For one term each academic year, the Department of English welcomes a writer in residence to engage in a range of literary events and to offer advice and mentorship to creative writing students. The program was initiated by Carolyn Smart in 2006 and featured, in that year, renowned dub poet Lillian Allen. Since that time, Queen’s has hosted a diverse array of literary artists working across genres and media.
In 2021-22, we were thrilled to welcome back to Queen’s alumnus and Giller Prize winner Omar El Akkad, author of the award-winning novel American War and the recently published What Strange Paradise.
The 2023 Writer-In-Residence
Peter Midgley
Peter Midgley is a writer and editor from Edmonton. He has worked as freelance editor, festival director, university lecturer, managing editor, acquisitions editor, clerk of court, bartender, actor, janitor, and door-to-door salesman. This experience has given him enough material for more than a dozen books and plays. His latest book, let us not think of them as barbarians (NeWest Press), was shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award in 2019. He is a past recipient of the IBBY-Asahi Award Reading Promotion Award and of the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence.
Peter will be holding office hours every day during the month of February from 10am-12pm in Watson Hall 529 and can be reached at peter.midgley@queensu.ca
Peter's Events
Omar El Akkad, former Creative Writing student with the Department of English at Queen’s University, is an author and a journalist. His work emerges at a crossroads of social engagement and investigative journalism. From Afghanistan, to Guantánamo Bay and many other locations in the world, Akkad’s writing and field journailism spans across many complex geographies. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines.
