Episode 35: Jaclyn Deforges

This week, poet Conyer Clayton chats with writer Jaclyn Deforges about her debut poetry collection DANGER FLOWER. The pair talk about using craft to avoid clichés, the importance of trusting your intuition, drawing creative inspo from the natural world, and more.

Conyer Clayton is a writer, musician, editor, and gymnastics coach living on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. Her debut collection, WE SHED OUR SKIN LIKE DYNAMITE (Guernica Editions, 2020), won an Ottawa Book Award and was a Relit Award finalist. She's released 2 albums and many chapbooks; recently, HOLY DISORDER OF BEING (forthcoming with Gap Riot Press, 2022) by VII, of which she is a member, and SPRAWL (Collusion Books, 2020) written with Manahil Bandukwala, shortlisted for the bpNichol Award. Her second book, BUT THE SUN, AND THE SHIPS, AND THE FISH, AND THE WAVES, (A Feed Dog Book, Anvil Press) is forthcoming June 2022.

Jaclyn Deforges is the author of DANGER FLOWER (Palimpsest Press/Anstruther Books), one of CBC's picks for the best Canadian poetry of 2021. She's also the author of a picture book, WHY ARE YOU SO QUIET? (Annick Press, 2020), which was nominated for a Chocolate Lily Award. Jaclyn is a Pushcart-nominated writer and the winner of the 2018 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices award, two 2019 Short Works Prizes, and a 2020 Hamilton Emerging Artist Award for Writing. Her first chapbook, HELLO NICE MAN, was published by Anstruther Press in 2019. Jaclyn’s writing has been featured in Room Magazine, THIS Magazine, The Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Contemporary Verse 2, Minola Review and others. She is an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and lives in Hamilton with her partner and daughter.

You can order DANGER FLOWER here.

Where to find Conyer: on Instagram and Twitter @conyerclayton; or on her website.

Where to find Jaclyn: on Instagram and Twitter @jaclyndeforges; or on her website.

You can find Glass Bookshop on all social platforms @glassbookshop and check out previous episodes of the show on the Glass Bookshop Radio website.

Transcript to come.