M.A.C. Farrant has been a mainstay of the Victoria literary scene for years. Born in Sydney, Australia, and raised on Vancouver Island, she’s written more than 10 books, ranging from memoir to short fiction. On Oct. 15, Farrant took home the Victoria Butler Book Prize for her latest work The World Afloat. Up against four other finalists — Dede Crane (Every Happy Family; fiction), Audrey Thomas (Local Customs; fiction), Catherine Greenwood (The Lost Letters; poetry) and Micheal Layland (The Land of Heart’s Delight; non-fiction) – jurors praised The World Afloat for its grace, humour and creativity. M.A.C. Farrant discusses her book with Erin Anderson.

You told a great anecdote in your acceptance speech about how the last time you won something, it was a box of black hair dye given out as a door prize at a school fun fair. What was it like to be recognized with a literary prize? How did your book fit in with the other finalists?

I was really surprised! I’ve been at this business a long time – I’ve written a lot of books and received a lot of nominations. It’s wonderful to be nominated for a prize but I’ve never actually won one. I was nominated for the Butler Book Prize in 2010, so it was déjà vu coming back. Going in, I reminded myself that it’s great to be included in the finalists and to get attention for the book but I really wasn’t expecting to actually win something. Having said that, I’m quite enjoying it!

As to where my book fits in with the other nominees, I like to think that we are all producing good writing whatever the genre and that this is what has been recognized. The World Afloat is a hybrid of fiction and prose poetry and humour.

You’ve often taken an experimental approach to your writing — I’m thinking of your unusual, fragmentary approach in The Strange Truth About Us specifically. The World Afloat is a collection of 75 miniatures or microstories, which are typically one to two pages in length. Is your Butler prize win recognition of risk-taking in pioneering a new form?

I can’t say what the Butler Prize jury might have been thinking as far as my taking a risk with the book, but they did say some very nice things on the Victoria Book Prize website. But, yes, I like to play with form; the process engages me aesthetically. I did this with my memoir, My Turquoise Years, which I wrote as a non-fiction novel, and I did this with The Strange Truth About Us, which I called a “Novel of Absence.” This latter book was about attempting to predict the future and to pin down the universal confusion of mind that is the main feature of contemporary life, which is, we are afraid. I used fragments, annotations and notes to try and get at the subject.

As to writing miniatures, I’ve been doing that for some time now — they appear in a number of my books. The World Afloat is the first time, though, that I have brought a group of them together with a single-minded focus. I like what U.S. poet Charles Simic has said about the writing of a short poem: “Be brief and tell us everything.” I have tried to do that with each miniature.

Your collection straddles genres. Among your fellow finalists, there were novels, poetry and short story collections, non-fiction — all forms you’ve worked in. How important do you think it is for writers to work in different genres?

I’m afraid I’m not very good at giving advice. Choosing a genre to work in is such an individual thing; you find one or several that you feel comfortable in, or excited by. A lot depends on where your reading takes you, what you admire. As to working in several genres at once, that’s certainly the case with The World Afloat – fiction, poetry, essay, memoir, humour. The book is constructed as a collage in that I mixed together all these things plus found sentences, random images, fragments of heard conversation, and so on. The process actually felt like sculpting, or what I think sculpting must feel like: tactile. I’d take a mound of clay-like material and then I’d work it. For each miniature, a sentence or a sequence of sentences would stand out, excite my attention, and so I’d work with that until things started clicking into place. For much of the writing I was working intuitively, making things up on the fly, changing things, fiddling, re-writing, shaping to the demands of each piece.

The World Afloat is, among other things, very funny. Much of your writing has an element of humour to it — why do you think that’s so important?

There’s a curious attitude about humour in this country, especially humour written by women. It isn’t generally regarded as serious work. The comic view of life is something that isn’t often seen as serious enough to win prizes. I’ve tried to take philosophical, sociological and environmental images and ideas and infuse them with humour. Then again, I seem unable to not write humour; it’s a big part of my baggage and I don’t deny it.  The World Afloat was certainly a delight to write, and an adventure. I was having a lot of fun trying to mix those genres together and still have the work be accessible to readers. I wanted the book to be enjoyable to read but also cover more serious aspects of existence – love, mortality, and the necessity to live fearlessly, to float above the terrible times. We could, after all, become drowned in doom, and deny ourselves the experience of wonder, joy, expansiveness, love.  I think of these things as our cheerleader gene kicking in, our survival technique.

You have already started your next book. How will your new work compare to The World Afloat?

After The World Afloat came out in February, I took the summer off, which was a lovely thing to do – one of the best summers ever. You know, just enjoying summer things. In June, I had written half of a new book and now I’m working on finishing it.

It’s another book of miniatures because I’m not through with the form yet, though the slant will be different. Talonbooks will be bringing it out in the spring of 2016.

Read Marjorie Doyle’s review of The World Afloat.