Interview with Leslie Carlin, WOW! Q3 2025 Creative Nonfiction Contest Runner Up

Leslie Carlin (she/her) has published short fiction in various journals including Reed Magazine, the Baltimore Review, the Ocotillo Review, and the Toronto Star. She writes personal essays on topics ranging from head lice to Hadrian's Wall, and is working on a creative nonfiction book, Asking After Alice. Leslie earned her certificate in creative writing from the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies in 2019, winning the Penguin Random House Canada Fiction Prize for Students and the Marina Nemat Award for Creative Writing. Leslie is a wife to one, a mother to three, and a servant to two cats and a dog. She is a medical anthropologist with interests in health, society, disability, and aging. Leslie posts her observations about living in and out of the United States, England, and Canada at Travails of a Transatlantic Transplant. Her website can be found at LeslieCarlin.com.

---interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on your top ten win in our Q3 2025 Creative Nonfiction essay competition! Reading your entry, “Alice’s Grave,” I felt like I was there with you. What inspired you to write this particular story?

Leslie: I’m glad the story gave you that feeling. Over the past several years I have been looking for answers about my aunt, Alice, keeping track of what I learned in a journal. I expected to encounter many unknowns, and I have, but I thought locating her grave would be simple. It proved very much otherwise. When I finally managed to visit the cemetery and find Alice, such a mix of emotions followed me that I knew I wanted to write about it and mined the notes I had kept. The journey itself turned out to be an adventure, too.

WOW: You also write short fiction, personal essays and are working on a creative nonfiction book. Do you find form of writing one more challenging than the others? Are you drawn to one form more than the others?

Leslie: The most challenging form of writing always seems to be the one I am currently engaged in. I love to create (and to read) long, short, fiction, and non-fiction stories but as soon as I have set myself a goal or a deadline for one of them, I find myself inspired to work on a different one. In general I have several writing projects on the go at once. At the moment I am turning my notes into a book about my aunt (Asking After Alice), as well as keeping up my personal essays on Substack (Transatlantic Travails), and drafting both short stories and longform fiction (a detective novel).

WOW: What is your writing process like? Please describe a typical day.

Leslie: A typical week might be more telling! I have a day job as a medical anthropologist in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, where I conduct research related to health and society, disability, and aging. Thus some days are devoted to work. On writing days my favorite thing is to start typing immediately, before my feet touch the floor. When I finally get up, it makes me happy knowing that I already added words to my story. I also write in local cafés, and at my desk, often late at night. I belong to a couple of writing groups where we share what we have written, which is very helpful.

WOW: What are you reading right now, and why did you choose to read it?

Leslie: As with my writing I tend to read more than one book at a time, in different formats. In paper form I’m reading a fun memoir by Canadian journalist Cathrin Bradbury called This Way Up, because I have enjoyed Bradbury’s writing in the past. I’ve just started The Boy in the Moon by another Canadian, Ian Brown, about raising a severely disabled son. It makes me think about Alice. I also love audiobooks: I just listened to the suspenseful, evocative novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anaparra, and I dip in and out of Six Poets by Alan Bennett, which brings me calm.

WOW: Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Leslie. Before you go, can you share a favorite writing tip or piece of advice?

Leslie: It has been a pleasure. Thank you for asking.

My writing tip is basic: always write. Anything you produce can be co-opted into something else. Sometimes I recount an anecdote in an email to a friend and then think “Gee, I can use that” and so I do, copying the words into a story or just into my writing journal. Also, as Nora Ephron’s mother advised, “It’s all copy.” Pay attention to everything. Write it down.

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