Women Asking Women: Michelle Berry & Terry Kirk

TERRY KIRK: :  Life partners: Are there men who are willing to support women’s writerly lifestyles—I admit to being obsessed by my characters—I tune out my husband and think about them at the dinner table.

MICHELLE BERRY: This is a good question. My husband is an engineer, and I’m a writer so we come from two completely different fields, arts and science. But we talk often about my work and he’s always my second reader—my dad is usually my first—he is a retired English professor. My husband looks at consistency and believability in my writing. He’s the kind of reader who cannot stand if someone has the location or the weather or something concrete like that wrong. And so, he catches my mistakes. We don’t talk about development or theme or how my work fits into the industry that much, etc. but we deal with the facts together and he always listens when I go on about my ideas and my characters. And he reads my works in progress over and over for me. I think it’s necessary to have some back and forth about your careers in a marriage and so I listen to many things about geotechnical engineering. I know more about soil than I’d like, ha ha. But my husband knows more about different types of poison than he would probably like. So, we are even. And I know, deep inside, that I wouldn’t be a writer, or the writer I am, without my husband’s constant support. So there is that.

I’ve also found that most men I know are supportive of a writing partner, but that doesn’t always mean they are big readers. Sometimes they just fall into the crowd who think all writers must be rich and famous and have an interesting life. 

I do think that all relationships are better if you respect the other’s career path even if, in real life, it’s not like in the movies.

MICHELLE: And respect is also a financial consideration—if you have a partner who respects your writing career but you make only a little income from it, then that’s a whole new discussion, isn’t it? How do you find the reality of making a living out of being a writer in Canada? Is it even possible?

TERRY: Writing and making money are distinct goals. I have approached them serially: I have made money and now I write. I admire those who do both, but I tend to bring a singular down-the-rabbit-hole approach to things, so I find it difficult to imagine adding writing to my years as a lawyer and parent or trying to make much money now during these cherished writing years. There are of course a rare few who support themselves from their writing but, in general, I think it is fair to say that authorship provides a subsistence level for most writers and one is well advised to have other sources of financial support.

TERRY: Let’s talk about life. Creatives tend to do their best work at night. How does that and other unconventional writerly lifestyles mesh with normalcy? 

MICHELLE: I stopped being creative at night when I had kids. I was so tired all the time. My husband has also always worked an 8-5pm job, so we have trained ourselves to go to bed early-ish. This means that even though the kids are gone and I have freedom now I tend to do my best work in the morning instead of at night. Although I do seem to be unable to work after about 3pm, which I’ve realized is because that’s the time my kids would have been back from school and I would have had to climb out of my fictional world and be human again. So unfortunately, or fortunately, my writing life has looked like a regular job. Morning, lunch, afternoon, off the clock. I used to be unable to write when anyone was at home, but since Covid switched things and my family were working at home I’ve managed to figure that one out. I also do mentorship at the University of Toronto and other freelance things, so I have to stay on the same time as people in the real world if I want to connect.. 

Michelle Berry, an award-winning author of seven novels and three collections of short fiction is now publishing a thriller line under the name, M.S. Berry. The Tenant and Behind the Door will be the first of these books, coming out in 2025. Her previous work has been optioned for film and published internationally in the United Kingdom. She teaches and mentors fiction at the University of Toronto and has worked at Humber, Ryerson, and Trent University. Michelle previously owned Hunter Street Books, an independent bookstore, in Peterborough, Ontario.

Terry Kirk is a lawyer and writer living in downtown Toronto. She studied journalism and English literature and holds a Juris Doctor (Law), and Masters’ degree focused on digital transformation. Widely recognized as an innovator in the finance and fintech sector, these creative juices flow through the author’s novels, PITFALL (At Bay Press) and PLUNDER.

Photo of Terry by Glenn O’Farrell