Michael Chouinard: Inspiration from the Every-Day
Michael Chouinard is a British Columbia-based writer with fiction published in print and online in Canada and the US. He has a history degree from Simon Fraser University and a journalism degree from the University of Regina. He has worked in a warehouse, driven a cab and done graveyard at a convenience store. Mostly, he's been a newspaper reporter but now works in communications for a college. He lives with his wife Carie and their cats, Alice and Iris, on Vancouver Island.
Chouinard attributes his interest in writing to a spark ignited by Kurt Vonnegut. He remembers, “We always had books around, but I only became an avid fiction reader after discovering Vonnegut as a teen. Writing was always something I loved though; I wrote short plays when I was a kid that I performed with the neighbours. My dad was also a natural storyteller, though he was a radiologist and only read medical journals and the newspaper.”
Chouinard, “a newspaper reporter by trade,” says he writes about various themes and topics but finds that bad jobs are great for mining material. “I don’t know why more writers don’t dig into the workplace for material, as you cover all the emotions,” says Chouinard.
When asked about his writing process, Chouinard says “I can write a lot and quickly, and I often listen to music, especially instrumental, which helps with the cadence of sentences. The seeds for ideas often come from my own life but usually fly off on their own once I free up the story. When I start, I do usually devise a brief outline, though not always for short stories.”
Always busy, Chouinard says he’s currently “revising a novel for the 15th time, which I may end up self-publishing. I have a draft of another, an outline for a third, and usually a short story idea or two floating around.
Michael Chouinard’s story, “A Nuremberg Night, One Particular November” is featured in Windward Review, Vol. 22. When asked about his decision to keep his protagonist nameless, Chouinard says, “He’s less important than the world around him, as he wanders through Europe, oblivious to history as it unfolds.” The story is told in stunning detail during a time of great change in world history.
Here’s an excerpt of "A Nuremberg Night, One Particular November":
He’d come here out of historical interest, and he recalls reading somewhere that it was chosen because of its place in the old Holy Roman Empire, the First Reich, then transformed into the rally grounds through classically influenced architecture aiming for the glory of the even older Roman Empire, a party for the Leader’s own party crowd to dress up in their riding breeches and medals to play their lusty games of soldier.
