Writer’s Block: Maggie Burton

ALL LIT UP: Tell us about your book A Temporary Grace. What can readers expect?

MAGGIE BURTON: A Temporary Grace is fundamentally a book about relationships, mostly told from the perspectives of women. Readers can expect to experience the highs and lows that come with being in love, from new relationship energy between twenty-somethings to surviving a 50-year marriage. Love is complicated, especially when there is a power imbalance at play. There is a lot of rage present in some of the stories, which tend to involve schemes of revenge and retribution. Other times, tenderness and warmth provide a mechanism for salvation, or at the very least give my characters a second chance at living life to its full potential. I wanted to write about women who yearn for self-actualization and are willing to do whatever it takes to get themselves unstuck and moving forward.  

ALU: Why do you write?

MAGGIE: There are a few reasons why I write. I write for the same reason as I play music—to disentangle the feelings I otherwise have trouble with. I don’t write “as therapy” in the way that some people do but it is one of the only ways I feel that I can safely process big emotions. I write to better understand myself and those around me, and perhaps humanity in general. Sometimes I write to force myself to see beauty and remember that life is worth living. Other times I write because what else am I supposed to do with all the love and joy that is around me? I also have a desire to share my perspective as a young Newfoundland woman from the bay with the rest of the world, because I believe rural voices are important. 

ALU: What books have you read lately that you can’t stop thinking about? 

MAGGIE: Vampire in Love by Enrique Vila-Matas was incredible. I found it in a bookstore in Manhattan along with Three Stories of Forgetting by the Portuguese author Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, which I also really enjoyed. The characters in these books will haunt me for years. I also just read The Shining by Stephen King for the first time, what a great story. 

ALU: What do you hope readers take away from your book? 

MAGGIE: That all relationships are not worth saving, and romantic love alone cannot sustain us. It’s a book about extending grace towards those who are nevertheless damned. All people are deserving of grace and we need to be generous with each other in order to build loving, healthy relationships. 

ALU: What inspired the idea for your latest book? 

MAGGIE: I was doing trauma work in therapy, and in order to heal I felt like I needed to forgive a few people in my life. I wanted to better understand the behaviours of the people I was angry at and in the process I tried to see things from their points of view. So I ended up writing stories from the perspectives of characters based on (highly fictionalized) versions of real people in my life.  

ALU: Are there any real-life experiences or people that have influenced your storytelling?

MAGGIE: I grew up in a large family in the small town of Brigus, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the women who raised me were excellent storytellers. I was an old soul as a child and sometimes I think my family forgot how young I was, so they would tell me stories befitting of a full operatic setting, filled with love, sex, and betrayal. I loved it. My aunts and nans passed down family stories that could shock even the most hardened bayman. I aspire to be as good at telling a story as they were.  

ALU: Which writers have had the most impact on your own writing? 

MAGGIE: I turned to Marilynne Robinson and Karen Russell for inspiration when I started writing prose in addition to poetry. Robinson’s prose is so poetic and nourishing, which is funny because I think my prose is very dry. I read Housekeeping at least once a year and wish I could write like her. Russell writes unforgettable scenes where a lot of action takes place while still expertly developing her characters. Her book of short fiction called Orange World is one of my favourites.  

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

MAGGIE: I would choose to spend a day with Rhonda Tipple from “The Flood”. I think I could learn a lot from her and I would love to help her scheme about how to take down the government and get herself a better job.

Maggie Burton is a writer, professional violinist, former municipal politician, and medical student. Burton holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Memorial University and has spent much of her career playing with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and teaching music lessons. Her debut book of poetry, Chores, was awarded the 2024 Canadian First Book Prize by the Griffin Poetry Prize and received a silver medal in poetry from the Independent Publisher Book Awards and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Burton’s writing explores the social and physical realities surrounding women’s domestic labour, sexuality, and relationships through a queer, feminist, working-class lens. Burton lives in St. John’s, where she is raising her four young children.