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It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no.
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A meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to.
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Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligible vary by state. This episode is brought to you by rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. It's best enjoyed over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata delivering vacation vibes any way or anywhere you drink it. Find out more@rumchata.com drink responsibly Caribbean rum with real dairy cream natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands Pojoaaukee, Wisconsin. All rights reserved. Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everyone and welcome to nbn. I am your host Holly Gattery and I am joined today by Governor General Award winning author Sadiqa de Meyer to talk about her newest collection of essays in the Field which was released with pamlpsest Press in In the Field, Sadiqa Follows is Siddiqua's follow up to the Governor General's award winning Alphabet brings us essays that move searchingly through their central questions. What meaning does a birthplace hold? What drives us to make contact with a work of art? How do we honor the remains of the dead? This writing constitutes a form of fieldwork grounded in intimate observation. In the Field is an extraordinary book, one that invites readers to bring renewed attention to their own lives and and to embrace the subjectivity in the experiences of others. I love that last part and I think it is so important, especially now. Listeners, I just want to tell you a little bit more about Siddiqua Sadiqa de Meyer is the author of the poetry collections Leaving Owl island and the Outer Wards. Alphabet. Alphabet won the 2021 Governor General Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her work has also won the CBC Poetry Prize in arc's Poem of the Year contest and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She lives with her family in beautiful Kingston, Ontario, which is a great town. Welcome again to the show and Sadiqa, I just want to get in with my first question, which is my standard first question for the show. Where did this book come from? Where did it start taking root in your mind?
- [03:17]
B
Okay, thank you for that. Welcome. Holy. This book, so in the field is nine essays and they were written over the span of about 12 years. So the very first one, certainly I didn't think at that time I was working on a book, but as the essay slowly started to accumulate, I thought, well, one, I'm interested in this form, the essay form is something I want to keep exploring. And also I think there's an arc to these pieces that they could go together. And that was maybe, I'm thinking it was maybe three years ago that I started to think of this as a book project. So. And here we are.
- [04:04]
A
Yeah, thank you for that. I'm also really interested in how English, not being your first language, plays into how you write, how you approach language, and how you approach telling stories. Because it's something I think about all the time now. English is my first language. I'm actually learning Farsi as a second language and it is a slog and it is slow going. But I, I, I think about how my father, who English is his second language, how the stories he tells and the way he tells them is so different than the way that I tell stories, the way I think about stories, and how much speaking in a language that is not your native language impacts that. And I'd just love for you to talk about this.
- [04:50]
B
Yeah, that's an interesting question too, and one that my, so my book Alphabet Alphabet delves into that question of how my first language was Dutch and how it inflects my English and the if I had to distill that book's thoughts down to one, I would say that Dutch retains for me a certain immediacy, an emotional resonance that English never quite achieves. And I think that has to do with the way that we imprint a first language into ourselves, a very embodied way of learning it. There's such great sincerity to childhood, you know, where we really mean what we say as we, as we learn to speak. And, and English came just not that much later for me. I still was a child, but when I learned it, by the time I was between the ages of 10 and 12 approximately, just didn't embed itself in me in that same. At that same level. So even though I'm fluent in English, I'm more fluent now in English, I would say, than in Dutch. Dutch. I would think it would take. Take at least a few weeks of returning and immersion before I would feel really fully at ease again in it. So there's a, you know, a facility I have with English, but not that deep. There's not that deep emotional root to it. And when you talk about the difference between, say, between English and Farsi and the way your father tells stories. Yeah, I recognize that as well. Although Dutch and English have a much more subtle. The difference is more subtle because they come from the same Germanic root language. And so there is a lot of common ground. The leap isn't as big, but I know from trying to learn one of my father's languages, which is Punjabi, that the. The distance between that and Dutch and English is so much bigger. It's a lot more work to try to learn it, but also it lends itself to very different structures of. Of narrative and syntax and meaning.
- [07:03]
A
Yeah, thank you for that really gorgeous answer. Now, I usually don't talk about book covers on this program, as I'm definitely don't judge a book by its cover kind of girl. But I do kept coming back to your cover and thinking of what a perfect vibe it gives for the overall feel of your book and what you talk about in your book, which is so deeply rooted in the field. In the field of art, you know, in the field of our lives. Like, it's just really remarkable and how it has that dreamy but powerfully rooted feel to it. The COVID Like, that's what it gave me. All those. Yeah, it's got those great greens and golden colors. And I was wondering if you could talk about how we should judge your book by this cover.
- [07:51]
B
Sure. So that's. Thank you. So Ellie Hastings designed this cover, and the painting on it is actually by my partner. So it's a painting of a field that we both are familiar with. It's down the highway from. From where we live. And it's. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a beautiful painting. And what I love about it is that the part you see on the COVID of this book, it's recognizably a landscape, but almost. Almost leaning a little bit towards abstraction as far as the forms and the colors are really kind of being distilled out of, like, being a landscape into. Into just being themselves. And there is. There is a depth of you. You can look right into the View and in the Field is a title I chose for various reasons, but certainly one of them is literal. There is a literal field study in the book where, where there's a meadow that I passed through in some way. I just, Yeah, I liked grounding the, the title in that. In that image of the field. And the sky's, I think, just a little bit stormy looking, but there's sunlight falling on the field. I love that contrast as well. Thank you for. That's the first time I've been asked about the COVID Really.
- [09:16]
A
It was one of my first questions, but always like, don't ask what the COVID is. Don't ask what the COVID is because we're here to talk about the work within. Don't do it.
- [09:22]
B
Well, I mean, I have to say that I don't know about, but, like, one thing I really appreciate about smaller presses is that you get a lot of say in the COVID if you want it, you know, And I, I really, I think that part is so exciting and important too. I like the visual part. So, yeah, it's nice to be able to influence how it looks.
- [09:44]
A
Yeah, I, like I said, I just thought it was great. And it, it spoke to something very familiar in me. I don't know if you've ever seen that, where you see a piece of art and you're like, I know that. Even though you've never seen it before, and even though it's different technically, not like anything you've seen before, but it's speaking to kind of a cellular recognition of an ex, of a feeling more than something I've seen visually. And I think that's, that's what it, that's where it got me. The, the first essay in this collection is dealing with death, and it's called the Singing Bone. And I live with existential ocd and I steer away. I always tell myself I don't want to talk about things. I don't want to talk about the D word. I, I'm going to spiral if I do. But then I invariably end up writing about cemeteries all the time. So I was like, oh, Sadiqa is writing about a cemetery too.
- [10:36]
B
I'm.
- [10:37]
A
I'm in, like, it's such a weird thing for me to, to be interested in, considering I tried to avoid it, getting obsessed about it at all costs. And I would, I would really love for you to talk about this essay, but specifically talking about how it is structured because I as a writer move a lot in my essays. What I mean is I, I, I'm incapable of being like, oh, we're going to start here, and it's going to follow a very normal linear process until the end. It. It moves all over. And you do this too. So I was like, aha. It can be done, and it can be done well. So I'm really interested, which I know this might be, for some of our listeners, a strange question, but I want you to talk about structuring your essays, how you think about it, but structuring this essay in particular.
- [11:28]
B
Okay. Thank you for asking such great questions. And I am holding the book and taking a look back at the essay as we talk. So, yeah, so that the Singing Bone is. You're right, it visits a cemetery in a bit of detail. So it's. It's a piece, just briefly, that has to do with coming to terms with the idea that my. The grave of my maternal grandparents was. Was rented and that. Which I wasn't aware of until the. The rental term expired and then they were reinterned. And I took that as a chance to reflect on that, I believe, relatively new custom of sort of reinterning people because of a lack of space in cemeteries. So, yes, this essay tells that story, but it does it very associatively. And I believe that, yeah, this is not a piece where I sat down and sort of drew out. This is structurally what I wanted to, but it moves more, I would say, the way that a poem might. And I'm not sure if you relate to that, but you and I have both written books of poetry like it's. It's. I just gave myself permission to go sideways when I thought that's. That's where my mind is going now. And the through line is. Is the notion of bones in. In this essay. So it does move through some. Some fairy tale and some. Some personal, like earlier recollections that take place long before the. The exhumation of that grave, the memories of medical school, some research I did on other burial methods. And I think what holds it together is that I. It's funny that I'm thinking of saying, oh, the spine of the essay, which is also a bone, strangely. But, yeah, I think. I think I was just trying to make sure that each section riffed on that notion of bones in some way. But other than that, it was a sort of poetic associative leaps, which is.
- [13:32]
A
Probably why I was like, this makes complete sense to me. This is the only way to write an essay. That's. I mean, that's how. That's how I experience the world. It's like, you know, people expect you to walk through a door, but I'm coming up through the floor. You know, it's like, yeah.
- [13:47]
B
I mean, it's so wonderful to be able to do that right on the page. You can. Yeah.
- [13:52]
A
Well, again, like, one of that's the kind of ephemeral quality to your writing, and the lyricism is in something I love so, so much. I'm writing a collection of essays right now, and, you know, I'll read somebody else's essays and think, oh, I need to be more like that. I need to be more grounded. I need to be more factual. I need to stop coming at everything slant. I mean, I'm saying that because that's how someone has told me I go at things. But the truth is, it's just the way I go with things. And then I read your essay, and I was like, well, Sidiko does it. I can do it, too. And everyone else can just be quiet and let me do what I want.
- [14:27]
B
I. I'm glad to be your. Your permission. I mean, I've heard the writing advice before, which I think is very helpful, is that you should try to write as closely as you can to how your mind works. Like, you should try to transfer that onto the page, because then it will be really yours. And that sounds like exactly what you're. What you're doing.
- [14:51]
A
Yeah, Yeah, I do. And then my editors come in and say, okay, we're fine with you doing whatever you're doing here, but we need to help the reader a little bit. I'm like, that's fair. That's fair. I was wondering if we could take a pause and if you would read to us from your collection.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I'll skip to another essay where I look at the idea of birthplaces through the research that I call experiential research. So sort of being in a place and. And then writing about it as I go. So I went back to my birthplace, which is Amsterdam, to write this piece. And then I'm reflecting on the kind of influence that place has on us and the way that birthplaces might come with us when most of us no longer live where we were born. So this section is from that essay. Places teach you how to move. You start out clumsy, flailing in eager repetitions until the willed action occurs. Crawling on linoleum floors over the raised thresholds between rooms, a small groping hand finding that the radiator is hot. Amsterdam means being lifted onto the front of your mother's bicycle, grinning into the weather the city flooding your rudderless, permeable, epiphanic attention and tuning your senses that street with the rhythm of tree trunks at steady intervals, grand green sigh of the park, rasped pulse of a dog's bark, voices of the market funk of raw fish a cold plum pressed into your hands. On early return trips, Amsterdam meant traveling by train from the east, my brothers ricocheting between seats, craning my neck from the washed light of the station ceiling, walking the paved edge of a canal as if it were a balance beam, meticulously dissembling a hazelnut pastry at a coffee shop with mirrored walls. Later visits were from the airport in the west, lowering the gear of my speech into Dutch, leafing through books at Atheneum, glimpsing the fit of my skirt in shop windows, watery but true to color in the daylight, precise and shadow at night, climbing a steep narrow staircase to a door with an L shaped handle, sloped ceilings, a mattress on the floor. Amsterdam is the consideration that others are always nearby. I rent a bike and feel a double estrangement when the shop worker instructs me on the ring lock in blunt English. Then I ride out through the alley and I'm fluent again, coasting alongside mallard colored water over the hills of bridges, feeling the velvet rain on my face, lifting my legs to avoid the splash of a puddle. I see someone half raise her left arm for a turn, poised and casual at once a concise gesture that relies on the entire choreography of the city and isn't how I signal where I live, strong, armed and emphatic, as if reminding the drivers that bicycles exist.
- [18:00]
A
Thank you so much for that.
- [18:02]
B
That was beautiful.
- [18:03]
A
And I think it leads really perfectly into my next question for you, which is about spiritual life writing, which was not a question I was going to think I was going to get to ask you when I started this book. But as I saw spirit materials, I'm like excellent. My my niche interest is I'm going to be able to ask about this. This means spiritual life writing is so important. But often when you talk to people about spirit spiritual writing, they glaze over or they think you're going to try to sell them New Age crystals or I don't. I don't know. But I don't often get a very engaged reaction when I start talking about this and I started that. I started reading this particular essay and it starts with the beautiful lines when I find the envelope in the mailbox. It's soft heft differs from a paper letter. So sweet arrival, another tightrope Walk without a fall. For three years now, Amy and I have written to each other in embroidery. And I'm like, I am in whatever happens, that beginning, its softness, those connections, the thread of connection between you and Amy and the embroidery is like, I want to know everything. So my question for you is about first spiritual life writing and how you approach it, and if you even give it these considerations. I do. I always approach it as though I'm aware that, in fact, my audience probably doesn't want to listen to it, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. So I try to go into it with as much tangibility as I can and as much rootedness as I can, which is maybe overthinking it. I don't know. And then I also wanted to ask you about your writing about faith, because spiritual life writing can involve faith, but it doesn't necessarily need to involve religion. Spirituality doesn't have to be religiously related. And I was just really interested about this essay in the way that you explore both of those concepts, both together and separately, which I probably reading too much into this, but because I work with embroidery floss a lot. You know how embroidery floss, it's like. It's like one big thread, and then you can pull apart and use all the other ones, all the threads separately, too, in smaller threads. So I was like, is this a purposeful metaphor? Am I just really overthinking this? But I'll leave it to you. I'll leave it to you to answer that question.
- [20:28]
B
Yeah, that's a good question as well. I. I mean, I think in my own relationship to faith, the trajectory that follows is a fairly common one these days, I would say, in that I was raised with the presence of. Of traditional religions. My father's side is Muslim, my mother's side Christian, and they were both practicing, like, practiced religions in my house. But. But then I, you know, I no longer call myself either of those things. And yet there is. There is a spiritual aspect in my life, I would almost say, of course. Of course there is. Although sometimes now I think culturally, where I live, it's. It's assumed that maybe there doesn't have to be. I don't really believe that. Like, I think the. The physical, the emotional, the spiritual, they are dimensions of being human. And so putting words to that, I think it does come kind of naturally, if you're, as in these essays where I'm trying to convey a holistic subjectivity, right. That I'm thinking, feeling, sensing my way through the world and hoping that that serves as kind of a lens for the reader to do the same. Spirituality, I think it's just an inevitable aspect of that, but I do in that essay, I explored a bit more explicitly because I'm writing about this art project that I am part of with Amy Rubin. And we do write to each other in Embroidery, in a. In a conversation about our faith, about our relationship to it. And then in the, in the last essay in the book, actually, I talk about the Dutch writer ETI Hilleson, who was Jewish, wrote a diary during the Second World War before being killed at Auschwitz, and she explores her, her religiosity, her faith in great depth and is a really inspirational figure to me. And so in that essay, I grapple a bit more personally with what, what her writing has meant to me as someone who's interested in giving faith a place in my life as well. Mutine.
- [22:53]
A
Adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice.
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An individual confident in their contradictions.
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They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen the new fragrance by Miu.
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A
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Upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag laundry pair at Lowes. Like the new Maytag washer and dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is in stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's. Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours. All began as nothing. Just a blank page with a blinking cursor asking a simple question. What do you see? Great ideas. Start on Mac. Find out more on apple.com Mac I think, I think faith is, and again, not necessarily religious faith, although of course that too if that's, that's, you know, what what people are after. Well, I think faith and spirituality and I think we're In a dearth of it. And whenever I think about spirituality, in my mind it's synonymous with community and togetherness and connection. And I think that's why I'm so interested in. So this idea of this image of writing to get to someone, to a friend in embroidery floss and that connection and the. Oh, anyways, it's just beautiful. Everybody, you have to read this book. The whole thing is beautiful. And I think that it can be so wonderful, especially for people who are artists and writers, to read about the creative process and not necessarily the creative process if this is how you write a book, but I mean, living a life in service of ideas. And that is something in this book that reminded me so much and it. Like this. Please take this as a compliment. It's meant as. Because it's going right beside Adele Wiseman's Old Woman at Play is one of my favorite books on creativity.
- [26:01]
B
Oh, I haven't read that. I will.
- [26:03]
A
Oh, it is so good. It is so good. I. It was the same thing. I found myself, like, highlighting constantly and oh, I have to remember this, and I have to remember that. And it was really just such a wonderful book that made me think more deeply about my relationship to creativity and how to. How to live a life in service of ideas. Like the title essay, in the Field, We Start in a Pond, I believe it was.
- [26:28]
B
Yes.
- [26:28]
A
That's great. And you know, you might think, what does this have to do with art and creativity? But it has. And it has everything to do with it. And I would really love for you to talk about this essay because, I mean, this is. I mean, I don't. I'm not saying I know much about your life. I. I don't. But I. I was really like, I didn't know she did this. I didn't know this was part of, you know, your experience of being actually literally out there in the field with insects and amphibians doing actual fieldwork. I'd love for you to talk about it.
- [26:59]
B
Right. Thank you. Well, I did that, yes, as a biology student very long time ago, as a summer job. And I though I no longer do that, it seemed relevant to write about, partly because I do still really love to spend time out in woods in the fields. That's still very meaningful to me, to connect with the land in that way. And so in that essay, my job was to catch aquatic insects. So, yes, in the ponds and identify them and contribute to a kind of register that collectively a group of people were putting together of, like, all the organisms that lived in this Particular small conservation area outside of London, Ontario. And in that essay, part of what I'm reflecting on is. So that was, I'm estimating 20, 28 or so years ago is. Is how my relationship to. To a place to land has evolved since then and how the way that we, you know, biology is the study of life, the way that we studied life in that particular summer. I talk about how we electrically shocked the fish in a pond to make them float to the surface briefly so that they can be counted. Examples like that. I delve into, you know, that that study wasn't extractive. It was meant to be reverent. It was meant to by the scientist Key Dudny, who ran it, to be a study that would inspire people to appreciate, like, just how many species are present, how much biodiversity there is, even in a very small, you know, ecologically like, unremarkable piece of land, basically. And I, Yeah, I was happy to be a part of it then. I think it was well intended. But. But the essay is about problematizing the approach we took at the time through the lens of what I've come to learn over that long interval between.
- [29:05]
A
Yeah, it definitely gave me a lot of food for thought, but equally made me want to go roll around in the grass.
- [29:13]
B
Yeah, good. It was. I hoped it was that kind of invitation too.
- [29:17]
A
Yeah, like go get itchy.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah. Don't get any ticks, but roll around in the grass.
- [29:24]
A
For sure. Yeah, exactly. Lay under a tree for a while, you know, embrace your inner Alice in Wonderland and just hang out. Yeah, it was, it was such a lovely invitation for that. And the whole book just felt wonderfully provocative and gentle and it doesn't. And the powerfulness of it was like a very steady electric burnt through it. And I mean, I loved, I loved it. And like, as I said, because I'm trying to write personal essays on very hyper local places around me and that this really felt like such a great thing for such a great book for me to find and read at this time, because the celebration of just our. Our lives, wherever they are, that doesn't have to be in these throbbing metropolises or, you know, historically. I mean, every place on the planet is steeped in history. We just don't always know about the histories and. And understanding that and just being aware of where we are and the fields of our lives. I mean, it was really just a perfectly powerful book and I think it's one that a lot of people could read it now and I hope if they do. And my neck, my next question is going to be what, you know, you might hope. Although I try to not ask author's prescriptive questions, like, what do you want a reader to take away from this? I mean, how can you possibly know? But I hope, as a reader, I feel confident saying, I hope that people reading this maybe could reflect a little bit on, like, the daily sacredness of their lives and the geographical sacredness of the places around them, and not like, necessarily in front of them on a screen or places that they want to be, but the places that they are. And yeah, it was a really amazing reflection for me about that. And when you were talking about reverence, it's supposed to be an act of reverence and not extraction, I really hung onto that idea or the word reverence, because I think that that's a word that describes how I felt about your writing, but how the attention with which you gave everything you wrote about, which I loved. But, yeah, my question, if. If there is something that. Understand that books are mirrors and readers are going to take away whatever they want to take away, and as a writer, you have no control over that, really. But if you could have something that you would like a reader or some readers or most readers to take away from this collection, do you have any idea of what that would be?
- [31:54]
B
Um, yes, I. I have a little bit of a sense, and I thank you for reading the book as you did, because I. I feel that the heart of my answer is. Is in there, what you said. Like, I. I know I walk a line in my writing. It's confessional writing, as it's called. Right. It's. It's my experiences, my observations, and yet that's not really. I don't. I don't write to tell my story. And my hope is that by going as deep as I can into what I've walked in my. In my day or, you know, in this process, I. That. That I can. For the reader, that. That turns around, into inviting them into their experience, that I'm returning to them a sort of capacity. I hope that to. To. To inhabit that same subjectivity for themselves so that they can move through the world with that sense of centralizing their interpretations and their. Their experience of it with. With that sense of. Yes, what you said, like a kind of reverence. That's my hope that it gives. It gives people that feeling for. For even a moment after they look up from the book, you know?
- [33:14]
A
Yeah. Even as we're talking right now, I can see out my window the. The maple tree has done that complete flame out of Red outside it. And it's just. It's just blowing there. And I'm thinking, yeah, after this, I feel like as an act of reverence to you and appreciation of you and your book, I have to go out there and just like touch it intimidates me.
- [33:35]
B
That's funny. Well, I'm looking out my window at my. You know, my favorite tree is the tulip tree out in front of our house, which is almost. Almost given up all its leaves now, but the ones that are there are like this burnt coppery color. And yeah, they're really nice. I will touch the leaves for you.
- [33:51]
A
Thank you. I'll. I'll take a. I'll take a little picture of it. I just. Any. I think that any book that can really drag us out of technology induced apathy, I guess that numbness that I think that it's hard sometimes not to live in and then infect us with that glorious curiosity like your book does and that. That championing of slowness which I found your book does. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I tore through the essay. I read them. It's. It's not like it's a grind to read, but I mean, I felt like as I was reading, I was being encouraged to slow down in general and pay attention to things and the celebration of the things that we overlook in life, but also acknowledging our place in a greater scheme of things and histories and family histories and geographical histories and our relation to other species and. Oh my gosh, there's just so much considered in such, like, quite frankly, distilled essays where it felt like every word in there needed to be in there. And this is on the end of me reading a book where I was like. I think like 300 pages could have been cut out of this book. Where was this person's editor? But maybe.
- [35:13]
B
Well, thanks. I guess that's why the book turned out small. It's a. It is a distilled book. You're right.
- [35:20]
A
I think it's something that. And here's a question that it wasn't even intended to, but I have to ask it now. It's like I have a. I have problems writing long books. I don't write long books. Like, I thought for my life to get my novel to around 50,000 words. And I don't. I can't. My. My short. My short fiction is like flash fiction. It's even shorter. And I think it's around a hundred pages or less. Like, I don't write long books and I'm. Somebody said oh, it's. It's the poet and you. I'm like, well, then I think more people could do with some poetry in their life because I think a lot of novelists who, who are quite redundant sometimes and not all, you know, I'm not saying all, but I found that some of the novels I love the best are written by poets because it's like there is not a word in there. There's not even a comma in there that does not need to be in there. And I respect that. Do you find you have the same thing, like writing condensed? Like, are you ever like, oh, I. This needs to be longer and then you have to try to make it longer?
- [36:15]
B
Well, I have also, yeah. Struggled to make things longer. I, I think it. Right. Like, poetry definitely is a, is a, an education in concision. Right. And in making every word count. And I, I don't. I like sometimes to inhabit the voice of. Like when I'm reading a novel that is much more rambly than that, where there's this comfort of, oh, this person is going to elaborate and expand and there's just, you know, there's a conversational style that's expansive here. I like that. But when I think about it, if that's done well, it's still not really that there are extraneous words. It's not that you could cut something, but it's that someone has successfully put a chattier voice on the page. Right. So, yeah. And I thank goodness there are many writers because I. Part of me wishes I could write like that, but I just don't. I don't. So fortunately, that kind of writing also exists, but it's in other hands.
- [37:18]
A
Absolutely. I think of immediately Wayne Ng's wonderful book the Family Code, which is a big book and not one, not one bit felt extraneous or that it shouldn't be there. So obviously non poets can do it. I just find that more often than not, poets tend to write these really gloriously distilled novels. And I mean, maybe they're not for everybody. You know, they're. They're for me, though. And I, I like. You do. Thank God there are different kinds of writers because when I need to read something like some historical fiction slash smut, I'm not the person who can write that, but am the person who's going to love reading it. Yeah. It is so important. And I mean, I can. Every time I start a book or a fiction, every time I start thinking about writing fiction, I'm always like, this is going to be my commercial Breakthrough. And then I do something ridiculous because I'm in cape. And that makes that impossible. Right. Because I cannot do it. But I do love reading beach reads and commercial fictions and poetry and sci fi. And I could never write sci fi, I think, to any great level of success. But I do love read. Yeah. So there's. There's definitely something there. And so Lolly, to talk to you about it and speaking of poetry and. And I could be completely wrong here, but my last question for you is, what are you working on now? I believe it's poetry. Or maybe it's poetry you're finishing and you're moving on to something else.
- [38:49]
B
Yeah, you are completely correct. It is poetry. So that is at the finishing stage. So it's a book that comes out in May of 2026 called Cuffs People, Q A F. And that's with signal additions. So I'm at that. This is the week where at the end of the week they take it out of my hands and I can't make any more changes. So it's a period for a writer where I tend to lose a little sleep just thinking about, is it right enough? Is that line gonna work? What about that poem? But I am very excited to see it come together. And it is a book where I've attempted something a little bit new. You said, you know that. You said that about writing science fiction. I haven't invented things very much before in my writing. And this doesn't invent in the direction of like, science fiction so much, but in. In terms of mythology. This book imagines a place which I, in the book, I configured as Kaf, inspired by the Mount Kaf in Islamic mythology, where people have mixed race or ethnicity, that is their homeland. And so it's an. It's the imagining of what. What a place like that would. Would mean.
- [40:14]
A
God, I gotta read that. You know, mix well, we're both mixed up.
- [40:19]
B
Yes.
- [40:19]
A
Something I think about all the time is belonging. Because I would never say that I don't feel like I belong anywhere. But I will say that there are times I feel like I don't belong in times and places and around certain people, I feel like I don't. And it's not like a completely untethered existence. I'm not trying to say that. But yeah, I really can't wait to read that. And if I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get you back on the show to talk about.
- [40:49]
B
Thank you. Well, and I recognize a lot in your memoir about mixed raceness views. And so, yeah, it'd be lovely to talk to you about that again.
- [40:58]
A
Yeah, I actually did have a question about being mixed race for this and I thought, you know what, we're not always going to make everything about that, Holly. So I now next time we will make everything. And I was as a conscious, like I put in the mixed race experience and everything I talk about and I'm trying to be more mindful about maybe everyone, not everyone wants to talk about this, but we will next time. We'll pit a pin in it and come.
- [41:21]
B
I would love to.
- [41:23]
A
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show Sadiqa, everyone. We're listening to the wonderful Siddiqua DeMeyer talking about her new release, a collection of essays called in the Field, which was published with Pamela says Press and is available anywhere books are bought or borrowed. Thank you again for joining me, Zadika.
- [41:43]
B
Thank you so much. Foreign.
- [41:57]
A
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