Reflections on the Horizons Writers Circle by mentee K’alii Luuyaltkw

Fourteen Alberta writers recently concluded their participation in the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Horizons Writers Circle, its mentorship program for writers within the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community, ESL, and underrepresented writers living in Edmonton. The program ran from October 2022 to March 2023, under the coordination of publisher and writer Luciana Erregue-Sacchi. Writers from diverse backgrounds in the early stages of their careers received mentorship from experienced writers in a series of workshops, panels and one-on-one activities. The program introduces new writers to the broader Edmonton community, helping them make new contacts in the industry, and thrive in their writing careers.

We asked two of the participants, mentee K’alii Luuyaltkw and mentor Naomi McIlwraith, to reflect on the experience for the EAC blog. (You can read mentor Naomi McIlwraith’s guest blog article here).

My experience as a mentee in the Horizons Writers Circle (HWC) program caused me to reflect upon my day-to-day capacity, communication habits, and overall approach toward my writing practice. I learned that I’m a very independent person. I like to be busy, but I can easily get overwhelmed. I successfully completed my goal to write a short story (my first one!), but I wasn’t always communicative with my mentor and my approach to writing was difficult to schedule. My advice to folks would be to communicate regardless of what’s going on, as professional accountability is vitally important. The program itself without a doubt pushed me forward with my goals and helped me to grow in unexpected ways. For that, I am grateful.

Moving forward, I plan to seek out funding opportunities, so I can work on my anthology of short stories. I have five or six stories written in addition to the one I worked on while participating in HWC. If I were to categorize my stories, I would describe them as modern legends with an allegorical underpinning. They’re inspired by my culture and my journey as an Indigenous person experiencing moments of self-discovery and finding lessons within unforeseen circumstances. There’s a good mix of the mundane and the otherworldly. I frequently include a combination of cultural teachings and personal knowledge that has been meaningful in my life. Often these lessons are communicated through symbolism in the form of spirits and animals, as well as tongue-in-cheek humour.

My advice for other emerging writers is to simply get your story out and worry about editing later. The biggest obstacle I’ve faced as a writer is my perfectionism and fixation on finding the exact phrasing. It’s a thing that always slows me down. It makes me feel down if I can’t get it ​“right”. It even prevents me from starting to write in the first place; it’s really such a monumental burden we give ourselves when we expect perfection. I’ve learned to just get the story out by setting a goal to write 500 words a day, or whatever seems reasonable for you.

Oral tradition has always been a significant part of my process. My primary expression of storytelling over the past few years has been spoken word poetry. I enjoy experimenting with tone, inflection, pauses, etc., as devices to bring the listener into the narrative. Now that I’ve moved on to short stories, I find my process still retains the oral tradition aspect, I often tell my stories out loud to family and friends before writing them down. The feedback I receive often motivates me to further manifest the stories in the written format, whereby they can be polished, refined, and shared with a wider audience. I’m often told that words are like medicine for the right listener, so it’s important to share our narratives because we never know what blessings they might bring to you as an author, as well as to the people around you. I believe these things, and that we all have stories to share. That’s why I encourage anyone who’s interested in writing to just start with a concrete and manageable goal to get their story out.

K’alii Luuyaltkw is a storyteller and a truth seeker from the Nisga’a Nation. Her family is from the house of Ni’isjoohl (the spirit people) who were originally known for their many gifted halayt or medicine people. In accordance with this ancestral lineage, K’alii uses their poetry and short stories as a form of medicine both to create healing for herself, as well as to conscientiously influence the web of interconnectedness that unites all of life. Her goal for the Horizons Writers Circle mentorship is to continue to develop her poetry and short stories in preparation for publication as an anthology.