Award winning author Jordan Abel shares his journey

By Laura Mushumanski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – While interviewing our Indigenous brother who giggles nonstop during conversation, this award-winning author, when learning who he is through his writing is quite the opposite. The Associate Professor within the Faculty of Arts, English & Film Studies Department at the University of Alberta, who loves helping emerging writers on their journey, is reminded of what it was like for himself during the early stages of his learning journey as an Indigenous writer.

The most recent recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, Jordan Abel, shared about his experience as a novice writer, how he became a writer, and the adventures in between. Before his most recent publication, Empty Spaces – that takes the reader on a descriptive journey of the outside world by capturing his audiences of the land through Abel’s observations – settler narratives through an Indigenous lens, Jordan never imagined himself to become an accomplished writer let alone obtaining a PhD from the Department of English at Simon Fraser University back in 2019.

During Abel’s undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta, he came to realize that when taking creative writing classes, he was receiving better grades and boosting his grade point average. He also found that school became joyful and the conversations he was having within his classes “morphed into wanting to try being a writer.”

The current instructor for Indigenous Literatures, Research-Creation, and Creative Writing, found solace in the idea of creating and writing starting at a young age. And once upon a time when Abel was a little boy, some of his fond memories were when visiting Value Village and looking at books. For as long as he can remember, Abel always engaged in reading and writing, and “found the idea of what books are to be enthralling.” The joy itself for Abel during his youth was found during the process of writing stories.

Some of Abel’s early short story publications, when he looks back on them, the humility within him finds his stories to be “embarrassing” while at the same time over the years he noticed that as he kept pursuing writing, the practice of writing shaped him as the writer he is today.

For writers in particular, as within any vocation, there is a craft to how a person goes about engaging in their work, in this case Abel’s work is more fluid. Some writers have a consistent everyday writing practice, and others find inspiration during moments of creativity throughout the year like Abel. Jordan usually “waits for moments of inspiration [that allow him] to genuinely write as much as [he] can in that time.”

Then there is the pressure of writing the first manuscript. Abel spoke about anxiety with his first book, Place of Scraps, that he put a lot of pressure on himself “to try and write something and make an impact.” This kind-hearted uncle that you can often find smiling, Abel really did his homework when writing Place of Scraps; his “goal was to hit the ground running, to publish a book and be happy with it for a long time” and in doing so Jordan became the winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. And noting now that his first well-researched manuscript took 6 years, starting back in 2007 until publication with Talonbooks in 2013.

Along Abel’s journey, he came to realize the importance of genuinely trying to be a part of a community, and “to exist with community, you’re there actually to support people—it goes a long way.” Jordan realized that the more he opened up by becoming involved in community, actually make friends – because we writers are a bit of a recluse, things started to open up for him, emphasizing on “be a part of those things that can support each other.”

Another thing Abel realized was the importance of “writing things that are difficult…. speak to things that are extremely difficult to write” and how this insight shaped his writing journey throughout several of his publications.

As a writer, where we can be engulfed in creations, ideas of things and ambitions, one practice that Abel came to realize and words of wisdom he shares within anyone that is pursuing writing is “continue to find more time for joy.”