Interview with ​Angel Dionne

Meet NUNUM's Contributor: Angel Dionne

1/6/2026

NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Interview with Angel Dionne

What was the first book you remember picking up and reading yourself?

I (almost) always read the books assigned to me in school, but the first one I clearly remember picking up on my own was during the start of my freshman year of high school. A friend had commented that I wasn’t really a reader, and I set out to prove them wrong. I went to the town library and decided that I would pick something at random.

I ended up grabbing Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement by Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer. It’s a 720-page tome that traces the history of the civil rights movement in America. It felt impossible at first, but I ended up devouring it within weeks. It sparked in me a deep love of reading and lasting interest in the civil rights movement. It was one of the first times I realized that books were more than assignments.

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What was the last book you read that made you say damn, that was a good book?

I wanted to talk about The Assistant by Bernard Malamud because it is the book that has had the most profound impact on me. But the last book I read that really made me say “damn” was Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch. It’s disturbing and provides, I think, brilliant and honest commentary on how motherhood can consume and transform identity.

Which artists have influenced your current artistic direction?

For the pieces that merge abstract expressionism and asemic writing, one of my biggest influences has been Cy Twombly’s work. I could study The Fall of Hyperion for hours. More broadly, David Lynch has shaped the direction of my writing and artwork in a big way, especially his early short films like The Grandmother and The Alphabet. Most people know of his later work, but his paintings and early films really are underrated. They are especially surrealist and the bizarre. For me, they capture disorientation of fever dreams. You can see some of his influence in my surrealist writing and in recent art pieces like Short Leash (Lullaby Machine, 2025). Writers? André Breton, Bernard Malamud, and Haruki Murakami.

Is there an artist in your local community that you would recommend people check out?

Everyone should get to know Réjean Toussaint’s work. He’s a local Edmundston artist who also teaches painting at the University of Moncton’s Edmundston Campus. There’s something spectacular about his use of colour and space. I learned a great deal from him when I audited one of his courses last year. I think he taught me how to open myself up and be freer with my visual work. He also recently published a French poetry collection entitled Good Bye! (Les Éditions de la Francophonie, 2025).

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What advice would you give to someone just starting to send their work to journals?

I’ve mentioned this before, but my best piece of advice is to persevere. I don’t think we ever get to a point where rejections don’t sting. There’s always that moment of disappointment when you read “Unfortunately, we have decided not to publish this piece.” But “not this time” doesn’t mean “never”. Keep submitting. Cast a wide net. If you want to write, write. Don’t let one no, or a hundred noes, dissuade you from sending your work out. There’s an audience out there that needs it.

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Are there any recurrent symbols in your work?

Fish are a recurring symbol and if you ask me why, I honestly couldn’t give you a concrete answer in terms of what they mean in my work. I think trying to figure out what something means when it comes to surrealist work misses the point, anyway.

Fish are just something I feel I have to paint. I think it connects to a recurrent dream I had as a child and still have today at the age of 36. In these dreams, I wander past pet store aquariums teeming with all sorts of odd fish – tiny narwhals, monstrous things with too many teeth, planets and moons swimming among cardinal tetras, mini elephants that still look like elephants but are somehow fish.

Other symbols I’ve included in my written and visual work include houses, birds, apple cores, and telephones. Make of that what you will.

What are you working on now?

I’m awaiting the publication of my surrealist prose-poetry collection, Garden-Body., which will be released by Radiant Press in fall of 2026. The editing process begins soon! Otherwise, I’m just writing and pottering about, teaching yet another fabulous group of students. I’ve applied for a sabbatical and an arts grant to work on an interdisciplinary surrealist project entitled Quiet Utterances. To remain intentionally vague, I’ll just say that the project will offer readers/viewers a mirror through which to explore their own silences and expressions. In which situations have you remained silent when you should have spoken? In which situations have you spoken when you should have remained silent? Are words always enough to capture the essence of our thoughts?

What would your last meal be?

Nuri spicy sardine pâté and Jose Gourmet garfish in olive oil from Rainbow Tomatoes Garden, plenty of crackers, camembert and mustard, black coffee, and for dessert, my grandmother’s raspberry pie. Of course, she’d have to come back from the dead first.

Artist's Statement

My visual work is difficult to categorize. I don’t mean this in an arrogant sense, but rather because my work is often inconsistent. I experiment constantly and find myself flittering between styles. For a time, I had a passionate love affair with abstract expressionism and asemic writing, as you can see in Spring Cleaning and In a Thrift Store. I plan to revisit these modes again someday.

Lately, I’ve been working with surrealist pieces that juxtapose hand-drawn elements with collage and surrealist poetry. What brings everything together is an exploration of the boundary between the real and the surreal. Language frays and tatters and sometimes becomes meaningless; ordinary objects transform into something else entirely. My artistic goal is to disrupt how we see things and to marvel at everything that is strange and deeply human.

Angel T. Dionne is a surrealist writer and professor at the University of Moncton's Edmundston campus. She is the author of Garden-Body (Radiant Press, forthcoming) as well as Bird Ornaments (Broken Tribe Press, 2025) and Sardines (ClarionLit, 2023). Her writing and art have appeared in several experimental publications. She takes her coffee black, and fish tinned.