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.