Episode 3 | Ayelet Tsabari

Parallel Careers

“I think that there's something inspiring to students about knowing that I don't come from an academic background. My career experience in my thirties—I was a waitress and a house cleaner. So I think that that's actually a good balance to have in an institute that teaches something creative.”
In this episode, Ayelet Tsabari discusses writing about contested places, giving voice to her community and how stories can resonate in unexpected ways. She discusses:

• 1:46 | Being Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Public Library and running drop-in workshops for immigrants and people who write in their second language
• 3:41 | Writing place as a mirror of your characters’ emotions
• 6:40 | Getting workshop feedback that confused cultural differences with style, and how she re-discovered her own authorial voice
• 8:30 | Spending a year only reading books by BIPOC writers
• 11:10 | Delving into difficult emotions when writing her memoir The Art of Leaving
• 14:00 | the impossibility of trying to fully capture her grandmother in the text
• 16:55 | Her research into the literary traditions of Yemeni women’s songs
• 20:00 | Helping students re-focus their attention on the world and engage with it

Guest Bio:
Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She wrote her first story in English in 2007. She is the author of The Art of Leaving, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, finalist for the Vine Awards for Nonfiction, and an Apple Books, CBC Books, and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won both the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2016, and has been published internationally. Her translations appeared in the New Quarterly, Berlin Quarterly, Paper Brigade, and Mantis. She teaches creative writing at The University of King’s College MFA, the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA, and at Tel Aviv University. She lives in Toronto.
About the Podcast:
Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach.
Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development.
Credits:
Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.
If you like our podcast, please leave a review—it really helps other listeners find our show! Thank you!
Visit TNQ.ca to access more of Ayelet’s writing and teaching tips, including web extras about the vulnerability required by creative non-fiction, and her new anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language.
You can find Ayelet’s work here:

The Art of Leaving
The Best Place on Earth
Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language

Recommended reading:
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Meander Spiral Explode by Jane Allison