Please join us Monday, May 6 at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom for a spring pop-up reading
Draft is alive and well and planning something fun. Join us for a Zoom pop-up reading, a Spring extravaganza with 21 writers sharing work-in-progress.
Monday, May 6th from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Please register on eventbrite. All proceeds go to the writers.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/879665251447?aff=oddtdtcreator
This is going to be an epic reading. We’d love it if you could stay for the whole thing, but life is full and we understand that not everyone can.
If you need to sign in and out, please do so in the breaks between sets.
Look forward to seeing you there!
HOUR #1 : 6 :30 to 7:20
HOUR #2: 7:30 to 8:20
HOUR #3: 8:30-9:20
Don’t miss the last edition of Draft for 2023
Please join us at 3 p.m. EST. Sunday, November 26 2023 for a wonderful afternoon of work-in-progress curated by Lillian Allen.
This is the fourth in our Mixed Tongues season featuring work-in-progress which contemplates language(s). Mixed Tongues will be a hybrid, lexical, aural experience that builds bridges between Canada’s multilingual literary communities. Our goal is to stretch our minds and hearts by hearing other perspectives and various iterations of human expression.
The authors are Lillian Allen (curator), Kyo D’Assassin, Kandace Walker, Blaine Thornton and Jennifer Kasiama. For more information, see below.
Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council as well as to our generous audiences, for funding this reading.
EVEN THOUGH THE EVENT IS TITLED “ONLINE” THIS IS A HYBRID READING
Please register here.
A limited number of tickets are available for those who wish to attend in person at the St. Matthew Clubhouse, 450 Broadview Ave. Those who register for the in-person event will also receive the Zoom link. If you feel unwell, please attend on Zoom.
For the sake of accessibility, masks are strongly encouraged at the in-person event. Tap-water is available for you to fill your own water-bottle if you bring one. Thank you so much for helping make Draft a welcoming space for everyone!
The 7th Poet Laureate of Toronto, Lillian Allen is a professor of creative writing at Ontario College of Art and Design University. An activist and lecturer, she is also a two-time JUNO Award winner and trailblazer in the field of spoken word and dub poetry, Allen artistically explores the aesthetics of old and new sounds in music to create her distinctive leading edge brand of Canadian reggae with new world sounds in her poetry recordings. Her powerful reggae dub poetry/spoken word recordings include her latest single Woken & Unbroken (2018) and her album ANXIETY (2012), among many others.
Allen’s debut book of poetry, Rhythm An’ Hardtimes became a Canadian best seller, blazing new trails for poetic expression and opened up the form. Her latest collection Make the World New: The Poetry of Lillian Allen, was published in Spring 2021 as part of the Laurier Poetry Series. Her other collections, Women Do This Everyday and Psychic Unrest are studied across the educational spectrum. Her writings for young people include three books: Why Me, If You See Truth, and Nothing But a Hero.
Allen, who grew up in Jamaica, moved with her family as a teenager, studying in New York and Toronto. Founder of the Toronto International Dub Poetry Festival and a variety of cultural organizations such as Fresh Arts that empower youth, Allen has spent over three decades writing, publishing, performing and doing workshop presentations of her work to audiences around the globe.
Kyraan Gabourel/Kyo D’Assassin is an Entrepreneur, author and Spokenword Poet (1991). He is the co-author of the book + DVD, ‘We Gat Sonting Fu Seh’ (2013) and has won numerous national poetry contests. Gabourel has participated in international poetry festivals and readings such as: II Encuentro de Poesia de San Salvador (2020) in El Salvador, XIII Encuentro Internacional Poesia Migrantes (2020) in Mexico, XV and XVII Festival Internacional de Poesía de Quetzaltenango (FIPQ, 2019 & 2021) in Guatemala and III Festival Internacional de Poesía Los Confines (FIPLC, 2019) in Honduras.
He has been featured in the art e-magazine series, Voces Insurgentes (2021) and Revista Kametsa (2021) and has also published in various anthologies in Belize and internationally. Kyraan is the co-owner of Kyo’s Internet, Stationery, and Books. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Galen University. He resides in Belize City where he is currently working on his forthcoming anthology of poems.
Jennifer Kasiama (she/her) is a contemporary poet/writer currently enrolled in the Creative Writing Program at OCADU. The themes that frequent her work are healing, beauty, and aesthetics, with an emphasis on carving out space for Black communities. Jennifer wants to dedicate her practice to uplifting herself and the people around her and hopes she accomplishes that through her work. Jennifer’s poetry was featured in Dreams in Vantablack, a poetry series that is currently streaming on CBC Gem. The project features Black youth poets and artists expressing themselves through words and animation. She was also a participant in the Brickyard Mentorship program as a youth poet in 2021-2022. Her work has also been featured in publications such as NarCity Media and Puritan Magazine.
Blaine Thornton (they/them) is a non-binary community-based writer from Sudbury, Ontario. Their book, Here’s To Letting Go, was awarded the 2023 OCAD U Medal for Creative Writing. They are interested in how writing can be used as a tool for self-healing and creating vibrant artistic spaces for people to experiment in. During their degree, Blaine was the Managing Editor for the first edition of Pulse Literary Journal, and co-host of Friday Night on the Mic. They facilitate workshops surrounding how writing can be used to heal.
Kandace Siobhan Walker is a writer and poet of Jamaican-Canadian, Saltwater Geechee and Welsh heritage.She writes fiction, poetry and non-fiction, and creates moving image and installation works. She is the author of Kaleido, published by Bad Betty Press in 2022. Her debut collection Cowboy was published by CHEERIO in 2023. In 2021, she was the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and the winner of The White Review Poet’s Prize. In 2019, she won the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize. Kandace Siobhan Walker’s ‘Everything I Will Give You‘ can be viewed on the Parthian Books YouTube channel and ‘Notes on Dreaming as Praxis‘ can be viewed on Peak Cymru.
Draft 18.3 August 27 at 3 p.m.
Please join us at 3 p.m. Sunday, August 27 2023 for a work-in-progress extravaganza featuring new and unpublished work by twelve authors.
This is the third in our Mixed Tongues season featuring work-in-progress which contemplates language(s). Curated by our collective member Gloria Blizzard, the Mixed Tongues season is a hybrid, lexical, aural experience that builds bridges between Canada’s multilingual literary communities. Our goal is to stretch our minds and hearts by hearing other perspectives and various iterations of human expression.
Here’s the lineup:
Rocco de Giacomo, Bernadette Gabay Dyer, Cristian Simionescu, Terri Favro and Ron Edding, Michael Fraser, Hollay Ghadery, Suzanne Elki Yoko Hartmann, Sofia Mostaghimi, Tyler Pennock, Elida Schogt, Jade Wallace, Julia Zarankin
More details about the authors are below.
Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council as well as our generous audiences, for funding this reading.
Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
EVEN THOUGH THE EVENT IS LISTED AS “ONLINE” THIS IS A HYBRID READING.
Tickets are available for those who wish to attend in person at the St. Matthew Clubhouse, 450 Broadview Ave. Those who register for the in-person event will also receive the Zoom link. If you feel unwell, please attend on Zoom.
For the sake of accessibility, masks are encouraged at the in-person event. Tap-water is available for you to fill your own water-bottle if you bring one. Thank you so much for helping make Draft a welcoming space for everyone!
EVEN THOUGH THE EVENT IS LISTED AS “FREE” WE WELCOME YOUR DONATIONS, IF YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE. YOU CAN DO THIS BY SCROLLING DOWN PAST THE “FREE” TICKETS ON EVENTBRITE.
All receipts go to paying the authors.
AUTHOR BIOS
Rocco de Giacomo lives in Toronto with his wife, Lisa Keophila, a fibre artist, and his daughters, Ava and Matilda. He is a widely published poet whose work has appeared in literary journals in Canada, Australia, England, Hong Kong and the US. The author of numerous poetry chapbooks and full-length collections, his latest, Casting Out (Guernica Editions) – on the reconciliation of the author’s secular lifestyle and their deeply Evangelical upbringing – was published in April of 2023.
Jamaican-born Bernadette Gabay Dyer is the author of 4 novels, 2 short story collections, and a poetry collection. She is a member of The Writers Union of Canada, Science Fiction Canada and Storytellers Canada. She is also an artist, and recently retired from working at Toronto Public Libraries after 45 years of service.
Cristian Simionescu was born on July 21, 1939 in the Hlipiceni village , Botoșani County, România. Cristian attended the Faculty of Philology, University of Iaşi, where he graduated in 1966, with the thesis “The Prose of Mihai Eminescu.” His first book of poetry, Tabu was published in 1970, by Cartea Româneasca publishing house. This edition was banned for 10 years due to communist censorship. He went on to publish 9 books of poetry, including Maratonul (The Marathon), Ținutul bufonilor (The Bufoon’s Land) and Insula (The island). He became member of the Romanian Authors Association in 1983 and was part of many national literary juries. His work will be read by his son Cristian George Simionescu.
Christian George Simionescu is an architect who has lived in Toronto for over 18 years. In addition to contributing to the editing and publication of his father’s poetry, he has created the website Cristian Simeonescu Poetry and occasionally does readings of his father’s works.
Terri Favro and Ron Edding are co-creators of the Bella graphic novel series. Ron is a visual artist who has exhibited in Canada, England, Chile, Mexico and Serbia. Terri is the author of five books, most recently The Sisters Sputnik, published by ECW Press. Their most recent graphic Cold City is based on cold case in Depression era Toronto. Their work in progress, “Invisible Hero” explores the life and death of one of Favro’s ancestors, an Italian partisan shot by German troops during World War II.Christian George Simionescu is an architect who has lived in Toronto for over 18 years. In addition to contributing to the editing and publication of his father’s poetry, he has created the website Cristian Simeonescu Poetry and occasionally does readings of the works.
Michael Fraser is published in various national and international journals and anthologies. His manuscript, The Serenity of Stone, won the 2007 Canadian Aid Literary Award Contest and was published by Bookland Press in 2008. He is published in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013 and 2018. He has won numerous awards, including Freefall Magazine’s 2014 and 2015 poetry contests, the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize, the 2018 Gwendolyn Macewen Poetry Competition, and the League of Canadian Poets’ 2022 Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize. With My Eyes Wide Open, his fourth collection, will be published by Exile Editions in fall 2023.
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Her work has been published in various literary journals and magazines, including The Malahat Review, Room, CAROUSEL, THIS, The Antigonish Review, Grain, and The Fiddlehead. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021. Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, came out Radiant Press in spring 2023 and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in spring 2024. Hollay is the Reviews Editor of the Minola Review, a member of the poetry editorial board of long con magazine, and the Fiction Editor of untethered. She’s currently struggling through writing a novel.
Suzanne Elki Yoko Hartmann is a Toronto-based editor, writer and children’s book author (My Father’s Nose, 2016). She has worked in media for the last 30 years and is currently with Metroland Media. The fourth-generation Japanese Canadian with German ancestry holds a master of fine arts from the University of King’s College. With support from the Toronto Arts Council, she is completing a work of creative non-fiction – a hybrid of memoir, Japanese Canadian history and cultural arts. The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered In explores subjects from immigrant life, displacement and folk dancing to learning Japanese and anti-Asian racism.
Sofia Mostaghimi is an Iranian-Canadian fiction writer, who’s debut novel DESPERADA is out now with Random House Canada. Previously her work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, the Ex-Puritan, Joyland Magazine, and the Hart House Review, as well as various anthologies such as Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity and Motherhood, and After Realism: 24 Stories for the 21st Century. Her excerpt of DESPERADA was long-listed for The Journey Prize, and her story, “The Day You Were Born,” appeared in The Unpublished City, which was short-listed for The Toronto Book Awards. She likes to write about places, spaces, and the identities that mark them and are marked by them.
Tyler Pennock is a two-spirit adoptee from a Cree and Metis family around the Lesser Slave Lake region of Alberta. Tyler is a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. They currently teach in the Indigenous Studies Department at the University of Toronto, and School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. They graduated from Guelph University’s Creative Writing MFA program in 2013, and currently live in Toronto. Their first Book, BONES (Brick Books) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Indigenous Voices Award for Poetry, and longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award in 2021. Their second book, BLOOD was released in September 2022.
Elida Schogt is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist whose work mines personal experience, challenges power imbalances, and disrupts story-telling conventions. She is best known for her short documentary Zyklon Portrait, described in The Toronto Star as “elegantly haunting and perhaps the most visually lush film about the Holocaust ever made.”Writing is central to her practice—be it journals, prose poetry, or voice-over narration.She has written one dramatic feature script and recently completed a memoir. Elida haslong preferred English, but still enjoys using one or two untranslatable expressions from Dutch, her first language.
Jade Wallace‘s debut poetry collection, Love Is A Place But You Cannot Live There, was released in 2023 by Guernica Editions, and their debut novel, Anomia, is forthcoming from Palimpsest Press in 2024. Wallace is the reviews editor for CAROUSEL and co-founder of the collaborative writing entity MA|DE. MA|DE’s fourth chapbook, Expression Follows Grim Harmony, is available now from Jackpine Press.
Julia Zarankin lives, writes, and birds in Toronto. Her memoir, Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder, was a Canadian bestseller and her short story, “Black-legged Kittiwake” was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize. Julia’s fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The Walrus, Maisonneuve, Canadian Geographic, The New Quarterly, Audubon, Orion, and The Globe and Mail. In 2022-2023, Julia was a Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA and translated Shifra Lipshitz’ memoir Dreams and Reality from Yiddish into English.
Draft 18.2 coming up May 28th
Please Join Us
3 p.m. Sunday, May 28 EST
for a wonderful afternoon of work-in-progress curated by Anna Marie Sewell
You can register on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/draft-182-tickets-529786915927
The authors are Rita Bouvier, Julie Pellissier-Lush, Anna Marie Sewell and Vera Wabegijig. Please scroll down for more information about them.
This is the second in our Mixed Tongues season featuring work-in-progress which contemplates language(s). Mixed Tongues will be a hybrid, lexical, aural experience that builds bridges between Canada’s multilingual literary communities. Our goal is to stretch our minds and hearts by hearing other perspectives and various iterations of human expression.
Both free and paid tickets are available and all are welcome. Your donations go toward paying our contributors a fair fee for their readings.
Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council as well as our generous audiences, for funding this reading. More information about the series is available on our website.
EVEN THOUGH THE EVENT IS TITLED “ONLINE” THIS IS A HYBRID READING
A limited number of tickets are available for those who wish to attend in person at the St. Matthew Clubhouse, 450 Broadview Ave. Those who register for the in-person event will also receive the Zoom link. If you feel unwell, please attend on Zoom.
For the sake of accessibility, masks are encouraged for the in-person event. Thank you so much for making Draft a welcoming space for everyone!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rita Bouvier is a Métis writer and educator. Her fourth book of poetry, a beautiful rebellion (Thistledown Press) was released April 2023. Her poetry has appeared in literary anthologies and journals—print and online—musicals, and television productions, and has been translated into Spanish, German and Cree-Michif of her homecommunity of sakitawak—Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, Canada situated on the historic trading and meeting grounds of Cree and Dene people (Treaty 10).
Julie Pellissier-Lush, M.S.M, actress, and bestselling author of My Mi’kmaq Mother, Poet Laureate for PEI, recipient of the Queens jubilee medal in 2013, the Meritorious Service Medal recipient in 2017, and the Senators 150 metal in April 2019. She grew up all over Eastern Canada and spent a number of years in Winnipeg, Manitoba, before coming back home. Julie is a graduate from the University of Winnipeg in 2000 with a double major in Psychology and Human Resource Management. She writes, acts, and does photography to preserve the history and culture of the Mi’kmaq for future generations. Julie wrote the poems for the play Mi’kmaq Legends which has been performed on many different stages in the Atlantic region. It is her hope that this play will someday travel across Canada and beyond so more people have the opportunity to learn about the rich Mi’kmaq history! Julie lives in PEI with her husband Rick, her five children, and her granddaughter Miah.
Anna Marie Sewell (curator) is the author of novels Humane (2020) and Urbane (2023) from Stonehouse Publishing; poetry collections For the Changing Moon: Poems & Songs (Thistledown Press, 2018) and Fifth World Drum (Frontenac House, 2009); and lyricist for award-winning choral works including Journey Song (Cypress Choral, 2022) and At First Light (Hinshaw Music, 2023).
Visit prairiepomes.com to explore more – By Heart (2019), Ancestors&Elders (2018), Reconciling Edmonton (2015) and her work as Edmonton’s 4th Poet Laureate.
Raised pre-TRC in an openly first-generation-interracial family – Polish/Mi’gmaq/Anishinaabe – Sewell is a member of Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation; born in Mi’kmaki and raised in the Land of the Mighty Peace, she lives in Amiskwaciy/Edmonton and works globally.
Vera Wabegijig ndizhnikaaz. Mississaugi ndoonjibaa. Nepean ndoodaa. Odawa minwa Ojbwe ndaaw. Mkwa ndoodem. My name is Vera Wabegijig. I am from Mississauga First Nation (Robertson-Huron Treaty). I am Odawa and Ojibwe (Anishnaabe). I live in Nepean, Ontario. I am from the bear clan. Published works and featured poet includes wild rice dreams; words, stories, truth with Mark Sirett (composer); Jingles Speak to the Healing; Matrix Magazine; Yellow Medicine Review; Canadian Spoken Word Festival; Ottawa Writer’s Festival; and VerseFest. I am a graduate of the En’owkin Centre’s Creative Writing Program, studied in theCreative Writing Program at University of Victoria and attended the Aboriginal Writer’s Residency at Banff Centre for the Arts.
Draft Launches Season 18 on February 26
Please join us at 3 p.m. Sunday, February 26 2023 for a wonderful afternoon of work-in-progress curated by Gloria Blizzard. Sign up at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/draft-181-tickets-510788962537.
This is the first in our Mixed Tongues season featuring work-in-progress which contemplates language(s). Mixed Tongues will be a hybrid, lexical, aural experience that builds bridges between Canada’s multilingual literary communities. Our goal is to stretch our minds and hearts by hearing other perspectives and various iterations of human expression.
Featured at the reading are Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Pamela Mordecai, Gabriel Osson and Ayelet Tsabari. For more information, please see their bios below.
Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council as well as our generous audiences, for funding this reading. Thank you, East End Arts for all your support.
More information about the series is available on our website.
EVEN THOUGH THE EVENT IS TITLED “ONLINE” THIS IS A HYBRID READING.
A limited number of tickets are available for those who wish to attend in person at the St. Matthew Clubhouse, 450 Broadview Ave. Those who register for the in-person event will also receive the Zoom link. If you feel unwell, please attend on Zoom.
For the sake of accessibility, masks are required at the in-person event. Tap-water is available for you to fill your own water-bottle if you bring one. Thank you so much for helping make Draft a welcoming space for everyone!
MORE ON THE AUTHORS
Lorri Neilsen Glenn is the author and contributing editor of fourteen collections of poetry, creative nonfiction and scholarly work, and has received awards for innovative teaching, ethnographic research and her work in the arts. Her most recent book is the award-winning Following the River: Traces of Red River Women (Wolsak and Wynn, 2017). Halifax’s first Indigenous Poet Laureate, Lorri is a mentor in the University of King’s College MFA in Creative Nonfiction program and Professor Emerita at Mount Saint Vincent University. Her essays are widely anthologized and her poetry has been adapted for libretti. Her bricolage memoir is forthcoming in late 2023. She lives in Nova Scotia.
Pamela Mordecai writes poetry, fiction and plays. Her poetry collections include Journey Poem, de Man, Certifiable, The True Blue of Islands, Subversive Sonnets, de book of Mary, Up Tropic, de book of Joseph, and A Fierce Green Place: new and selected poems. ECW Press has released Pink Icing and Other Stories (Insomniac, 2006) as an audiobook read by herself in its Bespeak Audio Editions. Her debut novel, Red Jacket (Dundurn, 2015), was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Award. El Numero Uno, a play for young people, had its world premiere at the Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010 and its Caribbean premiere at the Edna Manley School for the Performing Arts in Jamaica, in 2016. Her poetry is archived at https://mordecai.citl.mun.ca
Gabriel Osson ;Écrivain, poète et artiste peintre (franco-ontarien), Gabriel est né à Port-au-Prince, Haïti. Il vit à Toronto en Ontario. Gabriel siège sur de nombreux conseils d’administration dont l’Association Haïti Futur Canada à titre de Président. Distinctions : Hubert, le restavèk, publié aux Éditions David a été finaliste au prix Christine Dumitriu-van-Saanen en 2017. Le jour se lèvera, publié aux Éditions David lui vaut d’être lauréat du prix Alain-Thomas en 2021.
Writer, poet and visual artist (Franco-Ontarian) Gabriel Osson, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. Gabriel sits on several boards and is president of l’Association Haiti Futur Canada. Recent publications are listed below. He has received several awards including the Alain-Thomas Award in 2021 for Le jour se lèvera. His novel Hubert, le restavèk was a finalist for the Christine Dumitriu-van-Saanen prize in 2017.
Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She is the author of The Art of Leaving, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and has been published internationally. She teaches creative writing at The University of King’s College MFA.
Draft invites charter subscribers
Another edition of Draft is coming up February 26th! There is information about the reading on its way, but we’re writing to give you a preview of the whole season. For the first time, we’re offering a limited number of subscriptions, including some treats for those who become charter subscribers. The deadline to subscribe is February 8th.
With the title of Mixed Tongues, Season 18 will focus on the theme of multiple languages. It will be a hybrid, lexical, aural experience that builds bridges between Canada’s multilingual literary communities. The season is curated by our collective member Gloria Blizzard.
Here are the dates for the whole season:
FEB 26 2023, MAY 28 2023, AUGUST 27 2023 and NOVEMBER 26 2023
All are Sundays at 3:00 p.m. E.S.T. and all will be hybrid, so you can attend from home on zoom or at our venue, St. Matthew Clubhouse
Authors will include Pamela Mordechai, Gabriel Osson, Ayelet Tsabari, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Vera Wabegijig, Kyo, and Kandace Walker. Anna Marie Sewell will be curating the May reading, and Lillian Allen will be curating the November reading. Both of these curators will also be presenting new and unpublished work.
We want to continue offering generous fees to our authors and paying for other services wherever possible, particularly when it comes to the younger members of our team.
We have been fortunate enough to receive funding from the Ontario Arts Council this year, and this is allowing us to plan our most ambitious season yet. We continue to be grateful to audiences and supporters for their donations, and we’ve decided to offer a limited number of subscriptions for those who might want to support Draft for the whole year and be even more closely connected to our community.
How does it work?
You send a donation of $80 or more by e-transfer to draftseriescollective@gmail.com
— You fill out this (SHORT) Google form. If you have trouble or really don’t like them, please let us know!
— We send you a literary surprise by old-fashioned snail-mail.
— We book your tickets in advance for all the readings, offering your choice of Zoom or in-person. In-person spots will remain limited, based on our commitment to creating a safe space for audiences. Some of these spaces will be set aside for those who are not in a position to pay, but as a subscriber, you’ll have first dibs on the remaining spaces if you like.
Subscriptions will only be available until February 8th.
We thank you for your support so far, and look forward to seeing you at Draft!
Draft 17.4 November 27th
Draft is back on November 27th, 3 p.m. on zoom with another wonderful lineup of authors sharing new and unpublished work.
Readings by Taylor Marie Graham, Helen Akey, Aaron Schneider, Robin Pacific, Priya Ramsingh, Elizabeth Ruth, Jia Qing Wilson-Yang, and Banoo Zan.
Please register on eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/draft-174-tickets-433670007667
Helen Akey is an upcoming poet and creative writer. As a young girl, Helen would journal everything that was happening in her life as a form of therapy. In Grade 12, spoken word artist and activist, Faduma Mohamed, introduced her to poetry and different performance styles to further express physical, mental, and emotional journeys. As Helen continuously gains exposure and guidance from others in the field of creative writing, she would like to share her knowledge, skills, and stories with future generations to inspire and encourage them to use their voice and speak their truth as they navigate in their journey of life⎼⎼openly.
Taylor Marie Graham (she/her) is an award winning theatre artist, writer, and educator living in Cambridge, Ontario / Haldimand Tract. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and is a PhD Candidate in the School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph. Currently, Taylor teaches at Western University and is writing a new play supported by the Waterloo Region, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council, and Lyth Arts Centre in Scotland. Both her creative and scholarly work explores rural feminist identities and the decolonization of bodies in space.
Robin Pacific has produced artworks in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, video, installation, performance, web-based projects and numerous community-based collaborations. For her last performance, I Married My Work, in 2020, she created a wedding dress with headdress, 10’ train and a bridal bouquet, all made out of pages from forty years of working notebooks. Skater Girl, her memoir-in-essays, will be published in spring, 2024, by Guernica Editions. Robin is also a practicing Spiritual Director.
Priya Ramsingh is the author of Brown Girl in the Room, a novel that was published by Tightrope Books in 2017. Her short story, Pies for Lunch, was shortlisted for best short fiction in 2021, by The Caribbean Writer, an annual literary journal published by the University of the Virgin Islands. She is a former writer for Metroland Media and occasionally writes op-eds for the Toronto Star. Priya was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and came to Toronto when she was five. She has a BA in English literature from Carleton University. Priya is reading from her latest manuscript titled, The Elevator, a fiction story about eating disorders, transgender emergence, and online dating in Toronto’s West end.
Elizabeth Ruth is the author of the novels, Matadora, Smoke, Ten Good Seconds of Silence, and the forthcoming novel, Semi-Detached. She has also published a novella in plain language for literacy learners entitled Love You To Death and edited the anthology, Bent On Writing, contemporary queer tales. Elizabeth’s work has been recognized by the Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize, Amazon.ca/Best First Novel Award, The City of Toronto Book Award and One Book One Community. Elizabeth Ruth teaches creative writing U of T, SCS.
Aaron Schneider is a Founding Editor at The /tƐmz/ Review. His stories have appeared/are forthcoming in The Danforth Review, Filling Station, The Puritan, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Pro-Lit, The Chattahoochee Review, BULL, Long Con, The Malahat Review and The Windsor Review. His stories have been nominated for The Journey Prize and The Pushcart Prize. His novella, Grass-Fed, was published by Quattro Books in Fall 2018. His collection of experimental short fiction, What We Think We Know (Gordon Hill Press) was published in Fall 2021, and his novel, The Supply Chain (Crowsnest Books), is forthcoming.
Jia Qing Wilson-Yang is a Canadian writer. Her debut novel, Small Beauty, was published in 2016. She was awarded an honour of distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize in 2016, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017. Her writing has also appeared in the anthologies Bound to Struggle: Where Kink and Radical Politics Meet and Letters Lived: Radical Reflections, Revolutionary Paths, and in the literary magazine Room.
Bänoo Zan is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor and poetry curator, with more than 250 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012), a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, poetic styles, voices and visions. Bänoo is the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta, Canada, Sept 2022-May 2023.
Many thanks to Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council through the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada as well as our generous audiences for funding this reading.
Draft 17.3 August 28 at 3:00 p.m.
A white egret standing in a pool of green lilies with leaves in the background.
Image by Ron Edding, photograph by Terri Favro
We’re looking forward to another wonderful edition of Draft. Aug 28 at 3:00 p.m.
Please join us on a spring Sunday afternoon for some fresh, new writing.
We’re hosting readings by:
John Orpheus aka Antonio Michael Downing
Sheila Madonna Salvador
You can register on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/393301504387
Tickets are available on a sliding scale. Your donations are most welcome but we appreciate your presence most of all! See you there.
Many thanks to Toronto Arts Council, as well as our generous audiences, for funding this reading.
Zoom captioning will be available.
Here are more details about the authors:
Jennifer Alicia (she/they) is a queer, mixed Mi’kmaw and settler (German/Irish/Scottish) multidisciplinary artist originally from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk (Bay of Islands, Newfoundland), now residing in Toronto. She is a two-time national poetry slam champion and collective member of the Toronto Poetry Project and Seeds & Stardust. In 2021, her debut chapbook Mixed Emotions was released and she was also published in Issue 09 of Canthius Magazine and NOW Magazine. They presented their play with the working title Restor(y)ing Identity at the first ever Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival in 2021. An audio version of the play was presented at the Weesageechak Begins To Dance 33 Festival in 2020 and at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2021. Jennifer Alicia recently edited an Indigenous poetry anthology called The Condor and the Eagle Meet, which was released in May 2022 through Kegedonce Press.
Named one of the most influential disabled artists by UK’s Power Magazine, Alex Bulmer has over thirty professional years’ experience across theatre, film, television, radio and education. She is fuelled by a curiosity of the improbable, dedicated to collaborative art practice, and deeply informed by her experience of becoming blind. She is activated by obstacles, well exposed to the absurd, and embraces the disciplines of generosity, listening, time, and uncertainty within her artistic and personal life. Alex is co-founder and co-Artistic Director of The Fire and Rescue Team, is former artistic director of Common Boots Theatre, and recently curated CoMotionFestival 2022, an international disability arts festival with Harbourfront Centre. She is writer of award-winning BBC radio drama, writer of the Dora- and Chalmers- nominated SMUDGE, and co-writer of the BAFTA-nominated U.K.television series, Cast Offs, featuring six lead disabled actors. Alex earned best actor at the Moscow International Disability Film Festival and recently completed a season as The Friar in R+J at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. She is currently developing Perceptual Archaeology, a new theatre piece which will be produced with Crow’s Theatre in June 2023.
Mugabi Byenkya is an award-winning writer, poet and occasional rapper. He was born in Nigeria, to Ugandan parents and is currently based in Kampala. Mugabi was longlisted for the Babishai Niwe Poetry Award in 2015. His essays, poetry and comics have been published in Carte Blanche, Best Canadian Poetry, and Skin Deep, along over 35 other publications. He has been interviewed on Voice of America, NTV Uganda, and Urban TV along over 65 other media outlets. Mugabi’s writing is used to teach High School English in Kampala and Toronto schools. He won the Discovering Diversity Poetry Contest in 2017. In the same year, his award-nominated debut, Dear Philomena, was published and he went on a 43 city, 5 country North America/East Africa tour in support of this. In 2018, Mugabi was named one of 56 writers who has contributed to his native Uganda’s literary heritage in the 56 years since independence by Writivism (East Africa’s largest literary festival). Dear Philomena, was named a Ugandan bestseller in the same year. Mugabi wants to be Jaden Smith when he grows up.
Carol B. Duncan is a chronicler of human stories of migration, community and identity especially those on the margins of empire. She teaches religion and culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her academic work focuses on trans-Atlantic connections linking Africa, Europe and the Americas in the formation of Caribbean religious and cultural expressions. Carol has curated and co-hosted author events for the university and wider communities. Storytelling has always informed her teaching, public intellectual work and research. She was the recipient of the 2002 Arts Award Waterloo Region for literature. A published author, co-author and editor of several academic books, chapters and articles including This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto, Carol is now exploring fiction writing. Her work-in-progress, Peeny Wally, is a magical realism historical fictional narrative set on an 18th century plantation in the Eastern Caribbean.
Glynis Guevara was born in Barataria, Trinidad. She is a graduate of Humber School for Writers Creative Writing Program and holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) degree from the University of London, England. She was also admitted to the bar of England and Wales and Trinidad and Tobago. Glynis was shortlisted for the inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. Her novels Under the Zaboca Tree and Black Beach were published by Inanna Publications.
Melanie Mitzner’s Slow Reveal was published by York University’s Inanna Publications on May 3, 2022, a Best of Women’s Fiction Debut 2022. An excerpt of her novel Too Good To Be True was published in the Harrington Lesbian Quarterly. Her screenplay, Zero Gravity, was awarded an Edward Albee Fellowship. A finalist in the Writers Guild East Foundation Fellowships for her screenplay Dodge and Burn, her screenplays In The Name of Love and Out to Lunch were finalists in the Houston Film Festival Screenwriting Competition. She received a fellowship from M.E.T. Theater and was awarded fiction grants from Vermont Studio Center and Summer Literary Seminars . As a journalist, she covered the tech industry, television production and visual effects. Her work appears in Wine Spectator, Gay and Lesbian Review, Vol1Brooklyn, Bloom and San Francisco Bay Times. Interviews and excerpts are on Open-Book, Rainbow Country radio show syndicated and podcast across Canada, Glad Day Bookshop TV and Hasty Booklist. She’s currently working on a controversial new novel The Expat. Events and media can be found on her website. She works in Montréal and New York.
Born and raised in South-Central Trinidad, John Orpheus aka Antonio Michael Downing is a multi-cultural musical artist and published author. For the past year and a half, he had been writing his memoir called SAGA BOY which was published by Penguin Random House Canada on January 19, 2021 and will be launched by Milkweed Press in the US on September 14, 2021. With the book done, John decided to return to music and release a companion album also entitled SAGA BOY. Both the book and the album are based on the same themes: searching for home, family, love and a fly coat to wear when you get there. His recently released single FELA AWOKE (I WILL MISS YOU) is the beginning of this new phase and introduces you to his deeply personal story.
Sheilah Madonna Mortel Salvador was born in the Philippines and currently lives in Toronto- “the place in the water where the trees are standing”. She is a mature graduate student who utilizes art as acts of resistance, to heal and to empower. Her art work is deeply influenced by her experience as a woman of colour and Indigenous Studies major and she facilitates storytelling and spoken word workshops that focus on self love and cultural pride. Sheila is currently working on her novel about the Massacre of Manila and her family history.
The Show Must Go In
By Maria Meindl
This is a cross-posting from my blog. It started out as a post about spring cleaning, but inevitably, my thoughts turned to Draft, as they often do. Opinions expressed here are my own!
Spring cleaning didn’t happen in 2020. Or in 2021 for that matter.
I don’t mean cleaning. I mean cleaning-cleaning. The kind where you dig in under the piles and get rid of the things you don’t need. When you put the things you do need in their rightful places. When it became clear that the Covid pandemic was going to last more than a few weeks, we did one, big rearranging-session, but since then I’ve been living on the surface of things, a visitor in my own house.
This spring, something has changed. On the radio I keep hearing the phrase, “during the … pandemic,” with a little pause to search for a word that sums up everything that happened in the last two years. The pandemic is not over by a long shot, but we are into a new phase. And this spring, it was time for me to excavate.
Behind a curtain in my workroom, I found the paraphernalia of my in-person Feldenkrais practice. There were folded towels and pillowcases, roller, yoga mats, and the gardening pads I and my students use for props. There was the pouch where they used to put cash payments at the end of class. All of them, gathering dust, and (in the case of the yoga mats), crumbling from disuse.
And beneath that, the items the Draft Reading Series used for fifteen years in its live incarnation: the cash box for the book table, the donations jar, the business cards. They were all hastily stashed behind a curtain when, in 2020, the unthinkable happened.
With an excavation of stuff came an excavation of feelings. We cancelled our March 2020 reading. I didn’t let myself feel how hard that was.
Life as an artist had trained me to keep going no matter what. Parents ill? Tough luck, keep writing. Got to move? There are libraries. No time? No excuse.
As an organizer, too. Snowstorm? Sno problem. Show up. Power out? Use candles (leading to the late and sadly missed Stephen Heighton’s “inflammatory” performance in 2008). No staff at the venue? Ask the audience if someone has a Smart Serve license. Venue locked and barred? Take a walk down the street, sound system in hand, and find another one.
In March, 2020 The Show Must Go On was, for the first time in my life, not the right motto under the circumstances.
Opening the curtain in my workroom took me back to a particular phase: the first lockdown, before vaccines were on the horizon, before we understood how this thing was spread. Was it lurking in the recesses of that kale salad? Could a jogger toss it my way, huffing past me on the sidewalk? And was I even supposed to be on the sidewalk? Some people adopted dogs so they wouldn’t get the stink-eye for being outside.
Draft was up and running again in April. Like so many others, we “pivoted.”
Everything got four times as hard and became about a quarter as satisfying, but if health care workers could go to their jobs every day, if grocery store workers could mask up and show up, I as a teacher and event organizer and massively privileged person could show up, too.
Zoom meetings had all the overwhelm of letting dozens of people into my personal space, with all the loneliness of imagining they were congregating elsewhere, without me. I felt, still feel, panicked at the start of every meeting. Rolf said: “You’re safer on zoom than live. You can press ‘end meeting’ or throw someone out at any time.”
Yet these people were in my place of worship, my creative space, my doctor’s office, my bank. Most of all they were in the private space where I connected with friends. When Draft was zoom-bombed, friends in the audience said they would not have known I was nervous. I’m not over it yet.
When I heard about people getting excited about the creative possibilities of online life, I admired them, but that wasn’t me. Creative people: embrace this! Create! I wasn’t embracing. I was making do, and all of a sudden making do felt like something to aspire to. I complained regularly and vocally. I didn’t want the labour of this to become invisible. For me or anyone else.
Draft kept going. I kept teaching. The show did go on, though in another way. The show went in and is still in.
“During the … pandemic.”
“During the pandemic.”
Lately, the pause has been disappearing. “The Pandemic” has taken on the sound of other phases I heard a lot in my childhood. “The Depression,” for instance. I used to watch Shirley Temple movies on late-night television. In one, Paul Revere rides across the sky with a banner declaring “The Depression is over!” That’s ridiculous, I thought. People must have been really stupid back then.
Then there was “The War.” In our white, middle-class household in the 1960s, the source of all suffering and injustice was contained in a single phrase, consigned to the past. Its being over meant nothing bad, nothing really bad, could ever happen again.
Is Covid in the past? The recent “transition,” the “return to normal” has brought much debate on that question. The pandemic has become “politicized,” (as if anything is ever anything else) with opinion divided over whether it’s an ongoing threat.
I believe it is. I believe health-care workers and scientists, but sometimes I want to have a different conversation. Let’s just say it was all over and we knew it was over. I would still not be ready to “pivot” again. I’d still need time. I search for a word, and “transition” isn’t it. As someone easily able to work from home for two years, living with a partner I love, with plenty to eat, lots of space, no kids to home-school, no financial anxieties, “the … pandemic” was still huge. I had to look at everything, everything differently. Those two years have changed me. I need time to integrate the person I became during that time.
With or without the pause, “The Pandemic” is not just a bad dream, from which we all need to wake up. As long as we think of it that way, we never will.
Draft 17.2 May 29 at 3:00 p.m.
We’re looking forward to another wonderful edition of Draft. May 29 at 3:00 p.m.
Please join us on a spring Sunday afternoon for some fresh, new writing.
We’re hosting readings by:
Wanda Taylor
You can register on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/draft-172-tickets-328394214937
Tickets are available on a sliding scale. Your donations are most welcome but we appreciate your presence most of all! See you there.
Many thanks to Toronto Arts Council, as well as our generous audiences, for funding this reading.
Zoom captioning will be available.
Here are more details about the authors:
Gloria Blizzard is a Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages. With deep interests in music, dance, science, race, culture and spirituality, she brings these perspectives to essays, memoirs, poetry, and reviews. Her work has appeared in publications such as CBC.ca, the Globe and Mail, THIS Magazine, HELD, Dance International, Whole Note Magazine, The Conversation, and The Humber Literary Review. Most recently, her essay, “The Year of Jazz” was published in World Literature Today. She has an MFA at the University of King’s College and is working on her first full-length book. Kern Carter is a writer and author whose most recent novel is Boys and Girls Screaming. He is also the author of Thoughts of a Fractured Soul and Beauty Scars. Kern is also a ghostwriter with credits in Forbes, the New York Times, Global Citizen and Fatherly.com, along with having ghostwritten several books. When he’s not penning novels or ghostwriting, Kern creates and curates stories through CRY Creative Group, his content creation brand that specializes in written storytelling.
Kern Carter is a writer and author whose most recent novel is Boys and Girls Screaming. He is also the author of Thoughts of a Fractured Soul and Beauty Scars. Kern is also a ghostwriter with credits in Forbes, the New York Times, Global Citizen and Fatherly.com, along with having ghostwritten several books. When he’s not penning novels or ghostwriting, Kern creates and curates stories through CRY Creative Group, his content creation brand that specializes in written storytelling.
Emily Gillespie (she/they) is a mad and autistic author, disability activist, and professional daydreamer. Gillespie has a BA in Gender Equality and Social Justice an MA in Critical Disability Studies and a certificate in Creative Writing. They have volunteered and worked in the disability community as an activist, researcher, and facilitator for over ten years. Her writing explores themes of memory, identity and mental health journeys. They enjoy working in community spaces and examining individual and collective experiences. Dancing with Ghosts (Leaping Lion Books, 2017) is her first novel. Their poetry and short stories can be found in several journals and anthologies. She is currently drafting her second grant-funded novel about the failures of the emergency mental health system. In her spare time, Emily enjoys reading, walking, dancing, swimming and people watching in cafes throughout Toronto. Emily can be found curled up in her bed full of unicorn plushies dreaming of a more just and loving world for all marginalized and disabled folks.
Tamara Jones (she/they) is a queer Black culture writer and publicist based in Tkaronto. Specializing in arts and entertainment, they work with production companies, festivals and distributors like the South Western International Film Festival, SummerWorks, The Theatre Centre, Warner Bros, Elevation Pictures, and NEON. Their written and spoken words have been featured in and commissioned by a handful of publications including Ephemera Magazine, Adolescent Content, Lithium Magazine, With/out Pretend, Feels Zine, and the Globe and Mail.
A mother of two, Rahela Nayebzadah holds a Ph.D. in the Faculty of Education from the University of British Columbia. Her novel, Monster Child (Wolsak& Wynn, 2021), is nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. Her autobiographical novel, Jeegareh Ma (2012), was based on her family’s migration to Canada from Afghanistan.
Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University’s journalism program in 2002 and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and two sons.
Raised on a farm in British Columbia, Ann Shin lives in Toronto with her partner and two daughters. Aside from cooking or taking walks, she spends her time writing fiction and producing films and series. Her documentary My Enemy, My Brother was shortlisted for a 2016 Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy. Her previous documentary, The Defector: Escape from North Korea won 7 awards including Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2014 Canadian Screen Academy Awards, a SXSW Interactive Award, and a Canadian Digi Award. Her book The Family China, (Brick Books, 2013) won the Anne Green Award and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Poetry Prize. Her novel, The Last Exiles, is a finalist for this year’s Trillium Award.
Wanda Taylor is a writer, freelance journalist, and college professor. She is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction. Her eight and ninth books are set for release with HarperCollins in 2023 and 2024. Wanda’s magazine features appear in various publications, including Understorey Magazine, Write Magazine, Atlantic Books Today, and Black2Business Magazine. Her essays and poetry can be found in various Anthologies, including Words Gathered – a poetry collection on community, and in the Dark Mountain Essay Anthology in the UK. Currently, Wanda teaches courses in Journalism, Communications, and Story Writing. She also serves as Mentor/Faculty for the MFA Creative Non-Fiction Program at Kings College and was one of the Mentors for the Writers Union of Canada’s first BIPOC Connects program in 2021 – matching emerging writers with established authors for mentorship. Wanda has won awards for her work, including the Women of Excellence Award for Arts and Culture.