As the 2024 Cook Creative Writing Prize winner, I’m in the early stages of my writing project, a hybrid work titled The Archaeology of Loss. I’m hoping to produce the work as a chapbook, a creative response to grieving and loss through words and images, honouring the spaces left behind – the echoing voids felt in the absence of loved ones. 

Grief is an intensely personal and often solitary journey, but also a shared human experience. The Archaeology of Loss aims to transform the isolating nature of sorrow into a shared narrative of healing. In this sense, the chapbook is not merely a collection of writing and artistic elements; it is an invitation to explore the healing power of the arts, reminding us that we are never truly alone in our grief.

I have opted to tackle the bulk of the writing first, which allows me to see and feel the shape of the work. I’ve written about a third of the draft, and have been sketching and journalling in tandem, more as an exercise in creative expression. (Two poems and a sketch are included below.) Given the depth and sensitivity of the topic, I’m finding it sometimes difficult to write on demand during prescribed hours. The emotional weight calls for a different approach, one that seeks authenticity and creative inspiration, while protecting the soul.

Writing is not as visual as other artistic endeavours, making it difficult to showcase the work in progress. How can one even begin to document the abstract, highly personal, often painstaking, process of coaxing words and ideas on the page? A host of intangible elements, often found in day-to-day moments, drive a writer's craft. For me, especially for this project, it’s nature, walking, writing poetry, sketching and painting, gardening and more. These seemingly mundane tasks bubble beneath the surface, sparking curiosity, observation, imagination, patience, adaptability, reflection – a source code for the creative life.