Teaching Across Genres Inspires Poet Lisa Fishman’s First Novel

photo of lisa fishman
book cover of write back now
After publishing eight books of poetry and one collection of short stories, Ƶ Professor Lisa Fishman releases her debut novel “Write Back Now!”

For nearly three decades, Lisa Fishman, a professor at Ƶ in the School of Communication and Culture, immersed herself in poetry as both a writer and a teacher. But she has always had another literary passion. 

"Fiction has always been my first love as a reader," Fishman says. "I have always been a voracious reader of fiction and of novels." 

And now, Fishman is not only a poet, she’s a novelist, recently publishing "Write Back Now!" 

Released by Guernica Editions (Toronto), the 96-page novel follows an adult narrator reflecting on a disrupted childhood friendship and the narrator’s present relocation to a remote part of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Exploring memory, community, place, and loss, the story moves across decades and landscapes as the narrator attempts to make sense of continuity, change, and the vagaries of identity and intimacy.  
 
Studying the Craft 

Rather than simply deciding to write a novel, Fishman approached fiction the same way she approaches teaching: by studying the craft. 

She proposed a graduate craft seminar titled "What May Poets Learn From Short Story Writers?" where she and her students dissected stories paragraph by paragraph. 

"We just sat down and scrutinized, 'What is a paragraph made of? What is happening piece by piece as you enter a short story and track it?'" she says. "Literally, we asked ourselves, 'How do you make this?'" 

Students experimented with transforming autobiographical moments into fiction, shifting first-person experiences into third-person narratives and examining how perspective changes storytelling. 

The following year, Fishman created another craft seminar for poets to study novels. 

"My poetry students were really helpful in that we were all exploring literary fiction together in those two seminars," Fishman says. "That's part of how I came to give myself permission to enter this other genre." 

During a period spent largely in isolation on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fishman began her journey as a fiction writer. She completed the short story collection "World Naked Bike Ride" and wrote what eventually became the opening chapter of "Write Back Now!" 

The experimental form of the book and its use of the page are unique, says Fishman. With only one or two paragraphs per page, the blank space around the text conveys a feeling of both expansion and compression. 

“The first page of each chapter contains only a single, straightforward sentence, and the voice of the narrator is candid and intimate,” she says. “In its brevity and form, the book is somewhat daring as a novel.” 

Writers Begin as Readers 

Fishman credits her love of reading for helping her transition to fiction.  

"Real writers are real readers," she says. 

Her advice to aspiring writers: read broadly. 

"A person who hopes to be a writer should read from a wide range of historical periods and cultural contexts," she says.  

She encourages her students to read translated literature and also to pay close attention to the world around them. 

"Being attentive to the real is surprisingly important," she says. "To notice what's actually there is going to help your writing, whatever your genre.”   

Expanding Creative Horizons 

Fishman says one of the greatest rewards of teaching at Columbia is watching students arrive with rich life experiences and a desire to tell meaningful stories. 

"There's such a richness of experience that our students come to Columbia with," she says. "They have material and they have heart, and they have empathy to really work with as they develop their craft." 

She also sees students increasingly seeking balance in a technology-driven world and hopes they continue reclaiming time away from screens to experience life firsthand. 

An openness to exploration mirrors Fishman's own creative journey. After establishing herself a poet whose work has been included in "Best American Experimental Poetry" and other anthologies, and whose newest poetry collection, "One Big Time," was a finalist for the 2026 Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, Fishman has embraced fiction without abandoning poetry.

She encourages such creative versatility in her students, too. 

And while "Write Back Now!" is her first novel, Fishman doesn't expect it to be her last.  

"I think there probably will be another novel," she says, “and it will likely be longer!” 

Want to read Lisa Fishman’s first novel? The book is easy to order from your local bookstore and is also . You can hear the author read from her novel—and purchase a copy to have signed—at Columbia on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 12:30 in the Efroymsom Reading Series. 

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