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From Here Forward shares stories and ideas about amazing things UBC and its alumni are doing around the world. It covers people and places, truths, science, art, and accomplishments with the view that sharing better inspires better. Join hosts Carol Eugene Park and Jeevan Sangha, both UBC grads, in exploring solutions for the negative stuff out there — focussing on the good for a change, from here forward.
[00:00:00] Carol Eugene Park: Hello, friendly alumni. Welcome back to From Here Forward, an award-winning UBC Podcast Network podcast. I'm Carol.
[00:00:07] Jeevan Sangha: And I'm Jeevan. We have a very literary episode coming to you all. This month we sat down with an author that truly needs no introduction, but it's us, so we're going to give it a try anyways.
[00:00:17] Carol Eugene Park: So, today's episode is an especially fun one for us. What you may or may not know about Jeevan and I is that we are both avid readers.
[00:00:25] Jeevan Sangha: Oh, for sure. Top-tier hobby of mine. Carol, I'm curious, how would you describe your go-to read? What kinds of books do you often return to? Like, take me on a journey here. Paint me a picture.
[00:00:36] Carol Eugene Park: Broken families, sadness, heartbreak, grief, longing. You know, the very light reading genres. The more sad it is, the more likely I'm going to want to read it over and over again. And I am one of those people that judges a book by its cover, but specifically the title. If the title suggests that it's going to be something really sad and heartbreaking, maybe depressing, I'll be there. What about you?
[00:01:02] Jeevan Sangha: First of all, I have never been less surprised in my life by an answer, so thank you for that. I actually read a lot of speculative fiction, I typically gravitate towards South Asian writers, I dabble in romance every now and again, but it's gotta be a really specific vibe for it to stick for me, you know? They gotta really, really execute it well.
[00:01:19] Carol Eugene Park: What is the specific vibe in romance? I really love a miscommunication trope. When the adults don't communicate, and then there's all this misunderstanding that goes on for years and years and years, chef's kiss.
[00:01:33] Jeevan Sangha: I think not too much romance. It was really fun for Carol and I to nerd out about writing and books. And so, without further ado.
[00:01:42] Carol Eugene Park: We talked to Loghan Paylor, a writer and UBC MFA in Creative Writing alum. Loghan's first book, The Cure for Drowning, peep that very sad title, won CBC's Canada Reads this year.
[00:01:54] Jeevan Sangha: The Cure for Drowning was also longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize, named a Globe and Mail Best Book, and is a finalist for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the Jim Dava Prize for writing that provokes.
[00:02:06] Wow. That's a lot.
[00:02:07] Carol Eugene Park: So, we caught up with Loghan about how they're feeling after a whirlwind of praise and acclaim for the book, the journey into writing, and their overall experience at UBC, and more. Let's jump in.
[00:02:18] Loghan: Hi, my name is Loghan Paylor, and I am an author and a teacher and also a co-owner of a small business.
[00:02:26] Jeevan Sangha: It's been an exciting 2026 for you, not only winning Canada Reads, congratulations, championed by Tegan Quin, but The Cure for Drowning has been nominated in the speculative fiction category for the 2026 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. What has this first half of 2026 felt like? How are you feeling now?
[00:02:47] Loghan: It's been an absolute whirlwind. A really good whirlwind, for sure. It's been exciting and wonderful, but also, yeah, just, just a lot. December 10th of 2025, I had no idea where or how I would feel but yeah, it's been amazing overall.
[00:03:02] Carol Eugene Park: You said that your sister helped you a lot with the sudden publicity. Are you an introvert? How has that been like going on these big interviews and you're like, "Wow, everyone's watching Canada Reads, and I don't really know about it," but like, "Oh, okay. Great."
[00:03:17] Loghan: Yeah, it was overwhelming. I, I am an introvert. I'm a pretty private person, like in my personal life, and so that was a pretty big change, very suddenly. And, you know, I've done like a lot of teaching, and I teach a lot of workshops, and I find that I'm, I'm very comfortable like in front of a classroom and in sort of in those like scenarios.
[00:03:35] But yeah, those skills didn't necessarily transfer automatically to, big interviews and live radio and all that stuff. my sister was great because among other things, she actually, I couldn't talk about this while Canada Reads was going on, she helped Tegan create a lot of the debate points.
[00:03:49] She read all the other books, and She wrote these like wonderful like little book report summaries for Tegan about and did some like background research and stuff. So, she was really helpful for that. And then also she was just available. I could call her almost every day or text her, and she was just such a good what did she call herself? She was like, "I'm the head of your hype squad. That's my only job is to just make sure you feel hyped before you do all these things."
[00:04:11] So yeah, she was amazing. And yeah, I, and she is an extrovert, so that really helped. There were times when I was like, "Okay, well, I don't feel capable of doing this, but how would my sister handle this moment?" And then I sort of tried to channel her energy some.
[00:04:22] Carol Eugene Park: So, if we kind of go back, in 2024 your book was published. It's long-listed for the Giller Prize. There was a bit of a gap. Two years later, here we are, Canada Reads. And in an era of like instant gratification, of always getting things, that gap for some aspiring writers might feel slow or maybe disheartening at times. What has that gap been like?
[00:04:47] Loghan: So interesting that you label it as a gap, 'cause I'll be honest, like for me it did not, it didn't feel like a gap because that space, like it was so full of other things.
[00:04:55] So you know, the book took me like six years to write. And so having the book come out in January 2024 was really like the culmination of, of a lot of smaller steps along the way. a lot of work and, and team effort on the part of my publisher. And then, between the Giller nomination and then everything with Canada Reads, I mean, that whole time for me was full of, other writing and teaching and running a business and doing workshops, right?
[00:05:19] So you know, perhaps for other writers it would feel like a gap, but I'll be honest, I just, I wasn't even really paying attention to awards season because I just, I had so many other, pieces of my life that were on the go.
[00:05:29] Jeevan Sangha: And when you think back, I mean, obviously six years, first of all, what a labor of love to write a novel. Is there, even now looking back, a passage or an excerpt or an element even of the novel that you particularly feel close to or, or that you often return to?
[00:05:48] Loghan: That's a really good question. There are several parts of the novel that are, are quite close to my heart. In terms of from a, a technical standpoint, the very end of part two, there's a particular chapter that I spent a lot of time on because there were some things I wanted to pull off very specifically that were quite technical and required many, many drafts, like I'm gonna guess, like, upwards of 15 before it was finished.
[00:06:09] And that passage I, I do return to 'cause I, I'm particularly proud of it. Like, it's, it's a real testament to, yeah, that, as you were saying earlier, like, the long progress and kind of putting in the hours. It was, it was nice to see it kind of slowly polish and take its final shape.
[00:06:24] And in terms of sort of my favorite scenes, they're towards the end of the novel. Some of my favorite ones to write are in kind of the very last couple of chapters, simply because, you know, I'd spend all this time with my characters, and kind of the emotional notes and resolutions to their, their arcs that happen in the last part of the book felt very satisfying. They were happy, and I was happy for them.
[00:06:44] Carol Eugene Park: So, as I was kind of digging through old interviews, I heard that part of your writing process for this novel, Post-it Notes. What's that about?
[00:06:54] Loghan: This is everyone's favorite interview question. Yes, so I, I'm not the kind of writer who can kind of start at the beginning and write straight through to the end. I know that there are many artists who can, but I am not among them.
[00:07:04] For me, books and stories come together more like jigsaw puzzles, so I write them very sort of scattershot with little pieces of dialogue and scenes and so on, they just kind of pop up. So, my earliest drafting, like, rough drafting phase is more about sort of catching all of those little pieces and getting them into one place. And I tried for years with, like, notebooks and, Word doc programs on my laptop, and it just, it didn't work because I would have these ideas come to me at the most inconvenient times.
[00:07:35] And so, after a while, I started just carrying around a pack of sticky notes because they were easy to keep in my pocket, and then, if I had an idea, I could just pull them out and write it down and stuff it in my pocket. And at the end of the day when I came home, I could go to my studio and pull out all these sticky notes, and I just ended sticking them to a wall. And it, it really helped in terms of motivation because the more colorful squares of paper that were on the wall, the more progress I was feeling about the project.
[00:07:58] And then later on, from a kind of more practical standpoint, when I had a much more substantial draft of the book, like we're talking drafts- three or four. Because I had two narrators throughout the story, there was a lot of chronological technical things to keep straight. So, I would write out scenes on these sticky notes, and I used those to help me plot out the, the structure and, the chronological order of events in the book because that changed quite a bit throughout the drafting process. So yeah, my, my budget for sticky notes was quite large compared to other things.
[00:08:27] Jeevan Sangha: Is your creative process, like, does it vary from writing project to writing project? Like, how do you approach each project, and, what do different things bring out of you?
[00:08:36] Loghan: It definitely varies project to project and certainly genre to genre.
[00:08:40] Yeah, I, I wish I could give you a sort of, like, a starting point, but every project seems to kind of teach me how to write it. And so, at this point, sometimes it's through, going on a walk and sort of audio dictation into a, a note-to-text app in my phone. Other times it is writing longhand drafts in notebooks, and very occasionally, if the stars align, I can just kind of sit down at my computer and, like, bash out a second draft, relatively quickly.
[00:09:05] But I think that only happens after I've spent a lot of time doing things that don't look at all like writing because I'm kind of drafting and, like, doing revisions and creating it in my head first, so then by the time it reaches the computer it's, it's a little bit further along. So yeah, I realize that's a very unhelpful answer, but it, it's different every time.
[00:09:21] Jeevan Sangha: Do you have any, I guess, words of wisdom to share for writers who are still discovering their creative process and still discovering their rhythm, like anything that's been helpful for you as you navigate that in your projects?
[00:09:33] Loghan: Sure, yeah. I think there's a lot of stuff on social media around creativity, specifically writing, that tends to focus a lot on the aesthetics. So, there's this idea that, you know, perfect inspiration a notebook and a beautiful pen and, you know, a very strict routine that you follow and quiet mornings and so on.
[00:09:49] And there are some artists for whom that works brilliantly, and that's fantastic for them. And if that works for you, then absolutely do it. And I think there's also plenty of writers like me who spent years trying to follow that kind of routine and feeling frustrated when it didn't work for them. I do find writing very difficult.
[00:10:05] But every day I am the only person standing between me and creating something, and I am both, my own worst boss and worst coworker. It's truly terrible, and I can't fire anyone, so, so, that struggle for me is real, and it is difficult.
[00:10:18] But I, yeah, I've heard a lot of other people talk about, like, the label of writer is very challenging. It's a very loaded term and so on. And I, I don't know. I feel like I got all the other hang-ups and anxieties, and that was just the one that skipped me, possibly because I was such a nerdy, obnoxious kid in school. And so, other people started applying the term writer to me really before I had any real conception of what that meant or any of the other sort of loaded emotional terms that would, come with that. I think I; I just managed to dodge it by luck more than anything.
[00:10:51] And so, I guess my advice would be to not worry about how it looks to other people and if your process is messy and chaotic, then just embrace that mess and the chaos because that is where you're gonna find your, your best ideas, and writing is already hard, and it only makes it harder if you're sort of fighting yourself every step of the way as well.
[00:11:09] Carol Eugene Park: It's like all my best ideas come out when I'm in the shower.
[00:11:12] Loghan: They do make a waterproof magnetic notepads and pens to put in showers for exactly that reason. Ask me how I know.
[00:11:18] Carol Eugene Park: How, how-- I feel like this is like a personal journey that you've had. Speaking of writing process, I did my undergrad in English, and I did a course where we had to write, and everyone I met in my program was like, "I have, like, seven manuscripts that I haven't finished, and it's just in my folder." And truth be told, I also have many unfinished writing pieces. I'm curious, as a professional, is there a folder in your computer somewhere that you have hidden away that has old documents that you're like, "I just, I know it's there, and I want to work on it, but I just can't, and it's just going to stay there"?
[00:11:52] Loghan: Oh, like 1000%. I think I have one folder per year of my life. Yeah, I have a whole novel that I wrote when I was, much younger in my late teens, early 20s that just ... I have heard other people refer to it as the drawer novel, but it just lives in a drawer. It'll never get published, but I, I did write it beginning to end, and that was its own, achievement. So, the short answer is yes, definitely have those folders.
[00:12:12] Carol Eugene Park: Do you clean them up every year, where you're like, "I should maybe clear up my storage"?
[00:12:16] Loghan: No. Maybe I should- Maybe I should, but I, it's a cautionary tale. So, I am tempted because I try to be pretty mindful of not like having endless storage in other places in my life. But in The Cure for Drowning, that, the selkie legend that comes back three times, I wrote the very, very first earliest version of just that probably eight or nine years before I started working on the actual novel.
[00:12:43] And when I started working on The Cure for Drowning, I was like noodling along in very early draft stage, and then I was like, "Wait, this, why does this feel familiar? I feel like I wrote something kind of about this" And I went back and I dug through all of those years of folders and I actually found it, and it wasn't good by any standard, it was really terrible, but the, like the bare bones were there, and so that made it into the novel. So unfortunately, I took the wrong lesson away from that, and so now I will like never delete anything on my computer ever again just in case.
[00:13:09] Carol Eugene Park: That's amazing. I love it. I mean, and that's why you gotta keep buying those hard drives. Gotta keep people in business.
[00:13:14] Loghan: Yeah, someone's gotta keep Best Buy in business, right? If not us, then who?
[00:13:18] Carol Eugene Park: Great. Kylé, did you wanna have a question? I know you want one.
[00:13:21] Kylé: So, like I'm so curious then about this process, like the selkie piece was there. When, when did these characters first come to you? Like, was there one character that came to you first, that was in your mind for a long time? Or-
[00:13:33] Loghan: The first character that really showed up was Kit's because they are loud and opinionated and have some very clearly drawn motivations throughout the whole book.
[00:13:43] So they showed up first, and the very earliest drafts that I was noodling around with, uh, were only from Kit's perspective. So this started out as a single POV book, and then the further I wrote into it, the more I was like, "Well, if I'm gonna write an kind of unreliable narrator with a, a reputation for telling tall tales, then I do kind of need like another character to provide some reflections of reality into this"
[00:14:05] And so I, I noodled around with a few options, but then kind of the further it went, especially once I realized it was gonna be like a romance story as well, I thought, A, I did not want Rebecca to become just this like object of someone's affections, and she was, you know, very much her, her own character in her own right. And writing her perspective was really fun because it took a little bit longer to sort of find her voice, but once I did, I was pleasantly surprised of "Oh, you are just as equally opinionated and, have just as much agency and, and so on as Kit does."
[00:14:35] But also, it was really important to me that if I was going to write a gender non-conforming character like Kit, then I also needed someone to be kind of a loving witness to the truth of their identity, especially since I knew this book was going to be marketed outside of like the queer and trans community.
[00:14:52] Carol Eugene Park: You mentioned nature walks, I assume in, in the Fraser Valley. But the novel itself is set in Ontario, and I know you were born in Ontario, but could you describe what the journey back to your home province was like fictionally or metaphorically?
[00:15:08] Loghan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, certainly the landscapes between BC and Ontario are, are very, very different.
[00:15:13] So I grew up in Ontario. I spent the first 18 years of my life living there, and my parents have a hobby farm in Southwest Ontario, so I grew up with a lot of freedom to kind of roam around in this rural area. It's not exactly where I set the novel. The novel is set further north of Toronto, where my dad's family is from.
[00:15:30] But certainly as a kid and as a teenager, I spent way too much time unsupervised, just sort of roaming around, getting into trouble. And I think, you know, especially at that age, right, a lot of experiences become flashbulb memories. And so, I have a lot of very strong sensory memories of what that was like as a child.
[00:15:47] And so, when I set out to write The Cure for Drowning, I knew that I, I needed a really detailed and grounded- setting in order to kind of mix in all the other speculative fiction and fantasy elements I wanted to put in. And that to me just kind of seemed like the most logical choice because it was the place that I personally had the most experience walking around, in nature, but also it was the landscape that I knew most intimately.
[00:16:12] and so as part of the process of writing the book, I, went back and looked at a lot of photos that I'd taken as a kid. I did go back and visit my parents at least once. It was during the pandemic, so that made it a little more challenging. But yeah, it was fascinating to go back and then retrace those walks that I went on as a, as a child and see the things that were exactly the way I remember them and the things that were just, had completely changed, of course, in 15 years.
[00:16:34] Carol Eugene Park: As I was reading the book, I was like, "I just know that this author has lived in Ontario," I'm in Toronto, I grew up in Hamilton. And so, I was just "I just know that this person knows Southern Ontario." It was so intimate. It was so Canadiana
[00:16:47] Loghan: It was also the result, like, one of the, the kind of weaknesses of memory too is that later on, working with my editor, I got so many line edits back about, "Oh, this is the wrong kind of wildflower, this tree would never grow in Ontario, you know, "Turkey vultures were not introduced into Ontario until after this date. You gotta pick another bird." et cetera, et cetera. So yes, thank you. Part of it came from my childhood memories, and then a lot of it came from some very hardworking copy edits.
[00:17:11] Carol Eugene Park: You talk about the role nature had in your writing process. I'm curious what your feelings are as a writer whose found comfort and inspiration in nature watch the ways that maybe governments and policies are kind of not doing great things to nature via the climate crisis.
[00:17:29] Loghan: Yeah. I mean, I think I can sum it up with sort of rage and despair. Hey, yeah, as someone who's spent a lot of time in natural spaces and really values the natural world and I feel like the more time you spend out in nature, the more it becomes less of like a monolith abstract when people talk about it. It's, it's not just, nature with a capital N. It becomes like, oh, the pond that is at the park near your house where the same pair of birds nest every day, right? So, it becomes more personal.
[00:17:54] And yeah, like many people, I think I struggle to not only understand the level of kind of corporate and political greed that drives so much of this destruction, and that balanced against the sort of almost overwhelming sense of despair at being unable to stop it. So yeah, if anyone has figured out the, uh, I don't know, the, the secret passcode that's gonna fix this for us, I'd love to hear it.
[00:18:17] Jeevan Sangha: Switching gears a little bit, I wanted to ask about some of your other endeavors. So, in addition to being a writer, you're also the co-founder and co-owner of a gaming company, Bookwyrm Games. How has the diversity of your interests- affected your writing process or thinking, and what role does professional endeavor play in your life?
[00:18:36] Loghan: Yeah. It's been, I would say, 80% supportive and 20% difficult because they are such different worlds to be in. But I think I am very grateful, to be honest, because I, I think in a lot of professional creative fields, it can start to feel a bit like a sealed bubble, especially in CanLit, where the professional world's quite small.
[00:18:55] And for me, it has been really nice to have another whole section of my life I mean, it overlaps a little bit, but it doesn't, have a lot of crossovers with book world. And so, it really just gives me an excuse to, if I'm stuck on a project or feeling like there's a lot of drama going on that I don't wanna be a part of, it's great to be able to sort of step over into business world, where none of that is happening, uh, and have, the most productive procrastination excuse possible.
[00:19:19] Carol Eugene Park: Does that differentiation in your writing process help with your kind of imagination and, and thinking? I feel like a lot of times when I was growing up, people were like, "You can't just stare out a window, you're not being productive." But at times, like, when I was daydreaming, that was when I had kind of the most chaotic thoughts. So, I guess, is that something that you've experienced?
[00:19:38] Loghan: Yeah. I would say I... my brain definitely thrives on new experiences and novelty. And one aspect of my business is that we don't have a brick-and-mortar shop. We're a pop-up company, so I have traveled all over western Canada to different, uh, comic conventions and fan expos.
[00:19:55] But that means a lot of travel time in between, which is great for staring out windows and daydreaming. And then also, yeah, as part of the business, I've met so many people from very different walks of life and different interests and, and so on, and I think that also kind of keeps the well of inspiration filled on a regular basis.
[00:20:12] So yeah, it's been nice to have that balance, for sure.
[00:20:14] Jeevan Sangha: We hear time and time again that strong writers should be strong readers and should be indulging their reading interests voraciously. Are there any writers that come to mind that have inspired your writing style, maybe particularly when building out For Drowning? Are there any Canadian writers that come to mind particularly?
[00:20:33] Loghan: Several of my big inspirations have been writers like Emma Donoghue and Anne-Marie MacDonald. They were certainly big inspirations for The Cure for Drowning, and also books like Atonement by Ian McEwan, and Sarah Waters' queer historical writing had a big influence on me as a teenager as well.
[00:20:48] I'm a huge Ursula K. Le Guin fan. I think that her, I mean, I love her specular fiction, but also her essays on writing and the craft of writing. I first encountered them when I was in undergrad, and they really shaped my view on writing as a, an artistic medium in ways that I, I think were very helpful.
[00:21:05] But yeah, beyond that, I feel like I read voraciously and from a whole bunch of different genres, many of which have nothing to do with historical fiction or magic realism and stuff like that. So, it's a, it's a wide variety.
[00:21:16] Carol Eugene Park: So, we are an alumni podcast, and you went through the creative writing program at UBC. In what ways did attending that program maybe change your understanding of what being a writer is or impact it?
[00:21:29] Loghan: Yeah. So, I did my Master of Fine Arts in the School of Creative Writing, and it was an incredible experience. I did the on-campus program despite living in Abbotsford at the time, so I was commuting in several days a week for classes and then for TA-ing and so on.
[00:21:43] And it was a fantastic experience. I think it was really critical to my development as an artist and also my sort of understanding of just kind of crossing that threshold from, writing is something that I am passionate about doing, and it is, a hobby that I have always enjoyed and so on, into the idea that, okay, how do I conduct myself as a professional creative artist?
[00:22:06] You know, what are, what are the other skills that are required to, be in this world and succeed in this career beyond simply, putting words on a page? And I mean, the, the faculty in that school are incredible. I had so many amazing mentors and, and writers who I think otherwise I would not have had the chance to meet or to necessarily learn from in the same way.
[00:22:27] And so yeah, despite the long hours of commuting, I really kind of committed myself to kind of, diving full into the program and trying to take advantage of every opportunity, whether that was, readings or guest lecturers or other things that were happening. And yeah, it was absolutely crucial to, to my career, for sure.
[00:22:44] I get a lot of questions from people about whether or not they should apply for an MFA, both readers but also-
[00:22:50] Carol Eugene Park: Do tell ...
[00:22:51] Loghan: I think it's a very common question, right? Because it's a, it's a big investment of, of time, of energy, of money certainly.
[00:22:58] The program is two years long, but for many people it takes longer. And so, it does require kind of putting potentially other aspects of your life on hold in order to fully dedicate yourself. And I think that there is a lot of value in MFA programs, and they are also not the only path to writing professionally.
[00:23:16] And so I, I get this question a lot doing readings and events and stuff like that, and usually what I tell people is the MFA is a big commitment, so my advice is to start somewhere smaller. Try one of UBC's extended learning courses. Go and do a two-day writing retreat somewhere in Canada.
[00:23:34] Both the financial outlay and the time outlay are going to be much, much lower for you. And just go and see how you feel, because if you get, a few weeks into an extended learning program and are getting nothing out of it, then, you know, that's important information to have about your learning style and what you need to thrive in a community versus a retreat and so on.
[00:23:54] So yeah, I think often MFAs are sort of held up as, like, the pinnacle of, of professional writing training, and I don't think that's necessarily true. They are simply one path to, to reach that, that may or may not be the correct fit for you.
[00:24:07] Jeevan Sangha: Firstly, an Abbotsford commute is hardcore. I commuted from Surrey, and that felt awful, so respect. That is great timing as someone who's kind of for the last two years been like, "Do I go to grad school or do I..."
[00:24:21] Carol Eugene Park: The answer is no.
[00:24:22] Jeevan Sangha: It's I know. And then everyone I talk to, including Carol, will be like, "I don't know."
[00:24:26] Carol Eugene Park: Don't do it.
[00:24:26] Jeevan Sangha: "Do you really feel like you need to?" But it's the thing that gnaws at, I think a lot of people are like, it's there. Should I just do it? Of course, that's not to say that there's not, like you said, a lot of value in pursuing those pathways if that's something that is, if it works for you and is accessible to you.
[00:24:44] Do you have any final words of wisdom for folks who maybe are in that program and feel like it might be a bit of a bleak landscape and are trying to imagine a path forward for themselves as creatives?
[00:24:55] Loghan: That's a tough question because I do feel like the world has changed very rapidly, even in the six years since I graduated. And so, I'm hesitant to provide any kind of pat advice because I'm worried it will just sound very facile. I will say that, yeah, as an adjunct prof, I worry about similar things for my students, especially with, an encroachment of AI into creative spaces and all of that nonsense.
[00:25:19] I think my best advice would be that if you come into writing and your only goal is publishing and fame and fortune, your kind of setting yourself up for disappointment because it is a long road and the opportunities are small. And if that is your only measurement of success, it just statistically you are more likely to be disappointed than not.
[00:25:40] So my advice would be to find something else that is your driving passion in writing and whether that's, feeling like you have a story inside of you that simply needs to be expressed, that's wonderful. If it's, writing something that will connect with a reader, creating art that will connect people to each other or connect them to your experience, that is very helpful.
[00:26:01] If your goal is to, truly be a part of the artistic community and be a member of kind of a writing collective, then those are all goals that you can achieve regardless of AI, regardless of anything else that's happening in the world. And I think that more than ever that is important to kind of understand what your personal motivation is because that will give you the, the stamina and the ability to keep going, in the face of everything that the world is currently throwing at creatives.
[00:26:31] Carol Eugene Park: So, with that being said, do you feel more prepared, or do you feel more excited about possibly doing another big national thing where people are like, "We wanna interview you. We have questions. We need to talk to you all the time."
[00:26:43] Loghan: I actually don't know. Is that, is that what happens with the Rakuten Kobo?
[00:26:47]
[00:26:47] Carol Eugene Park: Yeah, I'm assuming.
[00:26:48] Loghan: Okay.
[00:26:48] Carol Eugene Park: I mean, emerging writer, Kobo, Canadian. I don't know.
[00:26:52] Loghan: Yeah. Fair. So, the thing is I didn't- find out about that from my publicity team. I found out about that from Google Cards the other morning. And so, I emailed my publicist, and I was like, "Is this real?" "Is this, is someone..." and she was like, "Oh, yeah. No, I meant to email you. Sorry. Yeah, you're on the..." And I was like, "Okay, this is how I find out things about my career now."
[00:27:08] So yeah, we'll see. I guess I'll take this week to try and recoup, and then whatever June 17th brings, just be prepared to meet it.
[00:27:15] Carol Eugene Park: I feel like at this point you need to have, what is it, Google Alerts for your name to just- be in the know.
[00:27:20] Loghan: See, 'cause Google Alerts, it's not just CBC. It's also Reddit, and yeah, I, I get enough hate mail. It's okay. I don't need to-
[00:27:26] Carol Eugene Park: I am one of those weird people that emails authors when I read their book and I'm like, "Oh my God, you've changed my life" And I'm sure like they get so many of those. But is there one that recently or not recent that has kind of stuck with you?
[00:27:39] Loghan: There are a few. I mean, I do, I get lovely messages from, from readers, absolutely. And I do, I really treasure every single one. There's a couple that have stuck out.
[00:27:48] So one was from, a couple years ago now, it was closer to when the book was first published, but I got an email from a gentleman on the East Coast who was in his- I believe like mid 70s. And he wrote and he told me that, "I picked up your book because it was about World War II, and I like reading books about World War II, but then I kept reading it, and I liked it more than I expected to.
[00:28:08] And then he went on to say, "You know, I didn't know very much about the queer trans community, but now, my grandchild just came out as non-binary a few months ago. And now that I've read your book, I feel like I understand them a little bit better, and we've been able to kind of like repair our relationship." and I was just like bawling reading this email. So that was really lovely.
[00:28:27] I've had messages from readers saying, "This one was fairly recently, like in the last couple months, she was telling me that her partner just came out as non-binary. And so, she, the letter writer, had read my book and really enjoyed it, and then had been kind of pestering her partner to read it for like several months.
[00:28:43] And then when they finally did, then that kind of became ... How did she describe it? She was like, "It became a kind of common ground," and it gave them like shared language to talk about like their partner's experience and what they needed and stuff. And that also made me cry. There have been some really good ones.
[00:28:57] it feels very surreal because I know that there have been books like that in my life. So yeah, the idea that I have now created something that does that for other people, I don't, it just, it doesn't quite feel real, to be honest. I'm still like, "I think, I think you might all be fibbing. I think this is just all one big hoax on me. Thank you for writing me all of these nice lies."
[00:29:14] Carol Eugene Park: There was a debate on BookTok about book reviews are kind of meant for readers, not so much authors. Do you dabble in people's reviews, or are you like, "That is a space that's not for me"?
[00:29:25] Loghan: I, as a rule, do not read reviews because I believe very strongly that spaces like StoryGraph and Goodreads, those are reader spaces, and readers need space to talk about artistic work and have discussions about books without worrying about hurting writers' feelings and so on.
[00:29:41] So there's that aspect of it, and then also, I know myself, and I, I don't think that I would be able to continue creating if I also read every review that came out. I'd just get so swept up in other people's opinions that I would kind of lose track of my own voice. So, I avoid them out of respect for readers and then also kind of for my own self-preservation.
[00:30:04] Carol Eugene Park: Well, thank you so much, and again, congratulations on all of the awards, I'm sure 2026 will continue to be chaotic, but yeah. Thank you so much for your time. It's been great.
[00:30:13] Loghan: Thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful.
[00:30:16] Carol Eugene Park: Jeevan, you are a writer What did you make of that conversation, the advice that Loghan had, the wisdom of maybe not doing writing full-time for fame and fortune?
[00:30:27] Jeevan Sangha: I felt like there were just so many gems in that conversation. Loghan shared so much with us about how nonlinear writing as a process can be, which I thought was really fun, and how varied processes can be, which as a very different kind of writer, so much of what they shared resonated.
[00:30:44] I have a process, but it also varies from project to project and depending on how much, background knowledge I have. but I think the general idea of you gotta do it for the love of the game if you wanna be happy for a long time holds up pretty well, because it's a, it's a tough industry.
[00:31:00] And as someone who has stepped away from full-time journalism, what did you make of that conversation?
[00:31:06] Carol Eugene Park: It was really nice to hear an author talk about how, like, it's not all fun and games, and that staring at, pen and paper or your Word document is actually most, miserable time sometimes because you're like, "Brain, think of words, think of ideas." But I really liked that they talked about, out and being so-called distracted and daydream, because often that's where the best ideas come from.
[00:31:30] I mean, for me personally, this might be TMI,
[00:31:33] Jeevan Sangha: not all of the best of the best ideas come from the shower. Those often happen when I'm on the toilet. you know, you just gotta let your mind wander and allow your brain to be bored to curate some imagination, which was great. and I do have to wonder, Jeevan, are you gonna maybe, like, dabble into writing a book after having this conversation with Loghan? I feel like that's in your future
[00:31:54] Wow, big questions. I have always wanted to write a book, but I've always thought it's gotta be the right thing. I do definitely feel super inspired after talking to Loghan because they were just so cool and you could tell how much they love their craft. Even just listening to their process, like six years writing The Cure for Drowning is crazy, and the amount of detail that went into making sure it felt historically accurate and lived in, yeah, it was definitely inspiring, so stay tuned.
[00:32:21] Maybe a, a From Here Forward book coming in the future.
[00:32:23] Carol Eugene Park: I would like a signed copy if that happens in the next five years. Um, if it's in the next 10, I'm not really interested
[00:32:31] Jeevan Sangha: Fair. Very fair
[00:32:32] Carol Eugene Park: Well, everyone, for listening, um, if you have a great book recommendation, please email us. Let us know. and yeah, you can catch our next episode by subscribing or following our show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:32:44] And if you are feeling your feels, please drop us a review. You can find me on @CarolEugenePark.
[00:32:49] Jeevan Sangha: And me on Twitter @JeevanKSanga. From Here Forward is an alumni UBC podcast produced by Kylé McPhedran for Podium Podcast Company.