When A&S alum Martha Baillie isn’t working part-time at the Toronto Public Library, she’s drawing on personal experience — from loss to her career — to write award-winning books of her own.
Baillie’s most recent book, There Is No Blue, was written in response to her mother's passing, her father's life, and her sister’s decision to take her own life.
“I don't think I could have written about anything else,” says Baillie, who earned her bachelor of arts in 1981 as a member of Trinity College. “I was completely absorbed by attempting to come to terms with my sister’s suicide.”
The memoir received widespread praise and won the 2024 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
“To have that much critical acclaim come to something that already feels a little too revealing is both welcome and jarring, but mostly welcome,” Baillie says.
Baillie began writing and working at the Toronto Public Library after completing her undergraduate degree, travelling for a year in Asia and finishing a second degree at U of T — her bachelor of education at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
“I knew I wanted to write, and working for the public library seemed like a good balance,” Baillie says. “It’s so gratifying because it’s much more tangible than writing.”
U of T was formative to Baillie, who was born and raised in Toronto. Her father, Donald Baillie, was a professor of math and statistics for years, and the school was threaded through her upbringing.
At A&S, Baillie studied history, French literature and some Russian-language courses.
She also found a home at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, where she acted in a one-woman show, Bertolt Brecht’s The Jewish Wife and played Captain Sexcrement in Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi.
Even now, she finds herself drawing on her U of T theatre experiences both through her storytelling for children at the library as well as in her writing.
“If you hear speech in a certain way, it's easier to write dialogue,” Baillie says. “A lot of writing is theatre in your head before you put it on the page.”
There Is No Blue was not her only book in the limelight over the past year. In early May, Baillie participated in a panel discussion for Darkest Miriam (2024) at the Toronto Reference Library. The film was adapted from Baillie’s 2009 work, The Incident Report. Set in Toronto, the story follows Miriam, a librarian oppressed by her grief over the death of her father.
Baillie was joined on the panel by the film’s director, Naomi Jaye, and Taka Moudraia, a project worker at the Gerstein Crisis Centre. It was moderated by Desmond Cole, an author and journalist.
“The panel had a real emphasis on mental health issues, libraries and the housing crisis, because the film touches on all those issues,” Baillie says.
Baillie’s library experiences were part of the creative inspiration behind The Incident Report. She was intrigued by her library’s actual incident reports — which document disruptive events — and used them as a disjointed structure for her book, mirroring the fragmentation often felt in mental health struggles.
“Part of our way of coping with some of our workplace stress is to tell stories,” Baillie says. “I knew if I ever put these humorous stories down on paper, their more serious side would have to come to the fore. How could I tell these stories about mental suffering in a respectful way?”
When Jaye first reached out about adapting the book, Baillie watched some of her films and was immediately reassured.
“One of them was completely absurd,” Baillie says. “She totally gets that part of the book. I just felt we were on the same aesthetic wavelength.”
While Baillie didn’t take an active role in the filmmaking process, she stayed engaged as a creative consultant and trusted Jaye’s vision.
For example, her knowledge of the library proved useful from a logistics perspective, and she spoke regularly with the film’s stars, Britt Lower — of Severance fame — as Miriam and Tom Mercier as Janko, an artist-turned-cab driver and Miriam’s main romantic interest in the film.
“Martha became an invaluable resource,” Jaye says. “She’s just a source of energy and good vibes.”
“I felt I could trust that whatever she made from my book would be interesting and inventive. Our sensibilities were aligned in some inherent way, which is why my book attracted her,” Baillie says.
As the hubbub surrounding both The Incident Report and There Is No Blue settles, Baillie is already looking toward her next project. She’s in the midst of figuring out who the characters might be and what might happen to them.
“If I’m not working on a book, I’m a very antsy person,” Baillie says. “Writing absorbs and holds my attention in a way few other things do.”