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The Resilient Writers Radio Show: Interview with Aga Maksimowska – Full Episode Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. Today I'm with Aga Maksimowska, um and Aga is the author of Becalming, which came out in 2026, as well as Giant, which came out in 2012 and was a Toronto Book Award finalist coming-of-age novel about premature sexual development and the fall of Communism in Poland.

Her stories and essays have been published in Brick, The New Quarterly, Humber Literary Review, White Wall Review, The Globe and Mail, Today’s Parent. She was also longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. Welcome, Aga. Lovely to talk to you.

Aga:

Nice to talk to you, Rhonda. Thanks for having me.

Rhonda:

So you went from um Giant to Becalming, and everything I've read about Becalming says this is not a calm book. Right?

Aga:

No.

Rhonda:

It had a certain impulsive drive to it. Did you know it was going to be that kind of book when you started writing it or did that? Is that something that evolved like once you got into, I don't know, maybe revising or something?

Aga:

I think I always knew the story I wanted to tell. know, I think early on in my writing career, I got the excellent advice to know your ending. And I think in order to get there, I knew that it would have to be dramatic and propulsive, like you said. So, yeah, I think I think it because I knew where I had to go. I didn't I did have a feeling of the kind of book that it was going to become. Yeah.

Rhonda:

And the main character, is it Gosia? Gosia?

Aga:

Yeah, Gosia.

Rhonda:

Yeah. Gosia. Did that character come to you all at once, like with the voice built in, or did you have to spend some time figuring out who she was and what she wanted? S

Aga:

Oh it's a great question. And actually, Gosia is the same character from Giant. So that's kind of a funny thing. I didn't intend to write a sequel um or anything like that. And I actually don't think of Becalming as a sequel at all. The books work on their own um quite well. But no, it's the same character. I always character very well. Yes. mean, yes and no, right?

She sort of revealed herself in different ways to me uh because I challenged her with the kind of supporting cast of characters. She's having to do very different things and be a very different person than she is in Giant.

So um I wanted to write a more mature book. wanted to write... Giant to me was, you know, all about the experience of being a child. And this book is really so much about the experience of being a parent but also of being an adult child of parents. So that's sort of, uh that was the idea at least.

Rhonda:

And as you were writing, as you were working on Becalming, you said you didn't intend to write a sequel.

03:22
Is this, I was just talking to someone who's writing a trilogy. This isn't a trilogy.

Aga:

Who knows? Who knows? I'm open to suggestions. We'll see what happens.

Rhonda:

Okay. And, talk to me a little bit about, I mean, there's so much about the voice in this novel. So talk to me about how you approached the voice to give it that kind of propulsive drive? Like what kinds of craft choices were you making? um If you can think of them, I know sometimes these craft choices are unconscious, but are there craft choices you were making that you were conscious of when you were thinking about her voice and I guess the narrative structure or narrative arc of the book? uh

Aga:

Well, I think when I wrote Giant originally, you know, there was so much conversation around Giant about, you know, autobiographical fiction and all the rest, which I guess it's a label I somewhat resist because um Gosia is certainly not me. We share some similarities. But I remember the book being sort of slotted into like sometimes people would read it as YA, which it's not. And sort of being in conversation with some writers who maybe perceive the first person as sort of a lesser form, know, serious writers write in the third person.

Rhonda:

Is that a thing we're saying now? First person.

Aga:

We're not. We're not, we're not saying that at all. And in fact, I remember doing an interview once, um sort of, you know, in between these two books when I was actually writing a different book, had, which never came out. And I was very much trying to write in the third person because I think somehow I perceived it to be more objective.

Like I would allow myself uh more possibilities in the third person perhaps more lessons to be drawn from a narrative. And I remember having this interview and just like having this bit of like an epiphany of like, I'm actually really deeply interested in people. And I really am deeply interested in the first person narrative. I wanna know people's stories.

This happens socially, know, when I meet somebody kind of default, I guess, to my journalism background. I like ask them 20 questions. I always want to know everything about somebody, you know? And I think that's what interests me in literature.

I love books driven by voice. I want to be able to feel and hear, you know, the personality. And I think, and I, you know, I guess good advice to somebody said to me once, like, read the, write the book you want to read.

And I, and I think I do, I am drawn to voice. I'm drawn to first person narrative. you know, I guess you originally asked me about the narrative, like the craft choices and, and, and one of the craft choices was to write a book about a very tumultuous time in a person's life, which is sort of that early adulthood, right? Trying to make, you know, adulting.

And which is often, you know, a time where a young person experiences a lot of anger, but I didn't want to write an angry book. Right. So it's to be like, how, how do I in a novel you know, give across the idea of frustration, of a tumultuous time, of disappointment, without having an angry narrator, which is quite, which could be really off-putting.

I mean, you wouldn't last very long with that kind of a narrator. And I think that that's, you know, therefore some of the choices to infuse some of the dialogue with humor. I really personally...Just like humorless books, think humor and tragedy work so well together. So that was a definite choice.

Like I wanted certain things to be, you where you laugh out loud, butted up right against something very uncomfortable or tragic. Because...

Rhonda:

There's something kind of tender about humor. Placed in tragedy, isn't there?

Aga:

Sure. Yes. And very, very human, right? And quite moving. And I think moving without it being sappy or sentimental necessarily but yeah.

Rhonda:

And so, you know, as you were writing a book, the second book based on a character you already knew well, was there ever a point where you thought Oh, I wanted to say, I don't want to be doing this. like where you thought, oh, I know this character too well. Or was she different as a child and different as a young adult? Someone coming into her, you know, adult identity? Did you find her to be very different?

Aga:

Yeah, I think in some ways, for sure. I mean, you know, I think that's the gift of writing about migration too. I think when you are writing across cultures, um it's kind of a built in, you know, gift for a writer because you, um I think she's different in, in Polish than she is in English.

I think, you know, I write a lot about culture and language. Language is so much of culture. mean, there's like research about we we embody different personalities in our, you know, various languages that we speak. I am…

Rhonda:

That’s fascinating.

Aga:

It really is. I went down a rabbit hole once reading all of this stuff and it really blew my mind. And I mean, obviously I can relate. I speak Polish, I speak English, I speak French poorly, but I'm a different person in those languages and language ebbs and flows, uh it leaves me, it sort of comes back to me depending on who I interact with.

And so for a character to be grown up and to be going through the different trials and tribulations of young adulthood, um for sure, she changes. I don't think she is the same person, but in many ways she is still the same person.

You know, there's a scene in the book that I quite like very early on I think it's chapter two when Gosia is talking with Peter, her boyfriend, they something to the effect of he asks her why she's such a suspicious person, right? And she says, suspicion is my birthright. I'm Polish. We're always suspicious of somebody. And he says, you know, I'm a French Canadian jock. I grew up with a lot of love and privilege and it's like, I am not suspicious. I trust people.

And so much of that is, know, history is upbringing. Right? Gosia is brought up by two survivors of World War II. Those are not people who live lightly. They are full of their own scars and damages. And so she is a product of that. She's also a product of that in Canada, which is very different from Poland, right?

So her teenage years were quite in ways nurturing and lovely and in ways also scarred by family drama. So, you know, she's this kind of, I think she surprised me sometimes, that's the fun of writing it. You put characters and scenes with people who bring out a certain qualities in them that maybe you didn't expect.

Rhonda:

Yeah, for sure. That's the fun part, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Can I ask about the title? Mm-hmm. How did you settle on that title? I mean, I think of it as you know, it's got the word calm in it. So it kind of suggests a certain type of book which then the book isn't no but it but Becalming also is sort of something after a storm. How did you think about the title?

Aga:

Well…

Rhonda:

Did you always just knew it would have this title or no?

Aga:

No, I did not know. I am uh self deprecating and self professed terrible at titles. So I struggle with them. I didn't really know what to call it. But I quite like uh the opening chapter with, you know, um with the sea being a very kind of prominent setting in the book. 

And I like it as a metaphor, you know, the father in the book is a merchant marine. He is in shipping. And I think I kind of, just love the metaphor of, the sea and, the sea going journey, which is slow and boring, right? It's not like, it's not like a flight.

Rhonda:

Yeah. And it’s also Becalming, not becalmed.

Aga:

Right.

Rhonda:

Right, which suggests an ongoing process.

Aga:

Yes. that's, you know, and I suppose I've always, uh I'm attracted to, as a reader, I'm attracted to kind of complex texts. I don't want things to be nice and easy. I kind of seek out difficult things. I didn't want this to be like a neat and tidy narrative with like a beginning and then tidy end.

And, know, if you write about somebody who's, you know, 30 and 34, they're, this is their life. They're, they're, they're, they're just, they're continuing. Right. So, um, and, what Peter teaches Gosia about being a more settled, accepting, loving, calm person.

And what Gosia teaches Peter, you know, about maybe being a slightly more, you know, go-getter or like slightly more vivacious person because she's very critical of his calm and his, you know, kind of taking a back seat to things. I think that was, I liked the title for that reason. And I kind of liked that it's a contrarian title.

Rhonda:

Right, yeah. Yeah. How do you...Let's talk a little bit about process. How do you fit writing into your life? Is it something you like? Are you doing it like right when you wake up or?

Aga:

Well, I mean, you know, do the math. My first book came out in 2012 and this one in 2026. So clearly I have a lot to learn about process.

Rhonda:

But you said I haven't always different book in there that didn't come.

Aga:

Yes, that's indeed true. So I'm being hard on myself. But I am a morning person. I have always been a morning person. So I write best in the morning. A lot of this book was written at 5 a.m. and so was Giant.

I kind of like the first thing in the morning when you're, you know, slightly groggy and maybe not actually fully awake. I just find if I write in the evening or if I write later in the day, I just end up writing about the day and the day just intrudes too much.

And if I write first thing, there's a bit of, you know, a fire under my butt, because I have places to go. So it's a finite amount of time. So I have to produce. I also didn't write this book at home. I don't think I'm capable of writing at home.

Rhonda:

So where did you write it if write it at 5 am?

Aga:

I would writer it at 5 am at home and then I would write it in the library. So when I got going, the 5 a.m. process was usually the very early drafts. Drafting, note taking, writing an outline.

Rhonda:

Research?

Aga:

Sort of isolated scenes research. But like when I, you know, when I have the whole thing to produce, when I'm like ready to go and I have to write the full manuscript, then I just book a study room in the library and I go.

Rhonda:

Okay.

Aga:

So that's a nice time too, because then, you at least have that feeling of you're very productive because nothing is distracting you at the library. just, have to do it. So the Toronto Reference Library was the location for Becalming and I wrote Giant at Robarts at U of T.

Rhonda:

Oh wow, okay. Love writing in a library. I think that's great. Yeah, highly recommend. So um can I, I wanted to go back to something you said earlier about like really enjoying difficult books.  Because I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of writers now think they should write to the market. The market does not love difficult books, like difficult.

Aga:

It does not.

Rhonda:

You know, they're very much on the literary spectrum as opposed to the commercial spectrum. What's your understanding of what makes for a difficult book?

Aga:

Well, I like to work. I don't like to be given everything. I feel, I feel almost offended somehow when I'm given everything. I like to leap. I like to jump. I like to, I don't like to be told like this is, you know, somebody told me once like uh most of what writing a novel is, is moving people through space and time, right? Like how do you move from scene A to scene B? And that connective tissue is kind of, think where the magic happens.

So that connective tissue could either be really boring and the reader just feels like the writer's spoon feeding them. Yeah. Or like, or you're being trusted just to know and just to leap. And I think I really, I really prefer books like that.

Having said that, I mean, I guess it depends what the work is. I don't love, I don't love too many characters in the book. Like I don't, I don't want too many points of view again, because I like voice. I find that, you know, those, those novels with multiple characters, sometimes I'm like, skipping ahead to my favorite character.

Rhonda:

Right.

Aga:

And that's kind of tough. But I like, I think I'm just jealous of poets. I really love poetry. I'm like a, I'm like a closeted poet and I just, I'm so in awe of them, you know, when I read, especially a novel written by a poet, that's such a beautiful thing. I want to be just like arrested by the language or an image that's kind of tough to crack sometimes. I find that like uh really, really, really kind of rich work. Like I want to do that kind of work.

Rhonda:

The deep work. Yeah. you write poetry yourself?

Aga:

No, I do not. I have tried. I have tried and failed. It's not.

Rhonda:

I have also tried and failed. Published poetry, but I also have tried and failed. Easy as it looks sometimes. I wanted to ask you about, just, it's always of interest to folks, your publishing journey. So thinking about before Giant, and you had, you'd already published some pieces, I think, in different literary journals, magazines. So what was your publishing journey?

Aga:

Well, it's sort of a slightly, I guess, unfair advantage, but Giant was my MFA thesis. did an MFA. So having said that, you know, just because it's your thesis, it doesn't mean that you'll find a publisher easily.

Rhonda:

No. There’s a lot that came out of MFA.

Aga:

Yeah. So I just, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I did the cold calling back then. I submitted it to a bunch of presses and they were they were mostly small presses. I mean, back then you didn't have like a direct pipeline into anybody big, you know, there were no like open submissions, you just so there were there were small presses and and I think uh my publisher then was Pedlar Press.

And they had published my thesis advisor's um first book. So I think they were probably just attracted to that. You know, our books were in some ways uh similar and maybe style and feel. So that's how that went.

And then this time around, I also just, you know, submitted to open calls. So I don't have a literary agent. So I just did the work myself and it was quite slow. I want to say it was slower this time around.

Because um when you submit, you know, an open submission call, you want to wait for a response and that can take, you know, almost a year sometimes.

Rhonda:

Absolutely.

Aga:

So it was it was it just took time. had to be patient, which is not a strength.

Rhonda:

Right. And are you um what's been your experience working with um smaller

Aga:

My experience has been that, you know, the editorial process is wonderful. I really do love the editorial process. I feel like writing is so lonely, right? So many of those 5 a.m. days and those days at the library, you do feel a little bit stir crazy sometimes. And so to kind of get out of that silo and to talk to an editor who is invested in your work it is just like, that's probably the best part of the whole writing process, right?

It's just to have an ally, but also to have somebody to really call you out on your blind spots. And that is such a really, I had an amazing editor with my first book it was Beth Follett, who also happened to be the publisher. And I had a great editor on this book, Diane Young.

And it was just like, I just love the conversation, you know? It's not like they're gonna tell you to do one thing and you're just gonna blindly do it. It's just like, it's the conversation. It makes the book better. Because you're not so, know, blinders on this is my work, don't touch it. It's just like, I'm actually grateful.

Sometimes the process can be so hard um because you want it so desperately to get published. But when you actually take a step back. It's kind of good that people say no to you sometimes. Because you know, that second book I wrote that never saw the light of day, I'm kind of glad it's not published. It wasn't ready. It wasn't really, it wasn't really me. wasn't, it wasn't well executed. It just wasn't ready.

Rhonda:

Do you think you'll go back to it at any point or are going to leave it in a drawer?

Aga:

Uh no, I probably will leave it in a drawer. It's a part of the learning experience.

Rhonda:

Part of learning process. And sometimes not all books are meant to be finished and find their way into the world.

Aga:

No.

Rhonda:

Well, Aga, it's been so great talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me today. You're very welcome. Thank you.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that yes, this is a great show, definitely recommend it to other writers. And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it. And I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.