Previous Q&A

Hasan Namir is an Iraqi-Canadian author. He is the author of three previous books: God in Pink, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Fiction, War/Torn, recipient of the 2020 Barbara Gittings Honor Book Award from the Stonewall Book Awards, and the children’s book, The Name I Call Myself.…

Sara Desai has been a lawyer, radio DJ, marathon runner, historian, bouncer and librarian. She lives on Vancouver Island with her family and an assortment of forest creatures who think they are pets. Sara writes diverse romantic comedy and contemporary romance. Her books have appeared in Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Pop Sugar, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Frolic, USA Today, Woman’s World and Hello!…

Emily Riddle is nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation in Treaty 6. Her nonfiction and poetry appears in publications across Canada, including the Globe and Mail, Canadian Art Magazine, Prism International, Briarpatch Magazine, and Guts Magazine, and she also writes for the Yellowhead Institute. She just completed a poetry mentorship program through the Writers’ Trust with Joshua Whitehead, which has resulted in a poetry manuscript that will soon be published.…

Born in Trinidad, André Alexis is a Canadian writer based in Toronto. Starting with his debut novel, Childhood, Alexis has been the recipient and nominee of numerous awards, including the Trillium Book Award, the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the US Windham-Campbell Prize. His most well-known book, Fifteen Dogs, has been championed by both readers and writers alike.…

Brandi Bird is a Two-Spirit Saulteaux, Cree and Metis writer/editor from Treaty 1 territory currently living and learning on Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh & Musqueam land. Their work has been published in The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Puritan, Poetry is Dead, Room Magazine, Brick Magazine, Prism International, Arc and The Fiddlehead.

Interviewed by Cara Nelissen

Cara Nelissen (CN): Who or what do you consider your work to be in conversation with?…

Mark Anthony Jarman’s new book Czech Techno is a gorgeous collection of short stories—both for the stories themselves and also for the graphic design they are enhanced by. This is his sixth book of short stories, but he also has written poetry, fiction, and travel. The five stories in Czech Techno weave in and out of music, musicians, dreams, lovers, haunted uninhabited islands, and along the streets of Victoria.…

Born in Congo-Kinshasa, Téa Mutonji now lives and writes in Scarborough, Ontario. She was selected as emerging writer of the year (2017) by the Ontario Book Publishers Organization. 

Mutonji’s collection of linked short stories, Shut Up You’re Pretty, came out in 2019 and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada, a Publishing Triangle Award winner, and a Prix Trillium Award winner.…

Here are the details about Linda K. Thompson: born and raised on a potato and cattle farm in the Pemberton Valley and now lives in Port Alberni, where she been for many years. She has a chapbook called “Four Small People in Sturdy Shoes” and many poems in literary journals across the country.…

Samantha Martin-Bird is a citizen of Peguis First nation currently living in a house she painted purple in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She works in philanthropy with the Mastercard Foundation to address inequities in education and employment for Indigenous young people. As a way to pass the time during the pandemic, Sam started writing poetry about places she has called home, Saskatchewan and northern Ontario.…

Andrea Actis was born in Toronto but for most of her life has lived in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She teaches writing and literature at Capilano University and from 2015 to 2017 edited The Capilano Review. Grey All Over is her first book.…

Troy Sebastian |nupqu ʔak·ǂam̓ is a Ktunaxa writer from ʔaq̓am. Troy has a MFA from the University of Victoria where he teaches writing. His story tax niʔ pikak̓— a long time ago– was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize and the 2019 Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. He was selected as a 2020 Writer’s Trust Rising Star by Lynn Coady and longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.…

Isabella Wang has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry, Minola Review’s Poetry Contest, and was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. Wang’s poetry and prose have appeared in over thirty literary journals and three anthologies. She studies English and world literature at Simon Fraser University and is an editor at Room magazine. …