Six Questions for Aga Maksimowska
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Aga Maksimowska is the author of Becalming (Rare Machines, 2026) and Giant (Pedlar Press, 2012), which was a finalist for the 2013 Toronto Book Award.
Her stories and essays have been published in the anthology Polish[ed]: Poland Rooted in Canadian Fiction, Brick, The New Quarterly, The Humber Literary Review, Room, White Wall Review, The Lincoln Review, The Globe and Mail, and elsewhere.
She lives in Toronto with her partner and kids, where she is a basketball mom, a high school guidance counsellor, and an obsessive chronicler of the Polish Diaspora.
INTERVIEW
MG: What inspired your new novel Becalming? What else can you tell us about it?
AM: At the centre of the book is a family tragedy, which, in some way, I always knew I would write about in fiction. In 2010, I wrote about it in a Globe and Mail first person essay. Then, in 2020, during the early mornings of lockdowns, I attempted to turn it into this novel. The story shapeshifted for nearly fifteen years. Becalming is a book about bad decisions and redemption, about continuity and transformation, desire and fulfillment. It’s a novel about a bisexual woman who lives in a straight relationship while negotiating desire and commitment. I had a sense growing up that people, including me, were perpetually dissatisfied and constantly in search of self-improvement (that’s why self-help books sell so well, I guess), and yet betrayal and disappointment abound no matter how much privilege and resources we have. All the self-help books don’t make us any better at parenting or relationships. Is it because we’re in search of happiness as opposed to satisfaction? Is it because we’re too competitive, always in a hurry, looking ahead? Because we’re insatiable consumers? Sold a false bill of goods about how travel will teach us about the world while all it does is make us more self-absorbed and restless? Now we have - maxxing; it’s exhausting! Becalming is about rediscovering what’s been right in front of you all along.
MG: Can you describe your writing process?
AM: My writing process is erratic at worst and disciplined at best. I remember doing one of those Myers-Briggs tests when I was young, which told me that I learn in an abstract-random way, meaning intuitively and non-sequentially. A lot about me has changed since then, but not that. I research. I take notes, filling notebooks with orange, green, and blue gel pens. Once I’m more or less certain of what the project is and I know its beginning, middle, and end, I can apply a more systematic approach. I write at 5 AM, or earlier, when I’m groggy and half awake. I get a couple of hours of writing done before everyone else in the house wakes up. When I’m off work in the summers, I spend my days at the public library. I write on my laptop in a program called Scrivener, which keeps the chapters organized. I wish I could write by hand. Writing by hand appeals to me on a philosophical level. I admire writers who compose their first drafts without the use of technology, like Souvankham Thammavongsa and Helen Humphreys do. I’m just too unfocused to make that work. My brain skips and jumps all over the place, which is also why I am usually working on a couple of pieces at once: an essay, a short story, an outline for something. Like I said: abstract-random.
MG: Who are your favourite writers and why?
AM: The slow ones, who take years between novels, so when I get to read them I know what’s in there has steeped for a long time. It’s well considered and weird. I love Jenny Offill, whom I have never met, but I have read everything she’s written, including her children’s books. She’s clearly someone who pays attention to people and thinks about their idiosyncrasies deeply. I admire her work very much and am so grateful for the blurb she offered for Becalming. That was the best cold call I ever made. Hey, I admire your writing so much that learned a great deal from it. Would you read my novel? And she did!
MG: What are your favourite books and why?
AM: Favourite is so difficult for me to pin down. I’m fickle. It depends on how I’m feeling and what I’m looking for at that moment. I love a book one summer but then never return to it or think of it again. So I will answer this question by considering the ones on my bookshelf that I return to again and again, for their wisdom, masterful structure, biting language: A.L. Kennedy’s On Bullfighting, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, just to name a few.
MG: What is the best writing advice you’ve ever been given?
AM: Know your ending. We can’t know it in life, but if we know it in fiction, it’s mighty handy. Also, you don’t have to write every day. There are enough things to feel guilty about. But write. I’ve made my own version of Michael Pollan’s brilliant eating philosophy (“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”) “Write stories. Not too often. Mostly fiction.” My aim is not to create ‘content,’ but a well-crafted body of work that will outlast various literary trends.
MG: Are you currently writing anything new?
AM: I have been researching a historical fiction novel set in Poland. The plan is to write the first draft this summer, so fingers crossed.
