Event Speaker: Zalika Reid-Benta

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Canadian author. Her debut novel River Mumma was shortlisted for the 2024 Trillium Book Award and has received starred reviews from publications such as Publishers Weekly and Booklist Magazine. River Mumma is an Amazon Books Editors’ Pick for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy and was the October 2023 pick for the CityLine book club.Reid-Benta’s debut short story collection Frying Plantain won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction in 2020. Frying Plantain was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium  Book Award, the White Pine Award and the Evergreen Award. Her picture book, Twelve Days of Jamaican Christmas, will be published in 2025.