Taylor Arnt gets work recognized on national stage
An author from St. Andrews has made it on the CBC 2023 Nonfiction Prize longlist setting themselves apart on a national level.
“I wrote a piece called The monarch and the matriarch. My short-form description of it is that it’s an intergenerational exploration of matriarchy,” said Arnt.
Arnt writes under the penname Tay Aly Jade and a full version of the submission is available on their blog.
“My mom gave me a pair of Monarch butterfly earrings last year before beginning graduate school and she wrote a letter with it, explaining that the monarch butterfly goes on this amazing journey. It spans from Canada to Mexico. Along this journey are multiple generations of Monarch butterflies, who pass away along the way. But the fourth generation, that is the super generation and is the one that makes the last leg of the journey,” said Arnt.
After the initial inspiration from their mother, Arnt learned more about the monarch butterfly and felt a connection between it and their own family’s experience.
“[My writing] goes back and forth between metaphors around the monarch butterfly, but also telling the story of both sides of my ancestors. How my European ancestry got to Canada, but also my Anishinaabe ancestry that’s been here since time immemorial, and talking about how these two worlds came together,” they said.
Arnt says that they felt a calling to write from a young age.
“I remember being at St. Andrew’s school in fifth grade, and we had a short story writing assignment and that was my most favourite assignment ever in class. I wrote this gender-bending fairy tale. I was very feminist. And then, in high school, I took on this big project. It was a journal that I wrote all about my experience of being 17 years old at that time. I was able to be very, open and honest and raw, in sharing the experience of what it was like to be a teenager going to the comp. Then I put it away but it was always there in the background,” said Arnt.
They picked writing back up in university, however, and have continued to write.
Arnt thought that submitting work to the CBC 2023 Nonfiction Prize was a long shot but thought they would try anyway.
“I really loved the piece that I had written, I think it was one of the best pieces that I’d written up to that point. And, I knew it was a really important story, one that needed to be told, because I don’t think there are enough stories about mixed people, people who grapple with what it means to be Indigenous and White, or other ethnicities. And so, I think my story really is emblematic of the Canadian multicultural experience,” said Arnt.
Though they are still at the beginning of their writing career they’ve already achieved a lot with this submission and plan to continue to write.
“Next year, I’m planning to write my first book, it’s already in the works. But I would love to get that out into the world. I think within the next couple of years, people can expect to see that on bookstore shelves and be able to buy it and support me as an author,” said Arnt.
To read the Monarch and the Matriarch check out Arnt’s blog at
https://www.tayalyjade.com/posts/the-monarch-and-the-matriarch
