Q & A with M. T. Dohaney

1. When do you like to write (time of day, day of week)? Where do you do your writing (location)?

I prefer morning. I’m an early riser. I usually exercise for an hour, or in clement weather, I go for a long walk along the Saint John River. When I return from this walk—around 9 am—I begin writing. As a rule, I do not accept luncheon dates when I am in the midst of a novel, as the break disperses my thoughts and I find that I rarely return to work afterward. I usually work until two pm. I am, of course, talking here about working on the computer. Composing—or mind writing—takes place in various and sundry places and at various and sundry times. I find that lying in a tub of warm sudsy water is very conducive to mind writing. Likewise, I am never bored on long bus rides, as I spend the time getting to know my characters.

I live in a condo—on the 5th floor. My study overlooks a tiny, well-kept little park called Officers Square. They hold concerts there in the summertime. Just beyond the park is the beautiful Saint John River. I have my desk situated so that I can stare out at the river. I have a balcony off my study, and in the fall when the trees turn those breath-taking New Brunswick colours—blood red sugar maples, bright yellow birches, and orange-red wild cherry, together with a generous mix of other trees that have their own distinctive colours—I sit out on the balcony and do mind writing.

2. What was your first piece in print (book, review, or article, etc)?

I distinctly recall my first publication. It was in the Annals of Saint Anne de Beaupre. I was living in Vancouver at the time and doing the hausfrau thing while my husband attended the University of British Columbia. I had two small children and perhaps because I was house-bound and lonely, I began writing. My brother was working in Vancouver, so one day I plucked up the courage to show him my output. He had done some writing himself so I trusted his judgement. As well, he showed my work to a friend of his who had just published a book called The Peter Principle. This person said that my work was publishable. Encouraged, I sent in one article to the Annals of Saint Anne and I received a note back asking for more of my work. I also received a check for fifteen dollars. Instead of being proud of my achievement, I was ashamed. I never even showed the response to my husband, and many years passed before I got the nerve to submit this “hidden in the drawer” work to other magazines and short story publishers. Each piece I submitted was accepted for publication. It made me sad to realize that I had wasted so much of my writing life on account of my own insecurity about my writing ability.

3. What character from your book(s) is the most like you? What one would you most like to be?

Actually, my characters are just that— fictional characters. I do not believe that any one of them is like me in temperament or in achievement. I do have a lot of the qualities of the grandmother in both the Corrigan Women series and in The Flannigans. I am a no-nonsense, let’s get on with it, type of person. However, I have some of Julie (The Flannigans) in me as well. Some part of me has always wanted to do missionary work. I talk about this in the book When Things Get Back to Normal. In that journal, I mention that I had told my friend that I had a hankering for missionary work. She quickly doused my enthusiasm by saying that I was far too self-indulgent to be in the missionary trenches. She pointed out that I am partial to perfumed baths, clean surroundings, and soft sheets—not exactly easy to come by when one is in the mission field. I also admire Bertha and Tess in The Corrigan Women. I have no time for people who linger and malinger over problems without moving onward in some positive way. For this reason, I can never have a heroine who gets the vapours.

If I had to live in the body of one of my characters, I would choose to be Tess. She had her share of heartbreak, but she also knew un-requited love—the most exquisite type of love. She also had a well-rounded life. She had a career, a husband, and a child, and she appeared to cope quite nicely with her life. Of course, Ernest in The Flannigans also knew un-requited love—but because he is a male I cannot identify as well with him.

4. Who is your favourite author(s)?

I do not have a favourite author. This has become such an awkward answer for me whenever the question arises that I am going to have to settle on someone sometime and then find reasons why this author is, indeed, my favourite. People expect authors to have a favourite author. It is just the way it is. I am going to have to conform to expectations. Perhaps I’ll do that next year. Or the year after.

Because I belong to the Newfoundland Writers’ Guild, and because I live far away from Newfoundland, I eagerly read everything that those writers in the Guild write. I love Bernice Morgan’s work, ditto Joan Clark, Lillian Bouzane, and Helen Porter. A new Newfoundland writer whose writing I recently read and enjoyed is Corona Wyse.

I like reading authors whose writing keeps my mind circling the story long after I have finished the novel. I also like authors whose books will make me say in anguish “Why didn’t I write that!” I just finished reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. I chastised myself at the end, saying, “Why didn’t you think of that story!”

5. What other jobs have you had besides being a writer?

I started out being a secretary—a not very well trained secretary, as I had only taken a commercial course at the high-school where I took my grade eleven. It wasn’t a proper commercial course—just typing with a smattering of short-hand. I never mastered the short-hand. I had a kind and considerate boss, and I guess I was a quick learner because I kept the job for five years. Afterward, I had several secretarial jobs—Fredericton, Vancouver, and Arizona. At one time I had a job demonstrating contact lenses—how to put them in and how to take them out. This was in Arizona. I wore a white uniform and convinced myself that I was part of the medical profession.

After I finished my BA, I taught school in the public schools of New Brunswick. The highlight of that career was having a timid fourteen-year-old boy tell me that his nerves waited all day for my class. Following the public school teaching, I continued with my education and eventually became a professor at the University of New Brunswick. I spent almost twenty years there.

6. What is your favourite movie(s)?

Casablanca by a long shot. I even cried over the ending, and crying is not something I am prone to do easily. I guess I am partial to unrequited love.

7. What kind of music do you listen to?

As with not having a favourite author, I do not have a favourite music genre. Sometimes I like Irish music. Sometimes I like easy listening. Sometimes I like semi-classical. There are even a few classical pieces that I am partial to.

8. What is your favourite food?

Beef stew and corned beef and cabbage. Ironically, I very rarely have either of those meals. When I go to Newfoundland, someone is sure to offer me a meal of corned beef and cabbage which I delight in. This meal is not kind to the arteries, nor, for that matter, to the digestive system. And you can’t get the corned beef I like in New Brunswick. I never make beef stew because have difficulty cooking raw red meat. As for poultry, I choose to believe that chicken originates in a plastic tray and therefore never had life.

9. What city/country would you most like to visit and why?

I would like to return to Arizona. I loved the weather there—the constant, predictable good weather. I love the way the mountains rise up out of the desert. I love the desert when it blooms. I especially love Scottsdale. It is truly out where the “best” begins.

10. Make a question of your own and then answer it.

Have you grown tired of answering these questions?

Naw! I could natter on for days. Funnily enough, I learned a lot about myself while nattering.