Archipel: The newsletter
Welcome to Archipel โ a living archive of interviews, essays and creative resources drawn from my Substack newsletter. I profile creatives about their creative process and community, while sharing the tides that shape my practice: hybridity, translation and the art of sustaining a creative life.
Archipel is also an act of reciprocity โ a way to give back to the people and communities who have kept me afloat while I was working, mothering, moving, witnessing, writing, and not writing. I hope a piece of Archipel meets you where you are.
When you choose a paid subscription, your contribution supports the Donald E. Waterfall Scholarship Fund, which mentors and uplifts emerging poets.
What is Archipel about?
Archipel is an ongoing dialogue between me and other poets and creatives of all kinds, celebrating the ways we connect through mentorship, community and transitions.
I am a poet and have lived over half of my life overseas. Most of my poems have been written in isolation, often adrift from the geographical, cultural and linguistic ties that might anchor me. But connection is essential to creative practice, whether you are doing it remotely or in person.
I have been sustained by my generous and brilliant mentors, and the poetry community at large. They have helped me brave rejection and combat doubt. They have cheered me on and taught me the importance of respecting other people who have chosen a similar calling.
Archipel was also inspired by my very first poetry mentor, my father. When you purchase a subscription to the newsletter, you are paying into a scholarship fund in his name, which will support emerging poets.
Archipel (the French word for archipelago) embodies the idea of being separate yet interconnected. As a French-speaking Anglophone living in Abidjan, Cรดte dโIvoire for the third time with a French partner and three children whose mother tongue is French, Archipel also explores my own experiences with the French language as well as the ways in which poetic language straddles the porous border between the real and the speculative.
The Donald E. Waterfall Scholarship Fund
My father Donald E. Waterfall was the first person in his family to finish high school and went on to graduate from the University of Toronto in 1965. Subsequently, he earned a full scholarship to complete his PhD in Philosophy at Princeton University.
A former diplomat, he retired early to return to academia and became an undergraduate sessional instructor in Philosophy at his alma mater. When his grandchildren were born, he prepared education funds for each of them. Education โ and reading poetry, in particular โ was really important to my father.
When my father died suddenly in April 2021, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could honour his memory. The Donald E. Waterfall Scholarship Fund is one way I can do that.
The funds collected via paid subscriptions and donations over one year will be awarded to an emerging poet who possesses an original perspective and a potent mixture of passion, craft, intuition and attention.