Kate Inglis's Blog

What an honour—A GREAT BIG NIGHT was nominated by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for the inaugural David Booth Children's and Youth Poetry Award!

The lovely team at Nimbus stacked the category, with nominated books from myself and illustrator Josée Bisaillon, author/illustrator Briana Corr Scott and winning author Sheree Fitch and illustrator Carolyn Fisher.

The Canadian literary scene, especially for kids, has bounced back from the pandemic with a fantastic spirit. It was wonderful to be in Toronto with publishers, editors, publicists, and authors and illustrators from across the country—for many of us, it was our first chance to see each others’ smiling faces to celebrate creativity in-person. What a joy.

Many thanks to the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for their devotion to encouraging all of us to share stories together from coast to coast.

“We ventured into territory neither of us had on our radar, which is part of the magic and beauty of these meandering conversations…” —Helena

After four conversations delving into all manner of culture, decline, and rejuvenation—with lengthy pitstops in health, identity, homesteading, the creative arts, and why the skepticism of the hippie fringe might be our closest point of rewind and restart—me and Helena Roth finally delved into drugs and nakedness.

One of the steepest learning curves of my life began on January 4, 2021. The morning of January 5 dawned with what felt like a drastically edited horizon. Some changes were surprisingly easy to manage and tolerate. Others I still mourn, like the forced sobriety that’s got nothing to do with a slippery slope of addiction unless we’re talking about the summertime joy of an ice-cold gin and tonic.

“I don't want to be stone cold sober for the rest of my life. Like Huey Lewis and the News, I want a new drug. What's going to be my altered state? How am I going to manage it so that I feel okay? How do I lose just enough control, just a little, so that I can play in that space of being more free than I feel in my brain?” —Kate

Helena and I realized we share parallel fears and strengths, but at opposite poles. She leaps up and dances, to hell with anyone else, without any liquid courage. I do not. She is aghast at the prospect of improv theatre, which I’d do without a blink.

“I take a firm grip of the top of my head with both hands, holding tight, very tight,” wrote Helena of resistance. “Like a band of metal keeping me/my brain tightly in check, under control, not able to venture out into the unknown…”

Yeah. That’s dancing, for me, bereft of gin and tonic.

“My watcher has different quirks and pet-peeves compared to Kate’s, as we discovered throughout this conversation,” she adds. “But we share the experience: the feeling of not having the bandwidth, for one reason or another, of being generous in our self-consciousness.”

That’s where we ultimately wound up, for this final conversation—marvelling at the generosity of deciding to carry on despite self-consciousness. And what a gift it is to ourselves to let go of the self-focused loop of personal reflection. To give spirit to whatever room you’re in no matter what the conditions or restrictions. To trust that soon enough, those restrictions will be what frees you.

Watch our most recent chat below, or listen at the Tankespjärn website or wherever you listen to podcasts.

It’s been four conversations so far between Helena Roth and I, and as we get into a familiar zone with each other the fireworks have popped more vibrantly with every hangout.

Helena says this one is “…the Tankespjärn-episode with the most questions, ever…” which makes me feel like we’re right where we need to be. As Helena said:

“I curate my life. It’s on me to make. What do I want my life to be? How do I want it to be, where do I want it to be, and with whom do I want it to be? How can I set it up in such a way? Do I dare dream? And what are those dreams? Am I making inroads on some of those dreams?”

As we grow, friendships morph and shift. New people and new ideas enter our lives. What am I looking for, anyway, when seeking the input of other curious people? If we’re going to curate our lives — as we all should, actively — the energy we surround ourselves with, the food we eat or the way we move, heal, grieve, or create — we need to switch on. We need to become conscious about ‘the system that is me’, body and mind alike. Helena again:

“How little we are trained to consciously sense into: Where am I right now? What does my body need right now? What’s my state? We don’t do that. Now… I profess, I do love questions. And yet, all questions aren’t necessarily of service all the time. How they are worded and asked, the energy of them, as well as current circumstances, including my state of mind, all impact and influence the level of service I might, or might not, gain from a question asked. But to a large part, I still say that if you are curiously exploring life with the help of openly asked questions, chances are you live a life filled with life, and don’t run the risk of suffering from a failure of curiosity…”

Watch our most recent chat below, or listen at the Tankespjärn website or wherever you listen to podcasts.

For our third conversation, Helena Roth and I got testy about the same stuff. And there’s no camaraderie like the camaraderie of shared testiness.

She writes so well of where this one went, I’ll let her explain:

“How we are demonizing answers to certain questions, for sure, but even worse—and this scares me—we’re demonizing the asking of the question in the first place. And that’s not a road I want us—culturally, together—to venture further down on.

How can I share what I know, what I see, what I experience, what I fear, what I’m concerned about in such a way that you can have a better chance at receiving it?

Which brings us to the ability to have sticky conversations. Those that are preferably had in person, face-to-face, in the flesh. The one’s where I am not even sure that I know my own stance, and thus perhaps shy away from even more.

Even though what’s needed, from where I stand, is more of them. About what’s important to me, to us. How we are to live together. What we do when there’s strife and angst and disagreement and perhaps even aggression. Sticky! And important.

Join me and Kate as we meander past a number of sticky topics, with curiosity, openness, and quite a bit of playfulness thrown in too. I think that helps, especially when encountering a hard-to-swallow piece of tankespjärn or two.”

Watch our most recent chat below, or listen at the Tankespjärn website or wherever you listen to podcasts.

When Helena Roth and I get together for a chat, we roam some pretty wild and faraway lands between Sweden and Lunenburg County. Every time we do, we find more threads we share: interests, curiosities, and drill sargeant wisdom.

We also laugh a lot. Here’s the second of five conversations for her Tankespjärn podcast—explorations designed to grapple with what doesn’t fit within the framework of our current understanding of reality.

Last time, I wrote that Helena has “…a gentle way of teasing out still-simmering thoughts and granting a license to bring them to the surface.” Pretty sure at this point: she is one of those good witches who casts a spell that entrances you into being brave and share things you didn’t mean to share, but that have been monumentally formative. Because that’s the kind of stuff she likes to play with. So I say more than I meant to. We rant, and we play together.

Watch our most recent chat below, on YouTube, at the Tankespjärn website, or wherever you listen to podcasts. As Helena sums up:

“What else might I not need to be doing? How else can I edit and curate my experience so that I can get closer to the source of what is healthy for a human being?” —Kate Inglis

What can I pare down? What can I remove from my life that makes it richer, healthier, less toxic? How can I empower myself, take the agency that is mine, by birth, by entitlement. Oh how that word is one I have a contentious relationship with. But I am re-shaping my beliefs about it, about entitlement. Choosing to see the positives in it, how it can and should serve… —Helena Roth

The wonderful Helena Roth asked me to join her for a series of five conversations for her Tankespjärn podcast, and of course my first question: what’s Tankespjärn? Here’s how she frames it:

“Tankespjärn consists of two words: Tanke means thought. Spjärn means to resist, to brace against, to use as a starting point upwards/onwards.

As a word-mashup, tankespjärn points to those moments where you hear or see or learn about something, and your face scrunches up, and you go Huh? because what you just heard, saw or learned simply doesn’t fit within the framework of your current understanding of reality.”

I love it. We wandered. We explored completely unchartered ground. Helena has a gentle way of teasing out still-simmering thoughts and granting a license to bring them to the surface. Lately, for me, it’s how my changing context shifts my take on so much: grief, identity, human resilience. It’s so tectonic I almost wish I could rewrite Notes for the Everlost, or add one last chapter. We change around our books, shifting our perspective. The world changes around our books, shifting their meaning. As authors we need to honour what they are, a version of us frozen in still-life. But ultimately, we can’t amend them. That’s why we need to write new ones.

Here’s how Helena sums up our first of five conversations:

“We touch upon houses (have you ever had a house look down its nose at you, for instance?) and character, but also history, touching on the big events that we read about in textbooks. But more specifically, pointing to the import of the tiny stories, the unremarkable lives, the everyday reality of all those that came before us. Prepare for a few rants too, at least some of which I am certain will shower your day with some (possibly sought-after) tankespjärn!”

I was already in the mood to reflect on nature and its link to our wellness when Kiwanis International asked me to write and curate a photo essay on nature and its link to our wellness. Convenient! In particular, as an organization that marshals energy around the potential of children, they asked: what do rosy cheeks do for kids, bodies as well as hearts and minds?

The complete photo essay is here, in glorious magazine format, featuring my own babies through the years as well as those of others. Many thanks to the team at Kiwanis for inviting me into the circle, and for the beautiful work they do around the world. Here’s to getting into some salt, wherever you are.

What a way to wrap up my trio of conversations with the beautiful Estelle Thomson on her SheQuest podcast—we talk about how to remember who we are and what we’re made of, regardless of life’s curveballs. This turned out to be somewhat of a rallying cry for vitality. Huzzah!

Here is the final of this epic conversation on grief! We start by speaking about connecting with your physical and the nourishment that can be found in nature. We speak about all our YIN & YANG channels—the physical and more internal aspect of our being. We widen our lens on creativity, searching for your personal creative outlet and what creativity has to do with grief and trauma. — Estelle Thomson

In the part-two podcast of my conversation with Estelle Thomson, we talk about triggers and my simultaneous experience with them and contempt for them. I’m cheerleading for anti-fragility, after all: the practice of facing the world head-on no matter what headspace we’re in. Hint: look to the mothers and how they manage a child’s tantrum. It’s all in the snacks and the naps.

Kate Inglis, author of Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief and host Estelle Thomson continue a 3-part conversation on grief, body, triggers and creativity. We are back in Kate’s bedroom closet widening our lens on the nuances of grief with a stream of consciousness musings on cultivating fragility in an unjust world, the dark side of motherhood, shame and trauma triggers.

In this episode, we explore rage, the dualities in triggers, the search for equanimity. A fresh look on PTSD, the treasure chest that is scared and the sweetness of wounds. A must-listen! —Estelle Thomson

In the part-two podcast of my conversation with Estelle Thomson, we talk about triggers and my simultaneous experience with them and contempt for them. I’m cheerleading for anti-fragility, after all: the practice of facing the world head-on no matter what headspace we’re in. Hint: look to the mothers and how they manage a child’s tantrum. It’s all in the snacks and the naps.

Kate Inglis, author of Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief and host Estelle Thomson continue a 3-part conversation on grief, body, triggers and creativity. We are back in Kate’s bedroom closet widening our lens on the nuances of grief with a stream of consciousness musings on cultivating fragility in an unjust world, the dark side of motherhood, shame and trauma triggers.

In this episode, we explore rage, the dualities in triggers, the search for equanimity. A fresh look on PTSD, the treasure chest that is scared and the sweetness of wounds. A must-listen! —Estelle Thomson