Rachel Thompson (00:00:01): Welcome, I’m Rachel Thompson, and this is Write, Publish, and Shine.

Rachel Thompson (00:00:04): Today’s episode is a conversation with Rayya Liebich, an award-winning Canadian writer and educator of Lebanese and Polish descent.

Rachel Thompson (00:00:12): Rayya is the author of Min Hayati and the creator of chapbooks including Tell Me Everything and Khalas/Enough.

Rachel Thompson (00:00:21): They were also the commissioned author for Room 48.3: Rest/Unrest.

Rachel Thompson (00:00:29): In this conversation, we talk about writing and teaching through grief, what “rest” can mean when the world is loud and relentless, and how writers can find structure and sustainability inside nonlinear forms like collage, braid, and lyric work.

Rachel Thompson (00:00:46): Near the end, Rayya offers a short, doable writing prompt you can try in about ten minutes, including a gentle low-spoons adaptation.

Rachel Thompson (00:01:01): As always, you can find the show notes, links, and a full transcript at rachelthompson.co/podcast.

Rachel Thompson (00:01:10): Alright, let’s get into it.

Rachel Thompson (00:01:13): I’m here with Rayya Liebich, who is an award-winning Canadian writer and educator of Lebanese and Polish descent, and whose books include Min Hayati (Inanna Publications), and chapbooks including Tell Me Everything and Khalas/Enough.

Rachel Thompson (00:01:28): Rayya came to my awareness through social media, and through your poem Khalas, or the hybrid (hermit crab) essay you published in that form, and then became, through our invitation, the commissioned author for Room 48.3: Rest/Unrest.

Rachel Thompson (00:01:56): So welcome to Write, Publish, and Shine. Thanks for being here.

Rayya Liebich (00:01:58): Thanks, Rachel.

Rachel Thompson (00:02:00): I thought we would start with a snapshot of your life as a writer right now. Where are you calling in from, and what you’re teaching or working on? Maybe what’s on your desk or in your bag today?

Rayya Liebich (00:02:19): I am here in my office looking out on beautiful Kootenay Lake. I’m on the traditional territories of the Sinixt, Syilx, and Ktunaxa peoples, in what’s now known as Nelson, BC.

Rayya Liebich (00:02:35): I have my hybrid memoir coming out in May with Pownal Street Press. The book is called Milk Teeth. I’m at that fun and daunting phase of planning a launch and getting ready to promote the book.

Rayya Liebich (00:03:01): Teaching wise, I’m preparing to teach some workshops on writing through the senses for a memoir retreat that Alison Wearing is leading in Victoria, BC.

Rayya Liebich (00:03:22): I’m also teaching a Writing Through Grief series in May, also through Alison Wearing.

Rayya Liebich (00:03:35): I have a very messy desk in front of me with lots of stacks of papers. The papers I’m most excited to pick up are feedback from a writing group I adore. I’m working on a nonfiction speculative essay, and I’m excited to go back in, add their ideas, and see where the essay takes me.

Rachel Thompson (00:04:05): My antenna is up around the speculative nonfiction genre, so I’m excited to read that. Is there something tiny, specific you’ve been noticing that’s been feeding your writing right now?

Rayya Liebich (00:04:25): I’ve been paying attention to what other artists are doing, what they’re saying, or what they’re not saying. I’ve been really inspired by solidarity work online, and especially by visual art, stop animation, and cartoons. Sometimes images can speak directly to feelings.

Rachel Thompson (00:05:16): For some reason I’m not surprised you’re drawn to visual art, because a lot of your work is so visual. The Khalas piece that looks like a crossword puzzle feels very visual.

Rayya Liebich (00:05:37): It’s true. I grew up thinking I wasn’t a good drawer, and now I feel like, just do whatever you enjoy. I do play around a lot with visual things.

Rachel Thompson (00:06:00): I mentioned you were the commissioned author for Room 48.3: Rest/Unrest. Would you tell us a little bit about the piece you wrote for the issue, and what it asked of you as you made it?

Rayya Liebich (00:06:35): I was writing pretty much nonstop through the genocide in Gaza, making room in my writing for rage, anger, and despair, which are appropriate responses. But when you asked me to write something, I felt tugged toward softness, and thinking about what radical softness can do alongside rage.

Rayya Liebich (00:07:30): I had watched so many people become desensitized by the overload of images. It was easy to look away, and it stirred in me how important it is to come back to our feelings, our hearts, our humanity.

Rayya Liebich (00:08:06): My first image was a heart. I found origami instructions for folding a heart, and I started writing alongside each step, making comparisons between what happens on paper and what happens in the world.

Rachel Thompson (00:09:09): When you said radical softness, it really hit. The piece is beautiful. In the commission, there’s a line about retrieving images of horror and destruction from the past 600 days and folding the pain down so it touches the centre of your heart. What were you reaching for with that instruction?

Rayya Liebich (00:10:16): We need to care in order to act. We need to feel pain in order to want to transform it. One thing I keep having to relearn is that grief is the medicine.

Rayya Liebich (00:10:44): Pause and feel deeply for a moment, then move from it.

Rachel Thompson (00:11:05): When you’re living inside the rest/unrest tension, how do you tell the difference between rest that restores and rest that numbs?

Rayya Liebich (00:11:51): Rest that restores is the necessary work that comes after doing the work, after you’ve attended a protest, written a letter, written a hard poem, sat with your feelings. You need to recharge so you can wake up and do it again.

Rayya Liebich (00:12:17): Rest that numbs is when you can’t be with your feelings anymore, and you distract yourself. That can be survival. But as much as we can find restorative rest, integration, slowing down, that’s preferable.

Rayya Liebich (00:13:25): Rest is sacred work of slowing down, integrating, catching your breath, feeling what is happening in your bones. That’s hard in a culture that wants productivity and speed.

Rachel Thompson (00:14:16): What helps you stay present with the work, especially when the world is loud or brutal?

Rayya Liebich (00:14:22): Working in bite-size stabs. Poetry helps for its compression.

Rayya Liebich (00:14:41): I try to stay with the moment of what I’m writing, and not worry about where it’s going or who it’s for.

Rayya Liebich (00:15:12): I read Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes, and I find it inspiring.

Rayya Liebich (00:16:03): One instruction I’ve noted is to provide for yourself what you would for a young child: food, naps, a hug from a safe adult, and time to play in the dirt.

Rachel Thompson (00:17:16): You write and teach about grief as something real in the body. What do you wish more writers understood about writing into grief without turning it into a lesson, a performance, or a tidy arc?

Rayya Liebich (00:17:37): Grief is messy. There’s no end point. There’s no straight line from A to B.

Rayya Liebich (00:18:09): When we allow our writing to be messy and raw, it will be authentic and true. Lean into what is true for you, your specific circumstance. That’s what resonates.

Rachel Thompson (00:19:20): How do you find structure for lyric and hermit crab forms? What tells you what goes next?

Rayya Liebich (00:19:36): A lot of it is intuitive. I try to get out of my own way.

Rayya Liebich (00:19:52): Containers (hermit crabs) give me a starting point. If it’s a crossword, you start with one clue and go to the next, and you discover where the essay wants to take you.

Rayya Liebich (00:20:21): Practically, pick an external form and pull up a real example. Look at what it offers in language and shape, then play with one aspect at a time.

Rayya Liebich (00:21:33): Pick a form and commit to it 100%, even if a voice says it’s weird or dumb. Ignore that voice and keep going.

Rayya Liebich (00:22:17): I’m a big fan of using a timer. If I only have four minutes, who cares if it’s terrible? I can get weird in four minutes.

Rachel Thompson (00:22:46): When you have little time or energy, what’s the smallest practice that keeps you close to the work?

Rayya Liebich (00:22:53): Reading, especially poetry. One poem or one line. I’ve fallen back in love with June Jordan, and I also love Hala Alyan.

Rachel Thompson (00:23:23): What does editorial care as relationship mean to you in practice?

Rayya Liebich (00:23:56): Writing is vulnerable. There’s nothing more brave than speaking your truth.

Rayya Liebich (00:24:24): When I offer support to another writer, it’s helping the writer connect back to their why, encouraging them, supporting discovery.

Rayya Liebich (00:25:02): I learned a lot from Chelene Knight, who was my editor. They offered more questions than answers, and that helped me make it my book.

Rachel Thompson (00:27:31): Would you mind walking us through a prompt for listeners?

Rayya Liebich (00:27:40): This prompt is called Dear Grief.

Rayya Liebich (00:27:56): Gather paper and an envelope. In a quiet, uninterrupted space, write a letter to your grief as if grief is a person. Ask questions, tell what’s true. Set a timer for five minutes.

Rayya Liebich (00:28:24): If words don’t come, doodle or draw.

Rayya Liebich (00:28:46): Then pause (tea helps) and write a response letter from Grief, responding like your best friend would: honest, steady, kind.

Rayya Liebich (00:29:41): Seal it in an envelope and label it for the day you’ll need it.

Rayya Liebich (00:30:03): Low-spoons adaptation: record it as a voice memo and save it to listen to later.

Rachel Thompson (00:30:26): Is there anything you want to leave writers with today?

Rayya Liebich (00:30:48): The importance of making. Make something with your hands. It might also be a gift for someone else.

Rachel Thompson (00:31:46): Where can writers find you?

Rayya Liebich (00:31:52): Instagram: @rayliebich. There’s a Linktree in my bio with essays and chapbooks. Website: www.rayyaliebich.com.

Rachel Thompson (00:32:39): So that was my conversation with Rayya Liebich. There were so many moments that moved me, but I keep returning to Rayya’s insistence on radical softness alongside rage, and the invitation to keep folding what we’re witnessing back toward the heart, not away from it.

Rachel Thompson (00:32:56): I also loved what Rayya shared about grief: that it’s messy, nonlinear, and that grief is the medicine.

Rachel Thompson (00:33:08): On the craft side, Rayya offered guidance for hermit crab and lyric forms: choose the container, commit fully, and let play and intuition do some of the structuring.

Rachel Thompson (00:33:22): Near the end, Rayya leaves us with a simple, bracing kind of wisdom: make something. Make with your hands. Let the making be part of how you keep going.

Rachel Thompson (00:33:32): You can find Rayya on Instagram at @rayliebich, and find more of her writing through the Linktree there. Rayya’s website is www.rayyaliebich.com.

Rachel Thompson (00:33:44): Anything we mentioned in the call, I’ll link in the show notes for this episode. This is episode 115, so you’ll find it at rachelthompson.co/115.

Rachel Thompson (00:33:53): The Write, Publish, and Shine podcast is hosted by me, with sound editing by Adam Linder.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:00): To learn more about the work I do to support writers, visit rachelthompson.co, and sign up for my Writerly Love Letters.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:10): Before I go, I always name where I’m recording from. I record this podcast on the lands of the El Muzina Bedouin in South Sinai, in solidarity with occupied peoples and with those enduring ongoing occupation and siege, and with a commitment to justice and care.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:26): Rayya Liebich recorded from Nelson, BC, on the traditional territories of the Sinixt, Syilx, and Ktunaxa peoples.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:34): If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear what you’re taking from it. You can find me on Substack at litmaglove.substack.com, or email me at hello@rachelthompson.co.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:45): If you’d like to support the show, please share this episode with a writer friend, and rate, review, and follow the podcast wherever you listen.

Rachel Thompson (00:34:54): Thank you for listening. Until next time, take the rest you need, and if you can, let some of what’s unsettled find its way onto the page.