Breaking Blueprints is an interview series that showcases the unique journeys of Centre for Stories’ Writing Fellows. We gain insight into how each writer discovered their voice and found the tools they need to pursue their dreams of becoming published authors. This series is a testament to the power of community and the potential of every aspiring author to break through the barriers and achieve their dreams. By sharing their stories, these writers inspire others to pursue their passion for writing and explore the many paths available to them.

Kaya Ortiz has reached the other side of their coming-of-age story, and now reflects on the journey to adulthood with clarity and acceptance. Art and life are intimately connected for them, and the saying ‘one eye on the past, one eye on the future’ is a fitting testament to both. In this interview Kaya speaks about the impacts of displacement, a pumpkin scones recipe and finding joy amidst past traumas.

Kaya Ortiz is a queer Filipino poet of in/articulate identities and record-keeper of ancient histories. Kaya hails from the southern islands of Mindanao (Philippines) and Lutruwita/Tasmania and is obsessed with the fluidity of borders, memory and time. Their writing has appeared in Portside Review, Westerly, the Australian Poetry Journal, Best of Australian Poems (Australian Poetry, 2021) and After Australia (Affirm Press, 2020). Kaya lives and writes on unceded Whadjuk Noongar country, where their name means ‘hello’ in the Noongar language.

When we interviewed you last time, during your Hot Desk Fellowship, you mentioned that you would be starting a degree in creative writing. How is that going?

I actually finished my undergrad in creative writing a few years ago, and now I’m doing an Honours degree in English and Literary Studies at UWA. It was funny because everyone expected, including my supervisor, that I would continue to study creative writing. But I found during my BA that I really enjoyed literary studies. I enjoyed the analysis, the research, and doing a deep dive into a specific text and making connections that I normally wouldn’t have. Also, I had been working on my manuscript for so long that I decided not to jump into another big writing project right away — I wanted to get out of my own head. So I decided to do an academic thesis. I’m reading two poets I admire, Eileen Chong and Ellen van Neerven. I feel that the research is benefiting my own creative practice because it makes me think more intentionally about what I’m writing.

Some topics you’ve written about include migration, queer identity, and eco-poetics. Are you continuing to examine these in your course?

Chong and van Neerven write a lot about food, so that’s the thing I’m focussing on in my dissertation. I’m looking at how food plays into representations and development of cultural identity. For example, in the poem ‘Pumpkin,’ by Ellen von Neumann, the speaker refers to a pumpkin scone recipe by Lady Flo. This recipe was very popular in the 1970s and was printed on a tea towel. The speaker says, ‘Let’s rip up the tea towel, but keep the recipe, because the scones are so good.’ The way I read it is that there’s this legacy of colonisation and imperialism and it’s centred on this recipe for scones, so we want to get rid of that, but at the same time, this thing is quite good. And then at the end of the poem, their uncle gave them a pumpkin, and it goes, ‘I left it and I’m away from country.’ It’s like the pumpkin became part of their country they were going to take with them, but they accidentally left it behind. It just devastates me.

As a cultural studies graduate, I totally get that fascination. You also said in your last interview that you were starting to write from joy instead of trauma. That resonated with me because I’m pulled in both directions as well. What does writing from joy mean to you?

There’s nothing wrong with writing from your trauma, but I was getting to the point where I was just mining it for content. Part of what influenced that approach was going to poetry slams and performing poetry that I had written specifically to incite an emotional reaction from the audience. I felt like when I was trying to do that, rather than writing for myself, that it wasn’t sitting right anymore, it felt like I was trying to get the audience’s approval. So I searched for a different emotion to write from, and I looked to other poets who were doing that. I think Maddie Godfrey does that in their new book, Dress Rehearsals, which is a coming-of-age journey through trauma, and finding there’s a lot of joy to be had as well. And Norman Erickson Pasaribu, a lot of their work is about finding humour in terrible situations. These were the kind of poets I turned to to write about joy instead of trauma.

That’s interesting. It’s like the darker poems are important to you, they’re part of your history, but your writing has changed over time, and now you’re trying to fit them together. Could you tell me about the poetry collection you’re working on?

It’s a narrative that spans several years of my life, a sort of coming-of-age memoir in poetry. It’s a journey towards coming into my queer and cultural identity. So it begins with migration, moving away from my home in the Philippines, and then processing being uprooted, having to figure out where I belong, feeling like I don’t belong anywhere. Themes of displacement, migration trauma, and religious trauma. It’s divided into three parts, each with a slightly different focus. The core impulse of the collection is a longing that reaches across time and place for the fragmented pieces of self scattered there. Although it moves in a mostly linear way, it’s also cyclical, in that it circles back in on itself, but hopefully ends at a place of resolution.

Nice! Fiction can often be subversive or transgressive. How do you navigate potentially controversial topics or viewpoints in your writing?

One of the themes I explore in my manuscript is religious homophobia, and the trauma and harm stemming from that, because I grew up in church as a queer person. That was a wild ride. The religious right is so condemning of queer people, that if they were to read my poems they’d probably lose their shit. How do I navigate that? Well, for me, my work is largely autobiographical, I’m just writing from my experience, and a lot of it is vulnerable, personal stuff. And if I’m just telling my story, and offering this up with an openness, then I would hope that other people would receive that with the same kind of openness, and meet my story with empathy. I’m not trying to be preachy in these poems. I’m just saying, this is how I experienced homophobia growing up in the church. This is what it was like for me. You know, it’s my story, you can’t tell me that it’s wrong.

Okay so you are allowing yourself to be vulnerable in your writing, instead of editing yourself to appear agreeable. I respect that. We all know the feeling of receiving hard-to-hear feedback on a piece of work. How do you handle receiving critical feedback?

I had an editor once who told me that to be a good writer you have to be okay with being edited. What I learned from him was: if you’re seeking to improve you should be willing to take on feedback, but it has to be from people you trust. From people who can see the vision or the heart in your work. Those readers are trying to make your writing better, they’re not judging you. I’ve just had my manuscript assessment returned and I was terrified to open that email. And then I read it, and it was really nice. First of all, my editor, Elena Gomez, gave me so many compliments, which is always very flattering. But also, she showed me how I can make the collection stronger. Editing is just suggestions, but if as a writer you let go of your pride and your ego and just listen, then you can reflect on that, and I find that type of feedback to be the most useful and the most helpful.

That’s a great perspective, a good editor looks beneath the surface. Where are you hoping to take your writing in the final months of the fellowship, and beyond?

My manuscript was at a point where I felt like I’d finished doing everything that I could do with it. So I sent it to Elena, and she’s given me some suggestions and comments that I’m going to read through, and I’ll be making some changes based on those. I feel it’s mostly done and I’m looking into submitting it to publishers and working out that whole process, because I don’t really know what I’m doing. The thing about writing is, especially when you’re submitting to publishers, a lot of it is a waiting game. I have some ideas for future books, but I probably won’t start working on them right away. The research will have to take priority. It will be a huge accomplishment to get that publishing ‘yes.’

Kaya was interviewed by Andrew McGinn in May 2023.

Writing Change, Writing Inclusion is Centre for Stories’ signature writing program for 2021 to 2023. Generously funded by The Ian Potter Foundation, Australia Council for the Arts and Centre for Stories Founders Circle, this writing program features mentoring, hot desk, and publication opportunities for emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and/or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.