With the Fraser Valley Writers Festival coming to UFV in early November, The Cascade sat down with Billy-Ray Belcourt, one of the event’s two keynote speakers, on all things writing, teaching, and literature. Billy-Ray Belcourt, from the Driftpile Cree Nation, is an author, poet, and associate professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He has published three poetry collections and two novels, the most recent being Coexistence (2024) which has been shortlisted for the 2025 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Awards. He also has multiple works of prose and poetry published online.
A poet first and foremost, Belcourt is unconfined by genre. To Belcourt, poetry supplies a certain freedom that doesn’t tether him to traditional writing conventions. His poetic voice is evident in his long form work and fiction, though he admitted, “I have to quiet it down and write boring sentences, but I do have to feel that poetic voice at all times when I’m writing.”
When asked about the role of the writer in society, Belcourt emphasized his why: “I just want to write something that is moving and meaningful.” For him, being a queer Indigenous writer is to “engage with very real issues and desires that make up the queer Indigenous experience … to open up some kind of private and public space that is philosophical and emotional at the same time.” Belcourt encourages readers to “think with more nuance about queer Indigenous life, colonization, and desire.”
Much of Belcourt’s work is based around resistance against colonialism and its dominant ideals. “Literature affords us the opportunity to imagine otherwise,” he said. “As an Indigenous person, you feel like you’re born into a history that you’re fundamentally unfree from, but in my work, I’ve tried to insist on our right to be free.”
Indigenous agency is a cornerstone of Belcourt’s thematics. “I want my characters — in my fiction in particular — to be seen as people who are complex and full of desire and who deserve lives that aren’t mired in suffering.” Speaking to what motivates his writing practice, he said, “one of my main motivations is that every book includes something that feels important to me, [but] I can’t do everything.” With each book he is “chasing after what I feel like I’ve left behind or left out … I feel like I’ve always got something else to write toward.”
When asked about the theme of vulnerability in his work, Belcourt was surprised. “It never occurred to me not to be vulnerable when I was writing,” he said. Growing up during the rise of social media, Belcourt noticed how we were all documenting our lives, yet representation wasn’t adequate. “I recognized there was a lack of books to buy about queer and dismissed people.” Vulnerability in his creative work was a way of offering connection. “Vulnerability can be something that is coerced out of you, or it can be like something that you’re offering up as a way of solidarity [and] connection.” His advice for emerging writers who are scared to be vulnerable is for them to “think about … the difference between those two aspects of vulnerability — be vulnerable when it feels like you’re going to be received generously.”
Belcourt’s career in academia was something he knew he would pursue early in his undergraduate degree. As a creative writing professor, Belcourt mixes both writing and theory, and his teaching informs his creative work. “My students feel they’re important to my overall practice and process… I’m very lucky that I get to think about literary topics every week with students who want to write about the world and want to do it rigorously.”
Speaking of the classroom as a place of uncertainty for both him and his students he said, “uncertainty creates a place where we can meet in the service of some larger knowledge projects… Whether that be poetry, fiction, or Indigenous writing… we’re always moving together toward some sense of understanding about how to be more purposeful and intentional and thoughtful.” Belcourt is looking forward to joining us at the Fraser Valley Writers Festival. “It’s always a joy to be with other writers and readers and to close the gap between your book and your imagined reader,” he said.
Belcourt left us with a few pieces of advice for new writers: “have time to commit to your craft.” In writing “harness both what [you] do and what [you] don’t know, because in combining the two, something irreducible emerges that can feel like art.” And to the sentiment of Toni Morrison, Belcourt said to “write the book that you need that doesn’t exist.”
You can hear more from Billy-Ray Belcourt on Nov. 1 at the Fraser Valley Writers Festival Opening Night in Evered Hall. While it’s free to go, you’ll need to reserve your spot on Eventbrite or through the Fraser Valley Writers Festival website. We look forward to his keynote address exploring writing, politics, and colonialism.
