Phillips gives students a taste of 'the Professional Writer Thing'

?On her second visit to Nipissing University, award-winning author Holly Phillips shared excerpts from several of her stories and a passion for the written word during a workshop titled, Ember Days. The title refers back to the pre-Christian tradition of sticking close by the hearth in the late autumn for warmth and safety from the dangers of the spirit world outdoors. The stories chosen for the reading, about haunting and ghosts, reflect the dark departure from the author’s better-known work in fantasy.
 
The reading marked the second scheduled author visit as part of the Canada Council for the Arts Reading Series. Phillips is the author of In the Palace of Repose, The Burning Girl, and The Engine's Child.

 After dropping out of university due to health problems, Phillips found a passion for writing emerged from her life-long passion for reading. 
 
“I turned to writing because I was hungry for things to read and was finding it hard to find what I wanted to read,” she says. “It occurred to me that I could do this for the rest of my life.”
 
Phillips finds inspiration for her stories from other fantasy writers, such as C.S. Lewis and J.R. R. Tolkien. Although most of her stories are not autobiographical, they tend to focus on topics that deal with some of her own personal fears, such as memory loss. 
 What advice does Phillips have for aspiring professional writers? 
 
“Write a lot. Write every day, and produce as many stories and novels as you humanly can,” she says. “Often, it’s going to be the third novel you write or the tenth short story you write that’s going to catch fire and find its niche.”

 Read a full transcription of Leah Misener’s interview with Holly Phillips here.

 You can find out more about Holly Phillps on her website. 
 
By Leah Misener, 3rd year English student