MFA in Writing Mentor Spotlight: MADELEINE THIEN

Recently, Kamryn Heavin, English Honours student, had a conversation with acclaimed author and USask MFA in Writing Mentor, Madeleine Thien.

A CONVERSATION WITH MADELEINE THIEN

Have you always known you wanted to be a writer, or did it come to you later in life?

I always knew. From the beginning, reading was my solace and my escape. It seemed incredible to me, almost miraculous, that lines on a page could create these other dimensions, worlds, feelings, and existences.

Are you constantly writing, or thinking about what you will write next? How do you balance regular life with a work that you love so much?

I’m always working on something. Other characters and lives and times are part of my constant and present reality. To me this feels like a fortunate, though occasionally overwhelming, thing.

I think, especially over the past fifteen years, I’ve relied on the practice of writing to keep me destabilised, so that I don’t approach the world through a settled frame. It’s true that writing can demand a great deal emotionally, but it also gives a person ways to think, imagine and feel that are unique and transformative, and sometimes lifesaving.

What has your experience with mentorship been like in the past?

I’ve had different teachers, friends, editors and fellow writers over the years who have taken on this role of mentorship. But often my mentors are not writers. They are people who have had to find a way to live through difficult times, who have quietly supported others, and have tried to live by their principles. When I think about mentorship, I think about being a fellow novelist but also just a fellow person. I feel like we’re thinking together. What I love is that I’m always challenged to think about fiction and the world in ways that might be new to me.

How did you approach the USask, MFA mentorship?

I try to be guided by where the writer is in their lives, what they are struggling with, and discovering, in the work. Each writer is so particular! It’s really special, learning to see what they are seeing, and then to support them as they find their own way to communicate those ideas and make them live.

What did you learn from your mentee?

Boldness, persistence, vision. I really enjoyed working with my mentee, Rahul, and having the chance to read his epic, complex and moving novel.

Is there anything you would like to say about the MFA in Writing Mentorship here at the University of Saskatchewan?

Only that it is so enjoyable! It feels like an ongoing and ever surprising conversation between two writers.

Being such a celebrated author, how do you approach a new project? Do you feel pressure to “beat” your last work?

No, the pressure I feel is ... I don’t want to let my characters down. They are imperfect human beings, as we all are, but they are clinging to the present and to our shared world. I always feel they have a meaning beyond me and them

ABOUT MADELEINE THIEN

Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver and lives in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of five books, including Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Folio Prize, and won the 2016 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

Her most recent novel, The Book of Records, was longlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award and for The Climate Fiction Prize 2026, included on President Obama’s list of favourite books of 2025, and named a book of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, Time, and The New York Public Library. Madeleine’s novels have been translated into twenty-seven languages, and her writing can be found in The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere.

She teaches in the MFA Program at Brooklyn College and in the Granta Writers’ Workshop. Currently, she is a mentor for the MFA in Writing program at the University of Saskatchewan

ABOUT KAMRYN HEAVIN

Kamryn Heavin is a graduating English honors student with a psychology minor and creative writing certificate. She presently holds a student internship position with the USask MFA in Writing program.She hopes to continue her creative writing career through the MFA in Writing program next year.

Related Articles