Queen’s alumna Monica Heisey’s passion for writing has taken her a long way from the offices of The Queen’s Journal. She’s had articles published in magazines such as VOGUE, ELLE, Glamour, and The New Yorker. She’s earned four Canadian Screen Awards for her work on hit TV shows such as Schitt’s Creek and Baroness von Sketch Show.
Now the Artsci’10 graduate is expanding her success to the world of publishing as her new book, Really Good, Actually, is garnering acclaim around the world.
A Google search shows Heisey and her debut novel seem to be everywhere. Good Morning America on ABC, Marie Claire magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian newspaper, and The Irish Times are just a few of the major media outlets praising the author and her book.
Really Good, Actually is a fictional story partially based on Heisey’s own divorce. The novel is about Maggie, a 29-year-old PhD student from Toronto trying to embrace her new life and find happiness after her marriage ends.
Heisey talked to Queen’s about how to get through a divorce, why her book is connecting with people, and how working at The Queen’s Journal and The Undergraduate Review while at Queen’s had an impact on her as a writer.
Question: While at Queen’s you were an editor at The Queen’s Journal and on the editorial board of The Undergraduate Review. Did your writing career begin at Queen’s? Had you always dreamed about being a writer?
MH: I've always written, ever since I was very young. I was a big reader, and I think it's natural that people who read a lot end up trying to write something themselves. The Journal was great for my writing because it taught me to stick to deadlines, and to balance writing with the other parts of my life. It taught me how to prioritize. The Undergraduate Review was really inspiring to me, because the writers submitting their work were so experimentative and risk-taking. I learned a lot from reading them.
Question: Your new book, Really Good, Actually, is partially based on your own real-life breakup. Looking back, do you have any advice on how to move on from a divorce?
MH: I think my advice to anyone going through a breakup would be not to try to skip the part that sucks. You have to feel the difficult feelings first, then you can process them, and then you can move on. It will take a little longer than you want it to, but it will take even longer if you try to avoid doing the work at all.
Question: Do you have a favourite Schitt’s Creek joke or episode that you wrote?
MH: The process of making comedy for television is so collaborative, it's sort of hard to pinpoint any individual contribution. I'm really proud of being part of Season 4, in particular, because that's when David meets Patrick, and their relationship is, I think, the emotional core of the series. I love Patrick as a character, he's such a genuinely good guy but never a drip, and he can really hold his own against David.
Question: Where do you want to go with your career? Do you want to focus on TV writing? Movie screenplays? Novels? Magazine articles?
MH: I feel really lucky to be able to move between many kinds of writing. They all activate different parts of the brain and stretch different creative muscles, and they all inform and strengthen each other. At the moment I'm part of a friend's writing room while I work on a television adaptation of Really Good, Actually, and I'm about to start writing a second novel. I'd love to write a film someday.
Question: We are seeing your new book being talked about by major media companies around the world. Why do you think the book is connecting with readers and critics?
MH: I hope the book is connecting with people because it's honest—it’s not the most flattering portrait of a woman going through a bad time, and Maggie, the narrator, is very difficult to like at certain points. But I think that's just how people are sometimes. Grief can make you very self-involved. I also wrote the book because I was looking for something that treated heartbreak with a bit of a light hand, that showed heartbreak’s dark side but its light side as well. I think people are looking for a laugh right now. It’s been a long few years.
