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An Interview with
author Alissa York

Our interview took place at York's publisher's offices in downtown Toronto. Having arrived a little early, I first encountered the tall, slender York as she entered the Random House office lobby with her stalwart publicist after having just completed a photo shoot in the Don Valley. She was greeted by various staff members, who congratulated her on the novel that had just been released to much acclaim. York's genuine pleasure in receiving these wishes revealed her to be unaffected by her fame. This is, after all, her third novel, each one well received by readers and critics alike. Watching her natural grace I instantly felt that this would be a good interview.

We met for our conversation in a room with a large boardroom table. We sat at one end, across from each other. It did not take us long to settle down to the questions I had prepared for this 45-minute interview.

When asked why she chose to set her latest novel in the Don Valley, the dark-haired York leaned over the table to explain that she was attracted to the setting from what she saw when taking the subway out of Castle Frank station, across the Bloor Viaduct, where trains traverses into the open above the valley. "When it (the train) leaves Castle Frank, suddenly you are looking at this thick forest. It does . . . it feels different from parks."

This sight tempted her to explore the valley and so she went for many walks there. "It helped me to feel more at home, to tell the truth," she stated. Born in northern Alberta, where her dad taught outdoor education, she mostly grew up in Victoria, BC. Later she moved to Winnipeg, and came to Toronto only a few years ago. Finding her way into the Don Valley brought her back in touch with nature. As Fauna started to take shape, she had to find the spots where she might place the scrap yard that is so central to its story and other sites where her characters moved around. She also had to find evidence of the animals which she knows intuitively live there, but which are not always in evidence.

At the time that she began to write the novel Toronto was in the grips of a coyote-hysteria. Was she influenced by this? Coyotes feature in her story aside from many other animals and a group of damaged humans. "It was going on at the time," she admitted. "It fed my imagination." She turned to the Internet where she found sites about coyotes and their habits, but she also discovered all sorts of sites in which writers expressed hatred for coyotes. She came to the conclusion while reading these sites and blogs that the writers appear to be suffering from theriophobia. This is an irrational fear and hatred of beasts of which Barry Holstun Lopez speaks in his 1978 book, Of Wolves and Men.

Referring to the fear a winter sighting of a coyote created among residents of Toronto living close to various ravines, she said, "The idea that we can be near nature and still control how close we get to nature, that just doesn't work." She found it strange that people choose to live adjacent to Toronto's many wild ravines, but want to keep nature at a distance at the same time. "Of course, we take certain precautions in the city. There are certain places we don't walk alone. The same [applies] in nature."

We talked about wolves and coyotes, a dog's closest ancestors, and about the sad fact that one little dog playing in its backyard adjoining a ravine fell victim to this coyote. York said with considerable emphasis, her hands gesticulating, "We have created breeds of dogs, animals that are unable to defend themselves," and we concurred that the often tiny creatures, which have no resemblance to those ancestors, still possess the wild instincts passed down the gene pool as any dog owner will have to admit.

While York has come across the smaller western coyotes in the wild, she has never seen our magnificent, larger eastern coyotes while walking through the Don Valley. She has, however, observed other wildlife there. Her love for animal became very evident through her novel and also in our conversation. She has, however, not lost her perspective. "When it comes to wildlife, you have to be cautious. I don't romanticize animals, and I don't do that with humans either. I take the cautious approach." All three of her books have at least one character who loves animals and is gentle with them.

As for raccoons, which are also well described in the novel, she admits she has only observed them in the city. Of course, she has also done a great deal of reading to brush up on their behavior. But eventually, she finds that "there is a point when the imagination takes over." Research has taught her that people who dislike raccoons are often afraid of the animal's hands. Among her discoveries about these furry creatures is that raccoons try to learn how to do things by observing humans. "I think that is such a wonderful thing."

York called herself a bit of a magpie by grabbing what sparkles when she observes people. She said this in response to my question whether any of the six human characters in the book are based on specific people she has met. Edal, the federal wildlife officer on stress leave, grew out of conversations with her brother, a conservation officer. In these talks the subject came up about people who attempt to smuggle exotic animals into Canada. This is, of course, the reason for Edal's stress leave. "The book is dedicated to him for that."

When she described the wretched backwoods life of the sixth character in Fauna, whom she revealed fully only late in the novel, she admitted to having based the grandfather on stories that have come down to her about her own Australian great-grandfather. Her parents are originally from Australia and came to Canada before she was born.

To create her characters she immerses herself in research to make it possible to give them dimensions. "I really think that readers want an immersive experience, and I want to have an immersive experience myself." She has discovered that her "daily brain" is "not as smart as my writing brain. It knows better. If I want to impose my ideas I end up with less depth. That is the real magic, that alternate experience." She gave as an example of that alternate experience the reading of Kipling's Jungle books, which are read aloud by one character to all the others in Fauna. "I have never been brought up by wolves, but a little bit of me has." It is her ability to immerse herself into such tales that give her the ability to create such a vivid novel as Fauna.

As for York's love for animals, she ascribes it in part to growing up in the Athabasca region north of Edmonton, AB where her father taught outdoor education. She also feels that her parents coming from Australia, where the outdoors and nature are as much a way of life as they are in Canada, helped her to learn from them to experience "very deep feelings of all kinds," toward nature.

Her ability to bring alive characters who never ask one to disband disbelief is a remarkable talent. She can take disparate themes and make them wholly believable. When I asked her about this, she said, "You have to ground yourself in knowledge." One of her books, Effigy, is set in 19^th century Utah. To figure out the era in Utah when Mormons still practiced polygamy and fought to retain control over the territory, she read a lot. This ensured she was grounded in the subject. " . . . and then you let the imagination take over." The research process gives off a spark that creates "a symbiotic relationship between the two [fact and imagination]."

As for making her novels come alive, she admits that they have their own life, "and you give it a shape that it organically has." She finds that organic shape through her characters and the setting in which they live.

There is perhaps no better way to describe the creation of a novel. With that final comment the 45 minutes wound up, and York's publicist whisked her away for yet another interview. Such is the tight schedule of a novelist, who writes appealing books.