After attending the 2013 Mayor’s Arts Awards in December, Sad Mag correspondent Shazia Hafiz Ramji caught up with the fiery but modest writer, Amber Dawn, to discuss her genre-crossing memoir How Poetry Saved My Life, which won the 2013 Vancouver Book Award. Having garnered numerous awards, including the Lambda Award for her previous book, Sub Rosa, and an award-winning docuporn, Amber continues to achieve more—by retaining a candid, engaged stance in How Poetry Saved My Life. Read on to share Amber’s thoughts on what it means to be a “Hustler,” ways of living and healing in Vancouver, and the role of genre in being “emotionally accurate.”

Sad Mag: In a recent article about The Vancouver Book Award in The Globe and Mail, you told the Globe: “I usually don’t say I want to win something, but I really want this.” Congratulations on having your desire come true! Why did you really want to win the 2013 Vancouver Book Award?
Amber Dawn: I’ve had some dark days in Vancouver, and I made a promise to this city that if it took care of me that I’d take care of it. I’m keeping my promise in the ways that I know how: using my voice, volunteering, activism and ongoing learning. How Poetry Saved My Life shows aspects of this city that not everyone sees directly; however, I believe issues of sex work, risk and violence against women are palpable in every Vancouverites’ mind. We know that the number of missing and murdered women in this city is inexcusably high. We know that the city is changing in ways that causes homelessness to continue to rise. We all wonder what to do, and how to heal from the traumas we collectively feel or witness. I wrote my book in part because I wanted to remind Vancouverites that there is always something we can do, there is always some way we can heal.

SM: Even though your book is categorized as a memoir, you employ many genres. Why did you decide to use many genres?
AD: I did not start of by saying, “I want to write a mixed-genre prose and poetry book.” But as I wrote, I came to understand that my story couldn’t be told through a single prosaic “confessional memoir” chronological narrative—from inciting moment, to so-called rock-bottom, to redemption. Whose life is really like that? That memoir formula is far too tidy to tell most of our life stories. To be emotionally accurate and true to my experiences I needed to use poetry, essay and short memoir. I needed the dynamism of all three.

SM: Please discuss the decision making process around using the word “hustler” in the title of your book.
AD: I love the term “sex worker.” I love the history of that term—the history of explicitly naming sex work as work. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Margot St James and Carol Leigh, aka The Scarlot Harlot, two early San Francisco-based sex work activists who have taught me to take pride in the history of our movement. But my book and my identity are about more than just sex work. Class, survivorship and queerness are prominent themes in the book too (they can’t be separated). I felt “hustler” encompassed more of who I am. “Hustler” can mean to move through something or to take a gamble, a risk. Sure, I hustled as a sex worker. I also hustled my way through university. I’m hustling my way up the class ladder. I’ve hustled French women in a Parisian dyke bar …

SM: How do you feel now that you’ve won the 2013 Vancouver Book Award?
AD: What does it say about our City to name a scrappy, queer, sex worker memoir as the 2013 Book? I hope it says that Vancouver wants to be inclusive, broad-minded and vocal. I hope it says that Vancouver wants to hear from under-represented peoples—and that we’re not afraid of topics like sex, poverty and survival. With this hope, I feel awesome about winning. I want to high five everyone I see.

SM: What are you currently working on?
AD: I’m working on a magical realism novel called “Sodom Road Exit”—set in Crystal Beach, Ontario (the former site of Crystal Beach Amusement Park) during the years 1990 and 1991. After dropping out of the University of Toronto and racking up significant financial debt, my protagonist, Bailey, moves home to Crystal Beach to live with her mother. Her arrival coincides with the aftermath of the amusement park’s bankruptcy and closure, which leaves Crystal Beach a ghost town, both financially and literally. It’s a ghost story. Magic and ghosts (and a few sex workers, too).

***

Follow Amber Dawn @AmberDawnWrites, keep apprised of independent publishing at Arsenal Pulp Press, @Arsenalpulp, and visit Shazia to keep cool @Shazia_R