About Room

Gitanjali Divisha Bal

Gitanjali Divisha Bal is a writer and editor living in Tkaronto. She’s currently working on her thesis novella. Her work can be found in Kiwi Collective, Potted Purple and Room.

Melissa Barrientos is a freelance editor, who enjoys spending her days editing manuscripts and helping self-publishing authors share their work with the world. She holds a HBA in English and Professional Writing & Communication from the University of Toronto and a certificate in Publishing from Ryerson University. Melissa is the co-founder of Archetype: A Literary Journal and volunteer for Editors Canada, gritLIT, and Room. When she is not editing or reading, she is writing about life back home in Lima, Peru.

Lena Belova

Lena Belova is a writer and artist living on the west coast of Turtle Island. They hold a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing with Distinction from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where they received the President’s Outstanding Graduate Award, the PIPS Wordsmith Endowed Award, and the David and Terry Atkinson Creative Writing Endowed Award. You can find their poetry and prose in pulpMAG and Discorder Magazine.

Serena Lukas Bhandar

Serena Lukas Bhandar is a Punjabi/Welsh/Irish transfemme writer, water witch, and workshop facilitator living as a settler on Lekwungen and WSANEC lands. Her Pushcart Prize-nominated writing has appeared in Nameless Woman: An Anthology of Fiction by Trans Women of Color and Turn This World Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture, among other places. She currently splits her time between providing inclusive sexuality education to middle-schoolers, supporting survivors of sexualized violence with the Anti-Violence Project, and mentoring trans, two-spirit, and non-binary youth through the Trans Tipping Point project.

Monica Calderon

Monica is from the Philippines and moved to Canada in 2008. After graduating from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila with a BFA, she worked in animation, publishing, training and graphic design. She has a business providing graphic and web design services to non-profit groups and small businesses. She is an avid runner and dabbles in photography. Check out her portfolio at monicadesigns.ca.

Ellen Chang-Richardson

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent living on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. The author/co-author of six poetry chapbooks, their writing has appeared in journals and anthologies across Turtle Island including Augur, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Ex-Puritan, third coast magazine and Watch Your Head. They are an editorial member of Room magazine, a poetry editor for long con magazine, the co-founder of Riverbed Reading Series and a member of the poetry collective VII. Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn) is their debut collection.

Claire Diamant

Claire Diamant is a writer, editor and actress from the unceded territory of the Lkwungen (Lekwungen) peoples, and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations. Despite having written obsessively for as long as she can remember, she still can’t spell simultaneously without voice-to-text. New Earth Bandits, a play she wrote and performed in, was runner-up for Best Storytelling at the Victoria Fringe Festival.

Ashton Diduck

Ashton Diduck is a queer writer currently residing in Tiohtià:ke. He graduated from the Honours English and Creative Writing program at Concordia University in 2023. You can find previously published work in New Note Poetry, Eavesdrop Magazine, carte blanche, or forthcoming in Montreal Review of Books and The Capilano Review. @scumb0yyy on Instagram.

Meagan Dyer

Meagan Dyer (she/her) works in publishing in the roles of production editing and digital accessibility. She is also an occasional writer of short stories and essays, and holds a Bachelors of Arts from Vancouver Island University. She is a big champion of flexible style guides, open listening, and using her privilege to help break down barriers in the publishing industry. Her early years were spent in a small farming community on Treaty 7 territory (outside Calgary) before moving west to the beautiful and unceded Coast Salish territories. Today, she lives in what is now known as Vancouver with her partner and her Great Dane/bullmastiff, Gaston.

Natasha Gauthier

Natasha Gauthier is a white and Indigenous hybrid writer and visual artist who lives on the land of the Qayqayt First Nation and Coast Salish peoples, which was stolen and renamed “New Westminster, BC.” Her writing has previously appeared in The Malahat Review, The Capilano Review, CV2/Prairie Fire, and Poetry is Dead. She is the former Prose Editor for PRISM international, and an MFA candidate at UBC. She’s a cool mom, a punkish auntie, and a lover of all things freaky and weird.

Sarah Gawthrop

Sarah Gawthrop writes from the unceded territories of the Semiahmoo First Nation and the broader territory of the Coast Salish People in so-called Canada. She is a poet, an editor, a BFA writing student (KPU), and sits on the boards of The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press and ROOM Magazine. Sarah’s work has appeared in print publications by Sunday Mornings at the River, Gypsophila Magazine, and Humana Obscura, among others. Because of an irresistible obsession with forests, nature seeps into most of Sarah’s writing.

Ruchika Gothoskar

Ruchika Gothoskar is an editor, writer, reader, researcher, and settler, currently living and learning on the territory of the Anishinabek, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Ojibway/Chippewa peoples, in Ontario. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University, and a Master of Arts in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies from York University. Ruchika is interested in anti-carceral responses to harm, reading more stories by authors of colour, and one day living by the ocean.

Sadie Graham

Sadie is a writer of essays, reviews, and fiction and a web editor at SAD Magazine. Her work has been published by EVENT Magazine, Room Magazine, Electric Literature, Canadian Notes & Queries, The Toronto Star, Vice, Buzzfeed, The Drift, and more.

Aris Keshav

Aris Keshav is a poet and teacher living in Tio’tia:ke (Montréal) and studying English at Concordia University. Their writing has appeared in CV2, The New Quarterly, Canadian Notes & Queries, and elsewhere. Their debut chapbook TAUNTING AUGUST was published in 2022 by Ethel Zine and Micro-Press. You can find their collage poetry on Instagram at @ambiance.queer.

Raheela Khan

Raheela Khan is an independent Business Advisory Consultant currently based in Vancouver leading community awareness programs on the importance of cultural confidence, integration, diversity, and avoidance of self-exclusion. Raheela is an alumnus of Oxford and Yale University, and a Yale World Fellow. She currently sits on several boards including the National Board of Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada, The Power of Play, and Birth Mark, and ROOM Magazine.

Micah Killjoy

Micah Killjoy was born and raised on coastal Salish land. They are a writer, editor, and BFA student at the University of British Columbia. They enjoy urban exploration, daydreaming, doggo walks, and solarpunk aesthetics.

Holly Lam

Holly Lam is a Chinese/Scottish/Irish settler living on the territories of the Lekwungen people. She studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and her fiction has been published in carte blanche, Plenitude, and Grain. Holly currently works in theatre administration and loves storytelling for its ability to create compassion, representation, and change. When not reading and writing, she listens to podcasts, absorbs moderately useless knowledge about queer celebrity news and TV shows, and cares for her many house plants.

Anna Lee-Popham

Anna Lee-Popham is a writer, instructor, and editor in Tkaronto. Her debut poetry collection, Empires of the Everyday, was published by McClelland & Stewart in Spring 2024. She holds an MFA Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Education Creative Writing Certificate, where she received the Janice Colbert Poetry Award. Her writing was first runner-up in PRISM international’s Pacific Poetry Prize, shortlisted for The Fiddlehead Creative Nonfiction Contest and Room‘s Poetry Contest, longlisted for CBC’s nonfiction prize, and published in Arc, Brick, Canthius, Riddle Fence, Room, and others.

Annick MacAskill

Annick MacAskill’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada and abroad, including Room, Plenitude, Prism, Canadian Notes & Queries, Arc, The Fiddlehead, Best Canadian Poetry, and The Stinging Fly. Her debut collection, No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018), was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and shortlisted for the Atlantic Book Awards’ J.M. Abraham Poetry Award. Her second collection is due to be published by Gaspereau in the spring of 2020. She currently lives and writes in Kjipuktuk (Halifax) on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.

Nara Monteiro

Nara Monteiro (they/she) is a Brazilian-Canadian writer, editor, and nerd. Nara is the editorial coordinator at TouchWood Editions, an editor at Room magazine, and a reader for Augur magazine. They have a Master of Publishing from Simon Fraser University and an Honours BA in English Literature from Western University. After hours, they like to disappear into the woods with an armful of books.

Nara was born in São Paulo, Brazil on Purí, Tekohá (Guarani), and Mbya land and lives on Treaty 13 in Toronto on traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishnabeg, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples.

Rose Morris

Rose Morris is a British Columbia-based writer and editor with a Master of Arts in 19th-Century Literature from the University of Victoria. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Room Magazine, Vancouver Magazine, Heirloom Gardener, and the occasional postcard.

Chimedum Ohaegbu

Chimedum Ohaegbu resides in Moh’kinstsis, colonially known as Calgary, Alberta. She is a three-time Hugo Award winner, and formerly worked as Uncanny Magazine’s managing and poetry editor. She loves insect facts, the theatre and stageplays, birds, and orchestral videogame music. Her work can be found in Strange Horizons, Arc Poetry Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol.3, among others. She is currently working on her first novel. You can find her online at chimedum.com.

Fran Pacchiano

Fran is a queer author and fourth-year Creative Writing major. She began her writing journey at five years old. Her first book was stapled-together printer paper and told the various ways she, her siblings, and cousin played together. The book was accompanied by stick figure illustrations. After a brief intermission in the wrong degree, she fell in love with stories and the process it takes to make them. These days, she is a Poetry Editor for Portal 2024 and the Managing Editor of GOOEY Magazine.

Lindsey Peacock

Lindsey is a born-and-bred Southerner who has called Canada home for the last 14 years. She’s a recovering newspaper and magazine journalist and her byline in business and tech publications across the country. When she isn’t slinging copy, you’ll find her exploring Toronto with Charlie, her ginger husky.

Crystal Peng

Crystal Peng lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She reads for EX/POST and edits for Flat Ink. When not writing, she spends her time propagating succulents, listening to the Goldberg Variations, or in a wikipedia rabbithole about oysters.

Tara Preissl

Tara Preissl is Scottish, Austrian, Hungarian, Stó:lō, and has ancestral roots in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation. She is a member of Leq’á:mel First Nation, but was raised in an urban environment on the unceded lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəjˀəm, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is a writer and editor with pieces featured in SAD Mag and Understorey Magazine and is currently a member of the Indigenous Brilliance Collective. Currently, she resides in Wet’suwet’en territory.

Vanessa Sanginiti

Vanessa Sanginiti is a writer who graduated from OCAD University’s Creative Writing program. Her works consist of analyzing and discussing film, media, and culture while utilizing feminist, gender, and anti-capitalist theories. Her film reviews can be found on Exclaim!’s website. Vanessa loves her dog, reading, and hockey. You can probably find her at a pop punk show or taking pictures with her camera whenever she is free. @vanessaonfilms on Twitter, Instagram, and Letterboxd.

Ellie Sawatzky

Ellie Sawatzky is a poet and fiction writer from Kenora, Ontario. Her debut poetry collection, None of This Belongs to Me (Nightwood Editions), a selection of which was shortlisted for the 2019 Bronwen Wallace Award, was released in October 2021. A past winner of CV2’s Foster Poetry Prize and runner up for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize, her work has been published widely in literary magazines across North America. She works as an editor for FriesenPress and curates the Instagram account @impromptuprompts, a hub for prompts and literary inspiration. Ellie lives in Vancouver with her partner and a cat named Camus.

Geffen Semach

Geffen Semach, originally from Vancouver, now lives in Toronto where she works at Penguin Random House Canada. For the last few years, she was living in London, England, where she worked as a Literary Agent’s Assistant at Aitken Alexander. Geffen has also worked at Profile Books and in foreign rights at Andrew Nurnberg Associates in London. She has been an online editor, a creative copywriter at a marketing agency, as well as held an editorial assistant position with The Nabokov Online Journal. Geffen completed the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford University in 2017.

Hamdah Shabbir

Hamdah Shabbir is an aspiring author and editor from Toronto with an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing. She is currently working on her debut novel – a mystery fiction that explores feminism, the music industry, and the myth of sirens. On the rare occasions when she is not immersed in the world of books, she enjoys painting, crocheting, and taking photos of her beloved cat, Flynn.

Jane Shi

Jane Shi is a queer Chinese settler living on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her writing can be found in Poetry Is Dead, LooseLeaf Magazine, Canthius, and PRISM International, among others. She wants to live in a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts are not filched, and bodies are not violated. You can find her online at @pipagaopoetry.

Katie Stobbart

Katie Stobbart is a queer non-binary writer and painter living on unceded lands known as New Westminster with their sweet cat companion She-ra. They have a BA in Creative Writing from the University of the Fraser Valley, and have collaborated on two chapbooks: The Trick to Feeling Safe at Home (Coven Editions) and worry & f*ck (Collusion Books). Katie is the Publisher of Room magazine.

Sylvia Symons

Sylvia Symons grew up in north-central B.C. She now lives with her husband and soon-to-fledge youngest son in Vancouver where she teaches at a community college. Her writing appears in Best Canadian Poetry, EVENT, Geist, Room, Prairie Fire, CV2, The Sustenance Anthology (Anvil Press), Thimbleberry, Arc Poetry Magazine and The Malahat Review.

Suha Tariq

Suha is a Canadian writer and editor residing in Milton, Ontario. She works as a poetry editor and is the Brand Lead for Augur magazine, as well as a Publisher’s Representative at Broadview Press. She has previously published literary book reviews and interviews as the Publishing & Web Intern for The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing magazine. She is the 2023 winner of Gimaa’s Allyship Poetry Contest and has also published other poetry with Serendipity NewsMag and Clownhouse Arts Collective. Suha is a recent graduate of Sheridan’s Creative Writing and Publishing program, where she completed her collaborative capstone project: Tessellate: An Anthology.

Rachel Thompson

Rachel Thompson is a poet and memoirist, former Managing Editor at Room, and current editorial collective member. She is a settler-Canadian, born on Treaty 1 territory and raised on Treaty 2 territory in Manitoba. She has also lived on the traditional territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka, and the Anishinabeg peoples in Montreal, Quebec, and on the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands in Vancouver, B.C. She teaches writing courses at rachelthompson.co. Find her on Twitter: @rachelthompson and Instagram: @rachelthompsonauthor.

Shristi Uprety

Shristi Uprety (she/her) is a Nepali writer from Kathmandu, living and working on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples in Vancouver BC. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. You can find her on Twitter @_ShristiUprety.

Délani Valin

Délani Valin is a Cree-Métis writer living on Snuneymuxw traditional territory. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Vancouver Island University. Her poetry has been awarded The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize, subTerrain’s Lush Triumphant Award, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2018. She has read for Room’s Indigenous Brilliance series, and her work has also appeared in Exile Editions’ Those Who Make Us, Adbusters, and Soliloquies Anthology, among others.

Eleni Vlahiotis

Eleni Vlahiotis is an editor, freelance writer and critic living on the West Coast of Canada. She has a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of British Columbia, where she also studied creative writing. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and writing fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction that pushes the boundaries of their respective genres. You can find her online @elenitrena and her work at elenivlahiotis.com.

Kailee Wakeman

Kailee Wakeman (she/her) is a Prairie-raised non-profit leader based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax). She holds degrees in studio arts, literature, and education, and would love to collect more. Kailee is an editor and co-founder of the digital arts & literature quarterly, long con magazine. She is also a printmaker, painter, textile artist, gardener, and wants to play all the sports all the time.

Natalie Wee

Natalie Wee is a queer creator whose work is deeply informed by grassroots communities. She wrote two poetry collections, Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (San Press, 2021) and Beast At Every Threshold (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents, Natalie is currently a settler in Tkaronto.

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