Betsy is the founder of Vancouver Manuscript Intensive. She designed and directed The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University from 2001-2012; and has been a TWS Mentor or on TWS faculty for many of the past twenty years. She has also been on faculty as Sage Hill Writing Experience (SK), as well as U.B.C.’s Booming Ground, Metchosin International Summer School of the Art, and Smithers Rural Writers Retreat (all in B.C.).
Betsy has been a manuscript consultant and editor for more than 30 years and has published 14 books of creative nonfiction, poetry and mixed genre. Her best-selling book of 24 essays on writing, Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing (Cormorant Books, 2010), has received critical acclaim. Deborah Campbell, author of the Hilary Weston Prize-winning A Disappearance in Damascus, and on the University of Victoria’s Creative Writing Faculty comments on the book: “What a pleasure to have the complex, crazy-making, mysterious process we call ‘creative writing’ beautifully illuminated by a legendary teacher. This classic guide to writing well belongs on every writer’s bookshelf.” Writers and authors Betsy has mentored have gone on to publish books and win, or be shortlisted for, numerous major awards.
What will VMI participants gain from the program?
An in-depth understanding of what their manuscript narrative requires, then how to make it happen on the page for their reader.
What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you have received?
To see the editing and revision process is as much of an act of discovery and creativity as writing the first draft is.
What book, poem or other written work has been most inspirational to you?
Books by Nicole Brossard, Adrienne Rich and Virginia Woolf. Most recently, books by Tanya Tagaq, Claudia Rankin, and Rachel Cusk have been invigorating.
What books do you recommend VMI participants read for additional advice?
The books I recommend are very specific to each writer I am working with.
What are you currently working on?
I seem to be looping back (yet forward) with previous writing projects and books. I’ve mentioned the second edition of the 2023 of Breathing the Page, and there was also a second edition of Bloodroot — tracing the untelling of motherloss, 2021. In that edition, I wrote a long essay reflecting back on the 2001 edition, and Susan Olding wrote a elegant and thoughtful Foreword.
With the second editions of Bloodroot and Breathing the Page, the question of what is narrative and what is story has intensified for me. I find myself now writing various-length pieces that are creating a collage about this vexing and fascinating question.
Another recent highlight was my one-act street opera with composer Lloyd Burritt. The Art of Camouflage was premiered in 2021and it received enthusiastic response. If I had not been a writer, I would have been a composer so this project was elating. The opera was based on my 2016 memoir, Oscar of Between — A Memoir of Identity and Ideas.
What is the most valuable insight or skill that your VMI writers have learned from you?
To make certain the narrative’s shifting proximities are accurate throughout—from choice of language and narrative position (1st, 2nd, 3rd). There’s a tendency to default to the same position: length of sentences/lines and paragraphs/stanzas that are okay in early drafts but that can dull the shifting narratives position: rob them of their intensity and subtility.
What do you gain from the mentoring process?
An ongoing discovery of identifying all aspects (from micro to macro) that create a dynamic, unique narrative.
What will VMI participants gain from the program?
An in-depth understanding of what their manuscript requires from them and how to make it happen, and an increased connection with other writers and authors.
What do you enjoy most about being a VMI mentor?
The challenge of figuring out what the manuscript is really about (as contrasted to what we think or want it to be about). This figuring out never fails to teach me a lot about the nature of narrative, craft and the writing process. Supporting each writer to trust the narrative s/he has been “given,” then allow it to guide you is exciting and always moving.
What do you wish you knew when writing your first manuscript that you know now?
How much devotion is required to write a fully realized and refined manuscript: it always takes way longer and demands way more than you think! Now I know this and have learned to savour it. Honour it.