By Mia Combey-Robertson
Pamela Hensley moved to Montreal in 2016, and it didn’t take long for her to establish herself within the local literary scene. As a creative writer, board member of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, and managing editor of yolk Literary Journal, Hensley has spent years cultivating a keen interest in literature and a great appreciation for the artists in her community. It is through her local community of writers that her podcast, How I Wrote This, came to fruition, seeking out literary communities across the world to find out “who’s making noise and why.”
In pursuit of the “story behind the stories,” Hensley engages authors in discussions about the (at times) arduous writing process and how published works came to be. Ranging across personal politics, literary philosophies, and anecdotal experiences, these conversations showcase familiar works in a new light.
Montreal author Sean Michaels in conversation with Hensley.
Each of the podcast’s three seasons are dedicated to exploring writers within a given city, with the first and second seasons situated in Montreal and Berlin respectively. Hensley’s methodology benefits from her experiences travelling and living abroad: As a former automotive engineer and management consultant in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the U.S., Hensley kept books as her constant travel companion. Travelling and living abroad greatly influenced Hensley’s literary interests, and even her approach to literature itself: She mentions that she categorizes her home library according to nationality, which reflects how the podcast is organized. This method allows Hensley to identify characteristics that connect works from a given place, highlighting how different cultural spaces produce their own unique literary flavours.
Take, for instance, her conversation with Mikhail Iossel, an author teaching at Concordia University who grew up in the former Soviet Union. In their conversation in Season 1 of the podcast, Iossel highlights the paradigm shift in his writing style when he switched from writing in Russian to English. These cultural and linguistic differences appear prominent when comparing works from each season of How I Wrote This. While there are no obvious thematic links between authors or works within each season, they are all rooted within the common ground from which they write.
L-R: Mikhail Iossel in studio; Hensley chatting with Berlin-based author Behzad Karim Khani.
While all writers in a given season work from a shared city, they all approach their craft differently, and this is the real focus of How I Wrote This. The intimate relationship between writer and subject grounds many of the interviews Hensley presents. She emphasizes the importance of conducting these interviews in person, approaching conversations with an openness that allows for candid, vulnerable, and raw discussion. When asked about how biographical information can impact the reading experience, Hensley says,“You can’t make assumptions that what you read on the page tells you more than what is actually true. Many people say fiction is autobiographical but of course that’s not always the case.”
Hensley notes how a writer’s life story can often bleed into their work, influencing how narratives are structured, explored, and resolved. These works function as extensions of the writer, as both symptoms and outcomes of their experiences. Hensley states that in preparation for each episode, she reads the entire body of work produced by the guest – not just the book at hand. She notes the transformative quality these interviews can have in their ability to deepen her understanding of the story: “It’s really about humanity… about asking the second, the third, the fourth question to really dive deep and get to the meat of things.”
In the first episode of Season 1, Montreal author Heather O’Neill describes how her ideas often come from an image she forms in her head. For example, an image of a little girl in an open field was the narrative catalyst for her most recent novel, The Capital of Dreams. Hensley states that approaching the book with the knowledge of how it came to light will indubitably impact how it is interpreted, as readers gain insight into the intricacies of the author’s writing process.
How I Wrote This is a space for readers as much as it is a space for authors. An avid reader herself, Hensley understands the intimate relationship one can form with the characters in a novel, and this podcast affords listeners the opportunity to understand the genesis of these characters on a more profound level. Instead of social media trends or algorithm-generated recommendations, Hensley favours suggestions from those in her shared circles for her next story. In this way, the podcast emphasizes the vital importance of cultivating discourse within literary spaces and communities, putting storytelling at the center both as subject and method.
Hensley in studio.
The third season of How I Wrote This, which came out on January 21 of this year, is set in Brooklyn, with American author Jennifer Egan as the guest of the first episode. Hensley describes the literary scene in Brooklyn as an artistic “mecca” of sorts, blending various literary styles, approaches, and backgrounds. Other writers interviewed this season include Daniel Allen Cox, Christina Cooke, and Joseph O’Neill.
Listeners looking to learn more can visit the How I Wrote This website, or stream episodes from wherever they get their podcasts.
Mia Combey-Robertson is a freelance writer from Vancouver, BC. As a graduate from McGill University, Mia has a keen interest in the literary scene here in Montreal. She enjoys writing about cinema, culture, and literature.
Illustration by Nora Kelly.