06/01/2026
Next Monday June 8th at 7pm, don’t miss Jaclyn Desforges, Lisa Richter, and Alison Gadsby venturing to Ottawa to launch their short story and poetry collections, withhosting by local author Margo LaPierre!
JACLYN DESFORGES is the q***r and neurodivergent author of a short story collection, Weird Babies (The Porcupine's Quill, 2026), which Quill & Quire called "refreshing, unpredictable, and utterly distinctive." She's also written a poetry collection, Danger Flower (Anstruther Books, 2021), and a picture book, Why Are You So Quiet? (Annick Press, 2020). She teaches creative writing at Wilfrid Laurier University and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Jaclyn is working on her first novel, Eyelash Person, with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
ALISON GADSBY, a first-generation Canadian writer, currently living in a multigenerational home on Treaty 13 land in Tkaronto/Toronto. Author of story collection Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive (Guernica Editions, 2026), other short fiction appears in Literary Heist, Blank Spaces, The Temz Review, The Ex-Puritan, Blue Lake Review, and more. Her novel, Dreams of the Weary is forthcoming (Palimpsest Press, 2028). She is the host of Junction Reads, a prose reading series, and co-host on the literary radio show, HOWL on CIUT. Find out more at www.alisongadsby.ca and www.junctionreads.ca.
LISA RICHTER is a Toronto-based poet, writer, and educator. She is the author of two previous poetry collections, including Nautilus and Bone, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry in the U.S., and the Robert Kroetsch Award. Her work has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award, longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, and appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and will be serving as the 2026-2027 Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer-in-Residence at McMaster University.
