Paradise writer shows her poetry background in short story collection

By Chad Feehan / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Molly Clarke has been creative since childhood, but started taking her craft a little more seriously upon admission to creative writing courses at MUN in the mid 2010’s.
Over time, her focus drifted from poetry to short stories, and will soon be crystallized in a collection with a little help from ArtsNL’s Year of the Arts grants program.
The collection will comprise completed works like 2023 Arts and Letters Award winner “Roadkill,” along with works still in progress, and a number of upcoming stories that will round out the bunch.
Common themes will be found throughout, including the connection between place and identity in Newfoundland and the shifting social landscape of the province, often seen through the lens of childhood innocence.
In her stories, children try to understand big things from their own childlike point of view but never quite grasp.
“I find the way they see things to be interesting and I have a lot of very vivid memories from when I was a kid, so I like to work off of that,” she said.
Clarke’s stories are often introspective and meandering, putting little emphasis on plot while emphasizing characterization in a decidedly poetic style, no doubt influenced by her background in poetry.
“Sometimes it’s hard (to describe) a plot because it sounds like absolutely nothing happened, and a lot of the time nothing did happen,” she said. “You can tell I started writing poems before stories because a lot of the time the language is more poetic than it is short story-esque.”
Clarke describes herself as lacking the discipline to intentionally sit down and write a story, and instead is moved to ride the waves of necessity and urgency whenever inspiration rears its head.
“I’m very sporadic… An idea will come to me and I’ll have to sit in my chair and write the story in one go,” she said. “When that happens it feels like I have to write that story.”
Originally, the stories she’s written so far were only ever intended for the magazines and respective publications they were featured in, like the inclusion of “Tailbone” in Riddle Fence magazine.
“The thought of writing a novel is a bit daunting so I never really considered that,” she said.
However, after reading a number of short story collections in her spare time, Clarke realized she had a good number of stories ready to go, and was well on her way to a robust collection of prose.
Clarke doesn’t quite write for the average pulp reader seeking thrills and chills, but thinks a certain type of patient reader, perhaps a writer his or her self, will find value in her work.
Despite the absence of seeking mass appeal with her work, Clarke is grateful to add her output to the long history of art in the Newfoundland and Labrador canon.
“I like the idea of creating something that will last beyond me, even if it doesn’t reach a wide audience,” she said. “It’s cool to have something that maybe my grandkids can read… a little artifact of me and my time.”