, as recommended by Joel Thomas Hynes.

ALU: What’s next for you? Can you tell us if you have a new book or other project in the works?

HW: I am cooking up a pot of new-dles lately…just ideas for short stories or films…travel fiction type thing…time will tell whether any of them ever stick to the wall! But I always try to have fun with the process.

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