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.
2023 Writer-in-Residence: Francesca Ekwuyasi
Francesca Ekwuyasi is a learner, artist, and storyteller born in Lagos, Nigeria. She was awarded the Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers in 2022 for her debut novel Butter Honey Pig Bread (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). Butter Honey Pig Bread was also shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction Re-Lit Award, and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Dublin Literary Award. CBC's Canada Reads: Canada's Annual Battle of the Books selected Butter Honey Pig Bread as one of five contenders in 2021 where it came in 2nd place. Forthcoming October 24th is Curious Sounds: a Dialogue in Three Movements, an art book collaboration with Roger Mooking
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.
