From Corner Brook, N.L., Adriana Maggs is an award-winning writer and director for television and film. She was the showrunner for the CBC drama series Coroner, a producer for Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent and is the writer and showrunner for the upcoming Netflix romantic drama The Granville Girls. She is graduating from King’s with her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction, a degree which she says is a step towards living even more creatively.
Was there a course, mentor, reading requirement or experience that has had a lasting impact on you?
The instructors and mentors were all so fantastic. There was one instructor I feel like I got to know through her conversational notes on my papers. I loved getting papers back from her. There were the panels and talks given by writers that featured the unique and often eccentric ways they get inspired to create. Everyone who mentored dug deep into their processes and souls and shared so openly. It was all strange and welcoming and intimate and so inspiring and fun.
What’s your top writing tip?
Plug your nose and write! Never judge your writing as you go, you’ll never get there. Edit and decorate later.
Everyone who mentored dug deep into their processes and souls and shared so openly. It was all strange and welcoming and intimate and so inspiring and fun.
Thinking back to who you were when you received your acceptance letter, what would you tell them?
I would tell my past self that I am unable to imagine how life was about to open up, that the life I was living was getting a little grey and it was about to wake up and get vibrant, that I was about to discover new worlds, fascinating people, support and kindness and a whole new way imagine myself and my future. For me, going to King’s was like having one of those surgeries that made a pain I’d learned to live with disappear.
Where do you hope your degree takes you next?
Deeper into the world King’s opened up for me, deeper into worlds I create, into worlds other people created. This degree is my first step in living more as an artist, more creatively. There was always a little longing in the back of my brain telling me to get to the meaningful work, that there’s art to be created and so many things get in the way of doing that work. This degree is telling me that it’s possible and that I’ve taken the first step.
