In conversation with Maureen Bhutong Boyd

Maureen joined us at The Hideout in early spring to work on her memoir. When we read the writing sample from her residency application, we were immediately drawn in by its lyricism and experimental approach. Three months after her spring residency, we caught up with Maureen to learn more about her practice and what she accomplished during her residency.

While at the Hideout I worked on my hybrid genre memoir, which explores my mother’s death in 2023 and meeting my half-sister in Thailand for the first time.

My memoir mixes narrative essay, lyric, and photo essay to reflect the overlapping but distinctly different immigration experiences of my parents and the contentious nature of diaspora. As such, figuring out a structure that engages readers and also reflects the multiplicity of mixed-race, multi-immigrant experience has been challenging.

Victoria harbour and beach

My goal with a residency was to get a sense of what my book could look like—how I could bring disparate fragments together into a cohesive, yet layered, whole. I knew, when I saw the picture of the desk, the many books, and the beautiful natural landscape, that The Hideout would provide fertile ground for my work.

oysters in victoria harbour

While at The Hideout I finally had the time and space to see my manuscript come to life. I printed out the whole thing and spread it out across the floor, sorting it into stacks by theme, memory, and emotional resonance. What had seemed like an overwhelming, chaotic jumble of writings spewed out over a couple of years suddenly had shape. I could see connections between stories, conflicts, and discoveries that I had not previously understood before. The peaceful, carefully curated creative space of The Hideout also allowed me to write another 7,000 words, a gift that I had not anticipated.

cavendish beach, pei national park

When I needed to get away from the keyboard or just get out of my own head, PEI offered so much opportunity for quiet escape. I loved walking around Victoria-by-the-Sea, visiting the friendly artisans, seeing hand-crafted jewelry, pottery, weaving, and paintings, eating delicious oysters, and sampling the sumptuous chocolates at Island Chocolates. I took long walks along Cavendish Beach in the north and the lovely Bonshaw Hills Provincial Park to the east. One of the best things about The Hideout, however, was the close proximity of Foxy Fox Coffee House, where I spent a couple of hours drinking chai and rediscovering the joy of handwriting in a new journal for my manuscript.

victoria harbour and beach

Since my return from The Hideout the interplay between memory, narrative, and image has continued to grow. I write at home, in my office, and to sustain my writing practice I meet weekly and bi-weekly with several groups of writers. Through these virtual communities I have both accountability and a wonderful source of feedback from my writing. This is the first time since I have begun my hybrid creative nonfiction project that I can say that I will have a complete draft of my manuscript by the end of 2026, and I owe much of that to the time I have spent at The Hideout.

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Maureen Bhutong Boyd is a Thai-Scottish-Canadian-Californian writer and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University in Oregon. Her writing appears in Catamaran Literary Reader, The Pinch, Bellingham Review, Joyland Magazine, and TIMBER, amongst others. She has been a named finalist for the Periplus Fellowship, and she has read her work at APAture, Kearney Street Workshop’s Festival for Asian Pacific American writers in San Francisco. In 2026 her creative nonfiction project is receiving support from The Hideout, Storyknife, and Ragdale residencies. She resides on Vancouver Island with her husband and three dogs. You can find out more about Maureen and her writing at https://maureenbhutongboyd.net/, and you can also follow her on Instagram @maureenbhutongboyd.

A selection from the project Maureen worked on at The Hideout was just selected as an Editor’s Pick for Solstice Magazine’s Annual Literary Contest. You can read it here.