Author Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Lindsay Zier-Vogel is an author, grant writer, arts educator, and the creator of the internationally acclaimed Love Lettering Project. After studying contemporary dance, she received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto.
Lindsay is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Letters to Amelia, and her first picture book, Dear Street was a 2023 Junior Library Guild pick, a Canadian Children’s Book Centre book of the year, and was nominated for a Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award and a Magnolia Book Award in Mississippi. Her second novel, The Fun Times Brigade is out May 1, 2025, and she is co-editing The Deep End: Reflections on swimming with andrea bennett.
Lindsay's hand-bound books of poetry are housed in the permanent collection at the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library in Toronto, and she leads creative writing workshops in schools and community settings.
On Creative Writing: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how? Through writing experience? Reading a lot? Writing courses or communities? A combination, or something else?
Writing group feedback brings significant growth in writing
Lindsay Zier-Vogel: The most fundamental shift in my writing has been working with my writing group, The Semi-Retired Hens (comprised of me, Samantha Garner, Teri Vlassopoulos, and Julia Zarankin). Receiving their feedback on my writing has been invaluable, but even more than that, it’s been workshopping and giving notes on in-process writing. Engaging with works-in-progress allows me to see how narratives work, and how to develop characters and tension.
On Creative Writing: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?
Lindsay Zier-Vogel: To date, I’ve been very interested in the experience of motherhood—my first novel, Letters to Amelia, explores pregnancy, my second novel, The Fun Times Brigade, explores early motherhood with a newborn, and my novel-in-progress explores what it is to parent a toddler and school-aged children. Though I’m also working on a middle-grade novel that has nothing to do with parenting, and it’s a nice break to not have to look up milestones for infants all the time to make sure my fictional six-month-old is doing age-appropriate things on the page!
On Creative Writing: Do you use social media to engage readers, writers, or publishers and, if so, which platforms?
Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I primarily use Instagram, and it is such a joy to see photos of my books out in the world. Writing for me is mostly solitary, and I love connecting with redaers, and seeing where my books end up! I have a picture book, in which the main character writes love letters to things she loves in her community, and I love seeing letters young readers write and hide for strangers to find on Instagram!
Carving out stories comes after over-writing
On Creative Writing: Are you a plotter or a pantser? (For writers or short stories and novels).
Lindsay Zier-Vogel: I am an over-writing pantser! I write terrible first drafts, and find it takes me a very long time to really figure out the story. My first drafts have been known to hit 180,000 words (which is ridiculous!) and then I spend years (plural!) carving out the actual story. It’s not a particularly efficient process, but it’s also just how I work.
I have tried my hand at plotting in a middle grade novel I’m working on, mostly because the point of view changes with each chapter. It’s very counterintuitive to how I usually work, but it’s been really helpful.
Writers! Apply for grants to support your creative writing work
On Creative Writing: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?
Though I’m bias as I’m also a grant writer, my advice to writers (and all artists, really) is to apply for grants! It takes so long to to write books, and advances keep getting smaller, so apply for grants along the way to pay for those before/after-work writing sessions!
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