2025 has been a tough one. There’s been a lot going on and a lot of heaviness around the world, and during it all i’ve been trying to add to the literary world in the little ways that i can…
As Banff Centre’s Director of Literary Arts, I developed a slate of in-person residencies which found homes across campus and in the newly renovated Vinci Hall. Literary Arts residencies—all of which were scholarshipped at 100% of tuition and 50% of room/board (and 100%/100% for Canadian Indigenous participants)—enabled international writers to work with exceptional faculty: January’s “Deep Winter Writers” residency with Danez Smith and Omar El Akkad (and Samantha Haywood from the Transatlantic Agency); February’s “Environmental Writing” residency with Denise Balkissoon and Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood; April’s “Horror” residency with Shane Hawk, Jessica Johns, Cherie Dimaline (and Catherine Chen from Arsenal Pulp); May’s “Literary Journalism” residency with Kyo McLear, Taras Grescoe, Sarah Berman (and Amanda Crocker from Between the Lines Press); August’s “Summer Writers” residency with Catriona Strang, Eric Sneathen, Douglas Kearney (and Hazel Millar from Book*Hug); September’s “Science Fiction” residency with Premee Mohamed, Ai Jiang, Amal El-Mohtar (and Ali Fisher from Tor Books); October’s “Comics and Graphic Novels” residency with Matt Madden, Bishak Som, Tom Hart (and Michel Vrana from Black Eye Books); and November’s “Early Career Writers of YA and Children’s Books” residency with Jordan Scott, Jen Ferguson, and Tanya Boteju (and David Robertson from Tundra). I am super thankful to be working with Madeline McCaffrey on all of these projects.
Banff Centre‘s Literary Arts department has some amazing plans for 2026 with residencies focused on Contemporary French Writers & Translators, Literary Journalism, Sports Writing, Crime Fiction, Computational Writing, Early Career Writers of Poetry, and several open topic poetry/prose residencies … all responding to the needs of international writers. Lots of news on the Banff Centre website.
Much of my 2025 was also dedicated to putting the final touches on DO IT WRONG: HOW TO BE A POET IN THE 21ST CENTURY which is forthcoming from Assembly Press — it’ll hit the shelves in April 2026.
This year I spoke to audiences at the AWP Conference in LA, at the Ontario College of Art and Design (via Zoom), and Brock University (also via Zoom) and performed at Banff’s Legion Hall. I published in The International Times, ADDA, Asemica, A-minor, New Poetry, The Visual Poetry Times, Periodicities, Var(2x), Sync2, and Stride Magazine.
There were also 8 different small press editions of my work published in 2025: Orpheus and Eurydice and All the Bright Tokens (both from Chromium Dioxide Press) and Another Piece of Reassuring Plastic [2nd revised edition], Il Pleut, and Penteract Press 2016–2025: A Contributor’s reflection (all from my own No Press).
I continue to place free PDFs of all of my work online—help yourself.
Through No Press I published 13 different editions of poetry and prose – including 5 issues of The Minute Review – with contributions by international, national and local emerging and established writers. Each edition was meant to help spread the word of risk-taking international writing. Thank you for trusting me with your work. This year No Press published Moez Surani’s The Death of Volodya Putin, Rachel Smith’s Carbon Bodies, Kevin Stebner’s Sigils for Inspiration, Nasser Hussain’s Zoom!, and a bootleg edition of Jack Kerouac’s The Holy, Beat, and the Crazy Next Thing.
None of this would have been possible without my incredible partner, Kristen, and our amazing kid Maddie (and our dog, Lou, who seems to be made of his tail and fluff). My parents are also steady voices of support and love; thank you.
In so many ways I only excel because of the strength and support of my community of friends and colleagues, especially Gary Barwin, Gregory & Lisa Betts, Kit Dobson, Helen Hajnoczky & David Tchak, Nasser Hussain & Kaley Kramer, Aaron Tucker & Julia Polyck-O’Neill, rob mclennan, Astra Papachristodoulou, and so many others. Thank you.
Here’s to 2026 and it all getting, even a wee bit, better.
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