Mary Kelly, Self-Directed Writing Residency, April 2016

Photos courtesy of Renee Leveillee BielbyProjectI am currently being mentored by Canadian literary author, Karen Connelly, as I work towards completion of my memoir, Smoke: The Fire Lookout Years.Smoke is a nonfiction book about my experiences in the 1980s and 90s when I belonged to a group of friends who worked on remote fire lookouts in southern Alberta watching for smoke and wildfire. We had all cultivated the lookout lifestyle, which involved practicing or teaching transcendental meditation; reading and at parties, referencing, Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums; listening to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports; making art; and being a vegetarian. We were young, in our thirties, and although the lookout season meant romantic partners were left behind, we idealized sitting on top of a mountain in a 12 by 12 foot cabin as the perfect way to earn a living. I, myself, worked at a large natural foods store selling vitamins, and telling customers how to grow alfalfa sprouts or cook tofu. At work, I answered questions all day from men wanting to buy herbal aphrodisiacs and women wanting to lose weight. Visiting my partner, Daniel, on the fire lookout became a refuge from the monotony of my own sales job.Years later, on a rainy winter night in Vancouver, I purged my files in honour of the New Year, and discovered a couple dozen letters from Daniel and two male friends, written during their time on lookouts. The letters disclosed the men’s inner lives and how they coped with isolation. Some of the letters were confessions, stories about peering through binoculars for hours, not to spot smoke, but to spot a woman, a lover, or a companion hiking towards them. The letters were smoky, unfiltered narratives of our lives, gendered reflections that inspired me to recapture the fire lookout years - from a woman’s perspective. I decided to use direct quotes from these letters in the story, a story that explores unusual occupations, the unravelling of close friendships, and culminates with a violent attack on one fire lookout.Eventually I found a way out of the health food business. In 1999, I completed a master’s degree in communications studies at the University of Calgary. I have worked in qualitative health research as an analyst, editor, coordinator, and contributor to peer-reviewed articles since 2003, when I was hired by nursing scholars at the University of British Columbia. Since 2007, I have worked as a self-employed freelance writer. I have written numerous dance performance reviews for the Dance Current magazine and Dance International. In 2005, my creative nonfiction story, The Year of William Tell, was a shortlisted winner in the Event: Douglas College Review magazine contest.I began this book project in 2013 at the Sage Hill Writers’ Retreat in Saskatchewan under the guidance of author, Denise Chong. Then, I received support from the Access Copyright Foundation to do research for the project, and travelled back to the Rocky Mountains to revisit the landscape and the fire lookout buildings. Since then I’ve written more than two hundred pages of the manuscript. A residency at Caetani Centre would provide the ideal conditions to revise and complete the draft. Parts of my story take place on Silver Star Mountain, where I lived in the 1990s. 2My literary goals, in terms of craft, are to better capture the felt sense of a being on a mountain lookout, deepen the main characters, address issues of the narrator’s voice, and include historical information without losing the narrative thread.Literary TrainingHumber School for Writers (distance), January 2016 - July 2016 – Mentor Karen ConnollySage Hill Writers’ Retreat, Saskatchewan, Summer 2013 – Narrative Nonfiction participant with Denise ChongWriting with Style, Banff Centre for the Arts, Fall 2012 – Narrative Nonfiction participant with David CarpenterThe Art of the Short Narrative with Stephen Osborne, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver 2005Literary AwardsAccess Copyright Foundation Research Grant, Summer 2014I received this grant to travel to fire lookout stations in the Rocky Mountains and complete research for my narrative nonfiction manuscript, Smoke.Quarter-finalist in the 2013 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize, Ruminate MagazineFinalist in the Event 2005 creative nonfiction contestProfessional Writing & Research ExperienceFreelance Writer/Research Consultant – Self-employed since June 2007 copy edit, revise and co-author academic health articles for peer review clients include faculty at the University of British Columbia and Canadian Institute for Natural and Integrative Medicine freelance writer for the Dance Current and the Canadian EncyclopediaResearch Coordinator – Health Behaviour Research Unit, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, 2003 – 2007 coordinated all aspects of nationally-funded health research projects recruited participants and conducted in-depth interviews conducted data analyses, developed findings and drafted manuscriptsProject Assistant/Editor - Chiron Consultants, Calgary, 1999 - 2002 co-author of Mind-Body Harmony with Dr. Terry Willard, published 2003 edited health and wellness articles for Chiron ConsultantsEducationMaster of Arts in Communications Studies University of Calgary - 1999Bachelor of Arts in Psychology University of Calgary - 1986Published Clips with Online LinksThe Dance Current – multiple articleshttp://www.thedancecurrent.com/search/node/mary%20kellyThe Canadian Encyclopedia - Aerisoa Dance Societyhttp://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/aeriosa-dance-societyMagazine PublicationsSelected Dance Current magazine articles:Tales of Despair and Cheer. November 2014The Emperor’s New Clothes. March 2013Room Service? There’s a dancer in my room! February 2012It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane – It’s a VIDF Dancer. April 2011Passing the Fan. Jessica Jone and Chinese Dance. February 2011On Top of the World. The White Spider. Summer 2010A Meditation on Gender: CoErasga. December 2009Martha Carter: A curved career. April 2009Crossing Boundaries: Jai Govinda. October 2006.Literary Writing:The Year of William Tell. Event: The Douglas College Review, 2005, 34(1).Other PublicationsContemporary Dance and Evolving Femininities. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 2011, 6, (2), 50.Seedpod in the Postmodern Wind. In Lola MacLaughlin: A Life in Dance, 2010. (Eds) Anderson, C. & Woodend, D. Vancouver, BC: Tony Giacinti.