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Writer’s Block: Jeanette Lynes

Apron Apocalypse (Thistledown Press) is the first work of creative nonfiction from novelist and poet Jeanette Lynes. Through lyrical personal essays, the collection traces eight years of life, art, and reinvention.

For Writer’s Block, Jeanette tells us more about her most rewarding moment as a writer, why she continues to make art, and how she tackles creative blocks before they arise.

To read the full interview, keep scrolling below.

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ALU Editor

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Writer's Block

All Lit Up: Tell us about your new book, Apron Apocalypse. What can readers expect?

JEANETTE LYNES: My newest book, Apron Apocalypse: Lyric Essays is a departure for me. It’s my first book of creative non-fiction. It’s a collection of personal essays about life, art (film, visual art, music, writing)—heavily influenced by my life post-divorce. For me, creative non-fiction is quite close to poetry in that these essays play with language a fair bit, emerge as riffs, fragments. They were written over a period of about eight years, so there’s a range of topics as my life evolved during that same period, but I hope there’s enough tonal consistency to provide a sonic through-line. Though the collection deals a lot with endings and aftermath, readers can expect some humour and that ineffable thing called quirkiness. The style of the essays is pretty idiosyncratic with sometimes odd, rogue syntax: the influence of all my earlier poetry writing on me, I think.  

ALU: What was your most rewarding moment as a writer? 

JEANETTE: Probably being longlisted for the 2009 Giller Prize for my first novel, The Factory Voice. That book took about nine years to write, with much anguish, and heartache, and rejections of it in draft form—including from agents who bounced me. Not to mention—after I finally found a publisher—major revisions at the eleventh hour. Then, out of the blue, I opened my email that fateful morning and my inbox was flooded with congratulations—”for what,” I wondered and wrote another writer back asking, “Why? What happened?” The sheer unexpectedness of the longlist announcement floored me. Also, that same day three agents contacted me (one from New York) asking if I had representation. The irony of this wasn’t lost on me given the travails I’d gone through in my efforts to get an agent. The novel didn’t move to the shortlist, but it was enough just to be longlisted.  

ALU: Why do you write?

JEANETTE: It’s a compulsion, obsession, addiction. I like to challenge myself, especially with novels. And novels give me an alternate universe—a place I can go for a break from reality. My characters become my friends, and I get to hang out with them for a couple of years. Also, I’m curious and enjoy research and learning new things. There’s something mystical about writing; the mystery pulls me in, especially with novels. Writing also helps ground me and is beneficial for my mental health; I can feel a cognitive shift—not in a good way—when I’ve been absent from the writing desk for too long.  

A photo of Jeanette’s writing space.

ALU: If you weren’t an author, what do you think you’d be doing? 

JEANETTE: I’d be working in either a thrift shop or a flower shop—even on a volunteer basis. I’d need to get out of my apartment and out of my own head. 

ALU: How do you celebrate when you finish writing a book?   

JEANETTE: Often, I take myself to a movie and dinner to celebrate. Or I allow myself a lazy, self-indulgent day to do whatever I want, which might be playing computer Scrabble, sleeping in, or loafing about. But I usually like to get out somewhere and do something fun.  

ALU: How do you overcome creative blocks when they arise? 

JEANETTE: At the risk of sounding evasive, I try to nip blocks in the bud before they arise. But the reality is, they do arise. These are several strategies to get past them: 1) I move to a lateral project. Usually, I have more than one project on the go, so the slide from one to another can help. If nothing else, this provides a change of scenery, but it can spark a mental reset, too. 2) I read/research more. Sometimes, especially when writing historical fiction, the block occurs when I’ve run out of research material. By “run out” I mean something as basic as using concrete details to build a scene—for example, the clothes a character wears in that scene, or, a better example is to deep-dive into what was happening in the “real” world around the character(s) at that time. If a giant meteorite has crashed to earth when the scene takes place, I want to know about it, and like a crow chasing shiny objects, I might well wish to build it into that scene. Contextual research is incredibly valuable. 3) I don’t like to do this, but as a last resort, sometimes I have to step away from the project—not for long but just giving it a rest for a few days or a couple of weeks (reluctantly). Usually taking a couple of days away from a project is enough.  

***

An author photo of Jeanette Lynes. She is photographed from the waist up and is wearing a long-sleeved, black, v-neck top. Her arms are crossed in front of her chest. She is smiling directly at the camera, and her long blonde hair is down.
Author photo of Jeanette Lynes. Photo credit to Matt Braden.

Jeanette Lynes is the author of four novels and seven poetry collections. Her latest novel, The Paper Birds, is a national bestseller and won the Fiction prize at the 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Jeanette’s book on research in creative writing is forthcoming with University of Regina Press. She directs the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan.  

Order Apron Apocalypse here on All Lit Up, or from your local bookseller.

For more Writer’s Block, click here.

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