I am a novelist, poet, tarot reader, and essayist.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet, but I soon realized that maths and sciences were not my strong suit. What I was good at was writing. I also loved making things. As a child, some of my first projects included a scrapbook and a newspaper, both about cats.

I was in Grade 7 science class one day when I decided I would become a poet. I was sneakily reading a book of Edgar Allan Poe poems instead of doing whatever assignment we were supposed to be working on at the time. Making that decision felt like a revelation: It was like I was seeing my future so clearly.

At home later that day, I excitedly told my mom that I’d figured out what I would become.

You’ve never seen someone’s face sink with disappointment as fast as my mom’s did that day. “A poet? What do you mean a poet? Poets don’t make any money until they’re dead. Don’t be stupid.”

In hindsight, I don’t think my mother was completely wrong. I know, because I didn’t listen to her and pursued poetry anyway. Have I made much money at it? Not at this point in time. But I have had the opportunity to publish a few poetry collections (and counting) that I feel pretty proud of, a couple of which have gone on to be taught in university-level writing programs throughout North America.

As a writer, I’ve never been able to stick with just one style or genre, however. Growing up in the `90s meant that I was part of one of the last generations to know a life without the internet. It was through zine culture that I discovered a lot of music, art and more that ended up shaping my identity then and now. Inspired by the DIY spirit of zines, I went on to make some of my own in high school as a way to publish my own vampire poems, goth fixations, and teenage occult discoveries.

I also became interested in music writing as a teen, and interned at an experimental music magazine during high school.

But my life got strange when I hit 18. It’s a bit of a long story, but I found myself mostly jobless and living on a friend’s couch downtown, all of my worldly possessions stuffed into a couple of garbage bags. I was derailed for some time, but when I got back on track, I returned to writing.

At 21, I enrolled in a journalism program at Humber College. At the same time, I was pursuing freelance writing on the side to build up my portfolio. I started out doing music writing for free for “exposure” and experience, but eventually that landed me some choice freelance pieces with the Toronto Star, Exclaim! Magazine, Punk Planet (now defunct, sadly), and more.

At the end of college in 2006, I had an idea for what would become my first book, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond. I had become fascinated by the under-documented history of the punk movement in Canada and set out to uncover my hometown’s contribution to punk culture.

That book was published in 2010 to much fanfare: The first printing sold out immediately. It was exciting. I was inspired. And my mom was starting to finally think that maybe there could be something to this writing thing after all…

From there, I decided to keep writing. I published my first poetry collection, Amphetamine Heart, in 2011, and my first novel, PostApoc, in 2013.

Those books reflect a lot of my personal life at the time: I had a lot of uncertain thoughts and feelings, and was living in weird, cheap Toronto apartments which no doubt have an ill-effect on their tenants’ wellbeing.

Along the way, I also kept close to another lifelong passion of mine: Tarot and the occult. In 2015, I launched a full-time tarot business (which you can check out here). I guess I haven’t “made it” as a writer quite yet in the sense that it’s my one and only full-time gig, but as I said earlier, I find it limiting to just stick to one thing…

And those feelings of limitation continue to be reflected in my writing as well. I have written poetry out of Andy Warhol’s work (No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol) and excavated my own personal past in my 2018 poetry collection The Truth is Told Better This Way, both of which are titles that were nominated for the ReLit Award for Poetry.

I enjoyed a stint as a performance poet as one-half of a band called Salt Circle, where we thought of poetry as public ritual.

I have also written two books on tarot, and am now making my way back to more creative writing. My most recent vampire novel, The Mouth is a Coven, was released by Manta Press in 2022, and I’ve got a few new ideas up my sleeve.

No matter what I’m working on, my influences and aims are often the same:

• To explore the possibility of language;

• To think of writing as a magical act;

• To stay excited about the fact that writing can change, transform, manifest, experiment, seduce, and more;

• To honour the act of creation and accept that inspiration moves through us in more ways that one;

• To stay close to my influences, which include the occult, the personal, the vampire, the haunted, the outsider, the rueful, and the places your mother warned you not to go into…