Writing 2520A: Write Now! - Writers on Writing

Learn about writing from writers

Interested in creative writing, in learning about different genres and styles of writing, and in getting insights into the business and craft of writing from working writers? Consider taking Writing 2520A: Write Now! Writers on Writing.

Write Now! is organized around a series of lectures by writers. Every week, a new writer visits the class to read from their work, talk about their writing and their career, and answer questions. The writers include novelists, poets, playwrights, podcasters, graphic novelists, comic book writers, young adult authors, etc. Lectures cover topics such as inspiration, overcoming creative blocks, revision, publishing and literary citizenship.

This course offers students a unique opportunity to learn from a wide variety of writers about the craft of writing and the creative life while improving their own writing.

Fall 2026 Creative Writers Speaker Series

Guest lectures are open to all students, staff and faculty.

Presented by Writing 2520A, the Department of English and Writing Studies & the Creative Writers Speaker Series at Western, everyone is invited to hear some of Canada’s best established and emerging writers read from their work and talk about their craft.

Please join us in UCC 37 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm

September 9: A.D. Sui

A.D. Sui is a Ukrainian-born, internationally raised speculative writer, Nebula winner, and Aurora, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist. They are the author of The Dragonfly Gambit (2024), The Iron Garden Sutra (2026), and more than two dozen short stories. A failed academic and retired fencer, they spend most days wrangling their two dogs and tending to their myriads of tropical plants. You can find them on most social media platforms as @thesuiway.

September 16: Christine Estima

Based in Toronto, Christine Estima has written for The New York Times, New York Daily News, The Observer, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Walrus, VICE, Refinery29, Chatelaine, Bitch, etalk, Maisonneuve Magazine, and many, many more. Her debut collection THE SYRIAN LADIES BENEVOLENT SOCIETY (House of Anansi Press) was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the CBC. Her debut novel LETTERS TO KAFKA (House of Anansi Press) was on the 2025 Most Anticipated Lists of the CBC, Indigo, Book Riot, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Star. It has been selected as a Heather's Pick at Indigo, and was also named one of the Best Books of 2025 by the CBC. Visit ChristineEstima.com for more.

September 23: D.M. Bradford

Darby Minott Bradford is a poet, editor, and translator. They hold a BA in Literature from Concordia University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and edit Poetry Pause, the League of Canadian Poets poem-a-day newsletter. They are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021), which won the A.M. Klein QWF Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Governor General Literary Awards. Bradford's first translation, House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson (Brick Books, 2023), received the Warland Award and John Glassco Translation Prize, and was shortlisted for the Governor General Literary Awards. Their second book, Bottom Rail on Top (Brick Books, 2023), was named a 2023 Best Canadian Poetry Book by the CBC and was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the A.M. Klein Prize. Their latest translation, Ring of Dust by Louise Marois, was published by Brick Books in spring 2025. A 2026 Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, Bradford is currently at work on a book about property, home, and time, as well as a translation of Quand je ne dis rien je pense encore by Camille Readman-Prud'homme. They are based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) on the unceded territory of the Kanienʼkehá:ka nation.

October 7: Salma Husain

Salma Hussain grew up in the UAE and immigrated to Canada when she was thirteen years old. She has a BA (Hon.) In English Literature, with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Calgary, a law degree from the University of Calgary, and a Master's in Law from McGill University. Her poetry and prose have been widely published in various literary magazines. Her chapbook of poetry, What If Maybe & Other Poems, was published by Baseline Press in the summer of 2025. She co-hosts a podcast on South Asian children's literature and writes witty, warm YA novels about the surprising ways we grow when life veers off-script. She enjoys writing reviews for Temz Review and lives with her family in Toronto.

October 21: Qurat Dar

Details coming soon.

October 28: Writer-in-Residence Lisa Ko and Student Writer-in-Residence Cadence McGillicuddy

Join us for the inaugural reading by our 2026–27 Writer-in-Residence, held in the Weldon Community Room (Room 128) on the first floor of the D.B. Weldon Library.

Lisa Ko is a writer and educator. Their novel Memory Piece (2024) was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize, the Gotham Book Prize, and the New American Voices Award, and named one of Barack Obama's favourite books of summer 2024. Ko's best-selling debut novel The Leavers (2017) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and won the PEN/Bellwether Prize. Their essays and short fiction have appeared in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney's, and The Believer. Ko has taught creative writing at the City College of New York, Indiana University, the New School, Queens College, the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, the One Story Summer Writers Conference, Kundiman, and in many community settings.

Cadence McGillicuddy is completing a Bachelor of Science with a Major in Computer Science and a Minor in Creative Writing. She writes poetry, creative non-fiction and fiction. She explores nature, relationships, and themes of identity in her writing. Her work has been published in ICONOCLAST, Occasus, and has been featured in an art installation in her hometown of Burlington, Ontario. When she is not writing, she can be found lifting at the Rec Centre, turning the page of yet another fantasy novel, or sipping chamomile tea.

November 11: Alissa Hattman

Alissa Hattman is author of the novel Sift, which was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction in 2024. Her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared widely in Carve, The Gravity of the Thing, Big Other, Surely Magazine and elsewhere. Alissa holds an MFA in Fiction from Pacific University, an MA in English Literature from Portland State University, and is currently at work on her PhD at York University in Toronto. She has taught writing classes and workshops for over 15 years and has worked as a fiction editor, book reviewer, zine librarian, and artist-in-residence at several arts centers, most recently Gullkistan Center for Creativity in Iceland. More about Alissa can be found on her website at www.alissahattman.com.

November 18: Nisha Patel and Matthew James Weigel

Nisha Patel is a Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Edmonton and a Canadian Poetry Slam Champion. She is a disability advocate and diabetic. Her works (Coconut, A Fate Worse Than Death, For the Record) are available where books are sold. She currently works from Edmonton and Calgary.





Matthew James Weigel Details coming soon.

November 25: Andrew F. Sullivan

Andrew F. Sullivan is the author of The Marigold, a novel about a city eating itself, and a finalist for the Aurora Awards, the Locus Awards, and the Hamilton Literary Awards. The Marigold was also named a Best Book of the Year by Esquire, The Verge, Book Riot and the Winnipeg Free Press. He cowrote The Handyman Method with Nick Cutter, a novel about home improvement gone wrong. Sullivan is also the author of the novel WASTE, a Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year, and the short story collection All We Want is Everything, a Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year and finalist for the ReLit Award. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Sullivan’s next novel Earth Filled with Blood is forthcoming from Gallery Books (a division of Simon & Schuster) in 2027.

December 2: Jowita Bydlowska

Details coming soon.

Contact

Dr. Aaron Schneider
aschnei4@uwo.ca