The Riding Mountain Artists’ Residency gives Manitoban artists time to focus on their work in the beautiful natural setting of Riding Mountain National Park.
The next artist-in-residence for the 2026 season is Cale Plett. Ahead of their time in the historic Deep Bay Cabin, Cale answered a few of our questions about their work and how they’ll be spending their residency.
MAC: Tell us a little about yourself as an artist and your practice.
Cale: I write short stories and poetry, but my main form is queer YA novels. Lately, that’s tilted the direction of horror. I love examining monsters and ideas of the different forms that monstrosity takes, especially toward young queer people. I often start projects with the monster and thinking about how I can create something that generates a fear worse than simply death, like erasure, harm to community, loss of bodily autonomy. Young queer people often can’t do much to directly fight their real-life monsters. It’s really frowned upon to stake your local Conservative MP or be a final girl vs. Danielle Smith. So approaching horror as a comfort genre, it gives a chance to face down and defeat these monstrous presences and beings. And it’s fun. And gross and scary, of course.
It’s odd to me that I so often start with concept, because my books themselves are very character-first. If you don’t care about the characters, why would you care about their suffering or survival? My characters tend to love each other really deeply, which isn’t to say they always treat each other well or are “good” people. I think I got the balance almost right in my first horror novel – The Saw Mouth – which happens in a small town on the edge of a lake.
Tell us about your project — what will you be working on in the Deep Bay Cabin?
Some of my current project is still under wraps for public discussion, but I’ll be working on research and early draft stages of a new queer YA horror novel set in a rural location very similar to the one I’ll be staying in. It’s going to feature simultaneous forward and backward narratives, so that the beginning of the monster’s arc dovetails with the end of the protagonist’s arc. Lots of scary lakes at night and places that are too quiet. A very strange monster that’s not what it seems at first and a whole bunch of religious trauma. I can promise it will be creepy, disgusting, and make you cry, maybe all at the same time!
What is your relationship with the park?
I’ve only visited Riding Mountain National Park during a period of fairly intense lockdown, and it felt like shedding layers of myself back to something more raw at my core. It might sound odd to say, but I’m most excited to be out at night and feel the difference between the hum of bright life and that other sort of hum that comes in pockets of light that exist in vast stretches of darkness. I like to walk around the edges where they meet. It sounds a bit emo, but really it’s a lot of stillness and feeling the spaces I’m lucky enough to be in.
How do you hope the park will influence or inspire your project or practice?
It’s about texture. When you’re not right in the place you’re writing about, it’s easy to describe it, but it’s hard to get the exact feel right. The little things that do a lot of work, or the single objects or images that encapsulate the space. Being in Riding Mountain National Park is going to help me find the exact words I need to bring the environment right to the reader.
Anything else you’d like to share with readers and the Riding Mountain National Park community?
It’s a huge honor to be welcomed into this space and onto Treaty 2 Territory. The book world moves slowly at the best of times, so it may be a while before you hear more about what I created and when it’s coming out, but I can’t wait to share what this residency is going to help me create.
The Riding Mountain Artists’ Residency is offered in partnership by the Manitoba Arts Council, Wasagaming Community Arts, and Riding Mountain National Park.
Interested in the staying in the Deep Bay cabin? Find out how to apply to the Riding Mountain Artists Residency through the Learn – Residencies grant stream. Apply by January 15, 2027 for a residency in the summer of 2027.
