Interview: Artisanal Writer
- Leila Marshy
- May 11
- 10 min read
Updated: May 23

MAY 2025: Artisanal Writer's Paul Dhillon talks to Montreal novelist, poet and activist Leila Marshy about her latest story collection.
Paul Dhillon (PD): Congratulations on the new collection, My Thievery of The People, opens on the story, “Blink Twice”, showcases two characters struggling to connect. In my reading, the piece sets the tone for the whole collection, especially with the story’s last sentence, and the inclusion of, “Anyone watching would think…” This led me to think of the story and collection as witness, especially to characters agency, waving, letting the world know they exist. With that said, what does it mean to you to “witness” especially in relation to writing?” What makes this such fertile ground to explore?
Leila Marshy (LM): Writing is an odd art, isn’t it. It’s entirely about witnessing rather than partaking; you are driven but you are not the driver. The partaking and sharing come later, but the practice is solitary and, in a way, disinterested. While what you do with your testimony can be impactful, witnessing is a passive act. But maybe that’s the secret to good writing: a writer has to embody and allow that passivity, both temperamentally and in practice. Maybe of all the arts, I’d say writing is like being a war photographer––in spite of the chaos and suffering, your job is just to focus your lens on the details.
I think the story in my collection with the most witnessing and the least resolution might be Hamdo the Hero. I didn’t want a resolution or an arc or even a deeper understanding. I just wanted to witness. Is that enough for a story? Not sure––some readers thought not––but I don’t know what else I would add or say in a story like that. I think witnessing can be enough.
PD: The title of the collection is striking. How did you come to this for collection? Were their alternate titles?
LM: It’s derived from one of the stories, Evidence of My Thievery of the People. That story came about when I wanted to write about corruption from the point of view of a corrupt person. As I wrote, it became less about corruption per se than about generational entanglements, unacknowledged privilege, and trauma and abuse. All rather obtusely, I do admit. I always wanted that title because it is so accusatory and incriminating. We are all thieves at one point in our lives or histories, no one is above that. The question was whether we’d call it Evidence of My Thievery or My Thievery of the People, cutting out a word at one end or the other. The other option (in my mind anyways) was to call the collection Blink Twice, after the first story. But that ended up feeling too glib and cloying.
PD: There is careful consideration in how the stories are sequenced, similar to the journey of an album. There is an intersection of light and darkness across the collection, but what struck me was the placement of the two stories, The Job and How to: Your Very Own Life, both feature unique form which invites the reader with their structure and list/diary entry, but then punches them in the gut with the story. Why did these two stories come in this area of the collection? What are these stories forms able to accomplish that a more traditional story structure cannot achieve?
LM:I spent a long time thinking about how to order the stories––I am of the mix tape generation after all! First there is the locale to consider: stories that take place in the Middle East vs stories that are set here in Canada, mostly Montreal but also elsewhere. I created a kind of bookend structure for that. But interesting you thought The Job and How To stood out. The How-To story went in a direction I couldn’t have predicted even from sentence to sentence. I was worried about those two actually, wondering if their tone fit the collection overall. I like playing with structure and form, it can open things up both in terms of reader expectation and also the direction you end up taking it as a writer. In the end I thought putting them in the middle fit as a sort of chaos marker.
PD: “The Plow,” is a standout story for me about a paranoid snow plow driver in Montreal. I could feel the cold of the environment and also the disconnect of the characters. Without spoiling the story, when the plow driver uses the plow as a tool to barricade is an image that will always stay with me. Can you explain the genesis of this story?
LM: I was an artisanal baker not that long ago and I lived on a little farm on the Quebec-Ontario border. A café in the next town over let me rent their kitchen overnight for a reasonable fee. In the winters, I’d find myself on treacherous roads at 2 in the morning as the snow fell and drifted. The plow guys would be out on the roads and, once I got to the café and opened the back door because of the heat, I’d watch and hear them at work.
I developed both a fascination and a sympathy for these drivers, and even a camaraderie, all of us night workers. Nights out in the country are incredibly dark, very lonely, and can be frightening, especially when the weather squalls. You’re at the mercy of everything, including yourself. I wanted to write about that.
PD: Work, especially obtaining work, maintaining a job, and also finding fulfilling work is a strong thread throughout the collection. What drew you to showcasing characters relationship to work?
LM: I’ve had jobs since I’m 15. Even before that: my first public writing were flyers hiring myself out to do yard work winters and summers when I was 12. I’ve always worked, and I’ve always had to work. But I didn’t have a career per se and I’ve been fired three times. This I blame entirely on writing and the deep frustration I would eventually feel at every job I found myself at: Why am I doing this and not writing? I’ve worked in film, radio, tech, community, politics… but none of it stuck because I was stuck. I’d be really good at every job––until I wasn’t. I’d pretty much have existential breakdowns and end up detaching.
But let me reassure you: I’ve been working in publishing since 2018 and am genuinely, finally, settled.
PD: Many of the characters are split between locations of their ancestry and to where they now live. Additionally, you have lived in many locations. What do you see as or how do you define home? How do you see setting’s impact on characters?
LM: For many second-generation kids, home is often an artificial construct. The “old country” is where everything better and more real existed. Even my mother, who was not from the Middle East but was from Newfoundland, she was also adrift. She had no family nearby and wasn’t particularly equipped to live a full or contented life away from their support. I grew up in one suburban house till I was 15 (Montreal) then another one (Ottawa) from 15 to 21. Since returning to Montreal to go to university, I have probably lived in several dozen apartments if not more.
I think I’d rather be a nomad than put too much trust in a so called forever home situation. There is also the reality that for many of us, home was not safe or comforting. Not all of us want to put those handwritten signs on our walls you buy at Walmart or Home Sense. Sometimes I want to smash the idea of home.
PD: What makes the short story a special form? What can it reveal or showcase that other writing can’t?
LM: A short story is a pop song. Like a good pop song, they are relatively brief, have one basic idea throughout, with one melodic line, a slight tangent with the bridge, then end without much fuss. What’s interesting about the brevity and starkness of a pop song is that you can get as much emotional satisfaction listening to it as listening to Tchaikovsky’s War of 1912 or a 20-minute Om Kalsoum song or a one-hour Fateh Ali Khan raga. It’s the tightness that’s wonderful, it’s so pent up, like exhaling through a straw.
Some of the best things I’ve read have been short stories. When they’re good they take your breath away. For example, you have to read E. Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. I sought it out after seeing the film because I just knew that for a short story it must have been loaded. And it is. It’s a master class in restraint, control and depth. If she had written a novel version, the resonant ping of it may have been lost or diluted.
PD: This collection comes after your novel, The Phillistine. How does your process change when working on a short story compared to a novel?
LM: I’m a little more confident when working on a short story, it’s definitely more thrilling. Novel writing is a kind of torture with little reward along the way. A novel requires you to be in it and stay in it for such a long duration. As someone who is easily distracted and often pulled in way too many directions, novel writing demands a hunkering down that can be challenging. I actually currently am working on another one, but I’m in the process of wondering if I bit off more than I can chew. It could take years to figure that out though, and then you end up with a dud. How brave am I? I guess we’ll find out.
PD: What constraints did you use to craft the collection?
LM: I am an impatient reader and an impatient writer. The main thing is I didn’t want the collection to be long. I’m pulling away from long books, from stories or collections that are over 300 pages for example. I want brevity and starkness and nothing wasted. It was important to me that each story be nicely sealed and satisfying in terms of narrative and theme. Whether that’s a good thing, or whether I succeeded is up to other people to decide.
PD: What are you writing against or towards? Please explain.
LM: Disentrapment perhaps. Defenestration. Towards escape, release, contentment. I am fascinating by the human capacity for pettiness and abuse of power. Is there another animal species that will tease to the point of hurt, that will withhold just for the satisfaction of watching people squirm, that will so easily abuse whatever tiny slices of power they may have? Then on an individual level, the way in which we allow ourselves to work against our own better interests. We comply, we stop fighting, we cower, we misrepresent. The “trickle down theory” term should not have been applied to wealth but to abuse of power.
But also, we’ve believed the lie that William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was an honest portrayal of the depths of depravity to which we so easily sink as a species. Of course, it is always assumed, we’ll resort to being murderous savages once we remove societal constraints. This is what he was supposedly so bravely showing us. But then, in a little-known story two decades later, a group of boys from Tonga were marooned on an island and had to fend for themselves for over a year. What did they do? They cooperated, protected each other, and formed a strong social bond all on their own, even set up classes where boys taught each other their skills and knowledge. No one was hurt; in fact, they thrived.
I am not sure what this all means other than we lie to ourselves for power. Golding’s England was brutal to children, hated them, towered over them, wanted them seen but not heard. I very much doubt Tongan society is like that. But it’s people like Golding who shape our perceptions in this society. There’s an analogy here with some very powerful leaders, believe it or not. Some leaders believe that people are rotten and that you must do everything you can to keep your chin out of the swirling mess of sewage around you. Such a dark, horrible alienated take on life. Lord of the Flies has been part of school curriculum for generations. It’s not surprising when these kids grow up and have fascist leanings. Maybe I write so assholes don’t get elected.
PD: What is the best piece of writing advice you received? What advice would you give an emerging writer? How does your role as an editor shape your writing?
LM: Writing is a craft like carpentry. Build any kind of chair you want, just make sure it’s not wobbly. Measure twice cut once is even a good analogy with editing. And you can always use more sandpaper! Be a craftsperson, serve the writing not your ego.
Mostly though, I’d say seek out community. I’ve always written, but it wasn’t until I joined the informal writing community in Montreal that I started to have some sort of success. I got to know writers and publishers, attended events, supported other authors, showed up for readings and launches. It made the next steps simpler of not only finding a publisher but having people there who root for you. I don’t subscribe anymore to the notion of the lone tortured writer who Has Something Important To Say. That’s a tired and embarrassing trope. Grow up, leave the house, and show up for other people. You’ll discover two things: one, the world is bigger and more important than you are (and what a relief that is), and two, people will start showing up for you.
PD: What pieces of art (film, novels, music, visual art,) helped inspire and support the crafting of the collection? Who do you see your work in conversation with?
LM: The first thing that comes to mind is not writing but cinema. I have loved Iranian cinema for decades, and it has probably influenced me a lot. Because of the strictures and constraints of society, it tells very profound and political stories using metaphor, analogy, innuendo. This has created a very visual cinema and a subtle but realistic acting style. Everything is deuxième degré in Iranian cinema, it has to be. In that vein, and interesting to see how much freer it is to grapple with very real social and political issues, is Georgian cinema. I’ve seen three films from Georgia recently (on MUBI) and they are stunning, vital and relevant.
In no particular order, writing that I’ve absolutely loved recently: The Prophetess by Baharan Baniahmadi. Baharan is an Iranian writer and this is her first book, published in English in Montreal. A brave and relentless storyteller. Kagiso Lesego Molope’s This Book Betrays My Brother and Such a Lonely, Lovely Road. Molope is a South African living in Ottawa and tells searing stories of queer coming of age in South Africa. She has craft and heart. More recently, a local bookseller recommended Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal and I can’t get that book out of my head. If these writers have anything in common it’s that they don’t embellish––they leave things stark and unadorned.
PD: What specific piece of art (any medium) could you not imagine having in your life?
LM: Music. As someone who can’t sing, what would I do if I couldn’t have music around me all the time? No one wants to hear me sing. I have music in my head constantly.
PD: Who do you hope reads your collection?
LM: What a daunting question––feels like bad luck to even answer it! My daughters read it, that’s amazing and so fulfilling.
PD: What is your favourite word?
LM: These days it’s Fuck. Tabarnak is a close second. Sorry.
PD: What is your go to writing snack?
LM: I’m not a snacker but when I do snack it’s more often than not an apple.
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