Writer’s Block: Lindsay Zier-Vogel

All Lit Up: Tell us about The Fun Times Brigade. What can readers expect?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: The Fun Times Brigade opens with Amy, who is navigating the bewildering early days of motherhood. It’s the first time in a decade that Amy hasn’t been touring or recording kids’ music, and as her world shrinks to take care of four-week old Alice, her identity as an artist begins to unravel.

In flashbacks, we see Amy forgoing her solo singer-songwriter to become one of Canada’s top children’s entertainers, and when she begins seriously questioning if she can be a legitimate artist if she’s “just’ making music for kids, she joins BIKES, a popular musical collective, and the wheels start to fall off the cart…

The Fun Times Brigade explores the challenges of reconciling being an artist with being a mother, and the circuitous paths we must take to find our place in the world.

All Lit Up: What inspired the idea for your latest book?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I knew that I wanted to write about definitions of artistic success (and explore the question, Can artists who make art for kids be considered successful?), grief and loss (and forgiveness!), and early motherhood. It took a while for me to figure out how I was going to connect all of these ideas together, but one morning when I was swimming, the band name “The Fun Times Brigade” popped into my imagination fully formed.

All Lit Up: How do you approach developing your characters or world-building?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I love researching niche worlds! In my debut novel, Letters to Amelia, I did a deep dive on librarianship at a rare books library, and for The Fun Times Brigade, I did countless interviews with musician/producer Joshua Van Tassel. I toured his studio and asked him a million questions about tour buses, and microphones, and festival sound checks. I also had the great honour of interviewing Sharon and Bram, from the iconic kids group, Sharon, Lois & Bram, and also Fred Penner and their insights from decades of performing and creating music and TV shows for kids was transformational.

All Lit Up: What does a typical writing day look like for you?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I like to write in the early mornings, while the rest of my house is still sleeping, though my oldest kid likes to wake up early, so it’s getting tricky to find an early morning window these days. I like write six days a week, just for an hour or so each day. I find the consistency of being inside a project is helpful, and feel disoriented and distant if I’m away from the narrative and the characters for too long. In the last year, I’ve structured my weeks so that I have Thursdays off client-work, so I get to spend the whole day writing. Thursdays are easily my favourite days!

All Lit Up: How do you overcome creative blocks when they arise?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I find blank word docs terrifying, so I’ve created a method that tricks me into writing. I fill a jar with slips of paper that have scenes I want to write, or ideas I want to explore, and every day, I pull out a slip of paper, set my timer for 20 minutes and write. I call it my “jar method” and it keeps me from getting in my own way. Trying to fit writing into the daily juggle of kids and work and other obligations is challenging for me, but breaking down what I want to write into a 20-minute task is very manageable. After a few months, I end up with a bunch of scenes, and then I find a starting point and begin building a section with the documents I’ve already written.

Also, swimming is where I do all of my best writing. Whenever I’m struggling with a narrative knot, a few lengths in a pool always untangles it!

All Lit Up: If you could spend a day with one of your characters, who would it be and why?

Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I’d spend time with Amy, my main character who is also a mom and a kids’ musician. I’d pop over to her house and take Baby Alice out for the morning so she could play some music, or work on a song, or nap. Being an artist mom is hard, and having time and space to create is so tricky, so I’d offer her that (in fact, I’d make it a weekly visit so she’d know she’d have one morning a week to be creative!)

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Lindsay Zier-Vogel is a Toronto-based author, educator, grant writer, and the creator of the internationally-acclaimed Love Lettering Project. After studying contemporary dance, she received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. She is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Letters to Amelia, and her first picture book, Dear Street was a 2023 Junior Library Guild pick, a Canadian Children’s Book Centre book of the year, and was nominated for a 2024 Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award (Canada), and a 2025 Magnolia Book Award (Mississippi). Her second novel, The Fun Times Brigade, came out in May 2025, and she is co-editing The Deep End: Reflections on swimming with andrea bennett. Her work has been published widely in Canada and the UK.