Speakers for this event

• Avery Miles

  Avery Miles

  Avery Miles is currently attending OCAD as a creative writing student. Originally from Canada’s capital, she began writing as a child and has continuously used it as way to uncover and convey emotional truths that linger within the subtleties of everyday life and herself

• Bella Callari

  Bella Callari

  Bella Callari is a Creative Writing major at OCAD University, with a strong focus in playwriting as well as prose. Their one-act play Caprice was performed through Geva Theatre’s Young Playwrights Showcase in 2019 in Rochester, New York, and their one-act play Wishes was performed through Monroe Community College’s Sixth Act Annual Playwriting Competition and was recognized by the League for Innovation in their anthology in 2026. When not writing, they can be found taking care of and getting writing feedback from their biggest mango-obsessed critic; their rabbit, Winnie (if she bites the laptop screen, something needs to be revised again). 

• Charlie Petch

  Charlie Petch

  Charlie Petch (they/he) is a disabled & transmasculine multidisciplinary artist. Their debut poetry collection, Why I Was Late (Brick Books), won the 2022 ReLit Award, and was named “Best of 2021” by The Walrus. Their new collection “Infinite Audition”, was launched in Fall 2025 with Brick Books. Petch received a Golden Beret Spoken Word Prize from the League of Canadian Poets. Their play “No one’s special at the hot dog cart” debuted in 2024 with “Theatre Passe Muraille and Public Energy”. They write plays, librettos, poems, and music and perform their work for audiences all over Turtle Island.

• Francesca Guarducci

  Francesca Guarducci

  Francesca Guarducci is a 25 year old Italian Canadian creative writing student whose work spans poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting. Her writing explores memory, identity, and intimacy through a reflective voice shaped by both cultures. Although her preferred mode of writing is poetry, she hopes to pursue a career in writing for film and television. 

• Gene Adams

  Gene Adams

  Gene Adams is a performance poet who got his name on discount at Value Village. He tells stories through the sonic qualities of language influenced by Southern oral tradition, balancing humor and horror to deliver engaging commentary about the nature of consumerism and identity. Gene is an award winning spoken word artist, an open mic host, and an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets.

• Luxshana Jegarajah

  Luxshana Jegarajah

  Luxshana, an artist and writer studying Sculpture and Installation at OCADU, with a minor in Creative Writing. I create fiction, poetry and mixed media exploring childhood, nostalgia, the uncanny, and the strange little places where the natural and unnatural meet. With a little inspiration from Junji Ito, Remedios Varo, R.L Stine, Alvin Schwartz, Stephen Gammell and the odd beings that live in the limbo.