Symposium
10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Eva Crocker, author
Some place you love
What do the objects that surround us say about who we are? How do the places we move through shape us? What do the things we notice about our surroundings reveal about our emotional landscape? This interactive writing workshop will help students explore the relationship between setting and character development in fiction through a series of short writing exercises. I will ask for volunteers from the audience to share their work with the room.
Eva Crocker is a writer and editor from Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland), currently based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). She is the author of two novels, All I Ask and Back in the Land of the Living, and the short story collection Barrelling Forward. Her new short story collection Bargain Bargain Bargain will be published by McClelland & Stewart.
12:30–2:00 p.m.
Jennifer LoveGrove, poet
The poetics and politics of online dating
This is a hands-on analog workshop where students will be able to think about as well as discuss intimacy and connection while doing collage, writing or drawing.
Jennifer LoveGrove is the author The Tinder Sonnets, an acclaimed work of contemporary poetry about misogyny and internet dating, among other books. She lives in Toronto.
2:00–4:00 p.m.
Dr. Colette Yellow Robe, Northern Cheyenne scholar, associate professor, writer
Cheyenne pedagogy of love: Who gets to tell you who you are?
What happens when other people think they get to tell us who we are? Drawing from her writing, lived experience, and Cheyenne ways of knowing, Dr. Colette Yellow Robe invites students into a conversation about voice, love, identity, and the stories we inherit—and the ones we choose for ourselves. Through storytelling, reading, and conversation, she asks a deceptively simple question: Who gets to tell you who you are?
Dr. Colette M. Yellow Robe is a Northern Cheyenne scholar, writer, educator, and mother whose work centers Indigenous education, story, love, sovereignty, and lived experience. Her writing moves between the scholarly and the deeply personal, exploring what it means to reclaim our voices, our stories, and our authority over our own lives. At the heart of her work is a simple commitment: co-creating possibilities for ourselves and for generations still to come.
4:00–6:00 p.m.
Sheima Benembarek, journalist
Why should we talk about sex?
A look at how silence around sex, at home and in the community, shaped the lives of the Muslim women in Halal Sex. Desire is legitimate, and so when we go against that reality by not acknowledging, learning or talking about sex and sexuality, we become more vulnerable to lonely, awkward, painful, or even abusive experiences that can lead to self-blame and shame.
Sheima Benembarek is a Moroccan Canadian journalist and editor. She has worked at and written for a variety of print magazines and online publications including Toronto Life, Broadview, Maisonneuve, Quill & Quire, and Vogue Arabia. She was named one of the five RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers in 2020. Currently, she is the culture + society editor at The Conversation Canada and a contributing writer for The Walrus magazine.
8:00–10:00 a.m.
Christopher DiRaddo, novelist
What we do for love: Writing, chosen family, and the gift of showing up
In a world that gives us plenty of reasons to withdraw from human interaction, love is our decision to show up and remain attentive to the people in our lives, whether they be our romantic partners, our friends, or the community at large. Tracing the author’s origins as a gay man who believed he would never know true love, this presentation examines how writing and literature offered through the possibility that things could be different.
Christopher DiRaddo is the author of the novels The Family Way (2021), shortlisted for the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize, and The Geography of Pluto (2014). In 2014, he created the Violet Hour Literary Series & Book Club, which has provided a platform for more than 300 LGBTQ+ writers in Canada to connect with new audiences. In 2024, he won the QWF Judy Mappin Community Award.
10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Day Leitao and Anuja Varghese, romantasy writers
Swoony & spellbound: Looking at love and the rise of romantasy
Romantasy authors Day Leitao and Anuja Varghese discuss how love and magic intertwine in this fun and interactive session!
Anuja Varghese is an award-winning writer of literary fiction, fantasy, and romance where women of color get leading roles! She is the author of the short story collection Chrysalis, and the medieval India-inspired romantasy A Kiss of Crimson Ash. Find Anuja online: @anuja_v on socials or anujavarghese.com.
Day Leitao writes banter-filled, swoonworthy, steamy romantasy, including the trilogy Remnants of the Fallen Kingdom and her recent enemies to lovers dragon romantasy Under Restless Skies. She has been to RomantasyCon, Apollycon, and BookCon.
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Arizona O’Neill, author/illustrator
How to make a graphic novel
Taking on a project as ambitious as a graphic novel can feel daunting. Graphic novelist Arizona O’Neill will share her writing process. She will explore the challenges of bringing a deeply personal project to life. And how to transform your own experiences into stories that resonate with others. Join O’Neill for an honest and inspiring look at the process of creating a graphic novel, and finding the story that only you can tell.
Arizona O’Neill is a Montreal author and illustrator. She is the illustrator of Nelly Arcan’s L’enfant dans le miroir and Heather O’Neill’s Valentine in Montreal. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt, Exclaim!, Canadian Geographic, and the Montreal Gazette. Her graphic novel Opioids and Organs is out now with Drawn & Quarterly.
2:00–4:00 p.m.
Chanel Sutherland, author
I literary love you!
Why are we so obsessed with love stories? From Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers and Austen’s slow-burning romances to the secrecy, rivalry and undeniable chemistry of Heated Rivalry, literature has always tried to capture the thrill—and confusion—of falling in love. Together, we’ll explore crushes, forbidden love, obsession, sacrifice and the courage it takes to be truly seen.
Chanel Sutherland is a Vincentian-Canadian writer of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Her first collection of short stories, titled Layaway Child, is out now from House of Anansi.
4:00–6:00 p.m.
Dr. Yipeng Ge, family doctor
Love and liberation
Reflecting on the past 3 years of genocide in Palestine, it feels like there is so much to still say and also so much already said, so what is there left to say? In revisiting some moments in what I have witnessed and experienced from Turtle Island to Palestine, I want to share these two love letters to Palestine. Resistance is the deepest form of love.
Dr. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. In his clinical practice, he works in family medicine practice, Indigenous primary care, refugee health, care of people who are homeless, and harm reduction at community health centres in Ottawa. He has worked on and studied the structural and colonial determinants of health.
8:30–10:30 a.m.
Robyn Diner and Erica James, Vanier teachers
For the love of blackout poetry
Robyn Diner and Erica James will introduce students to the concept of blackout poetry. Students will then be given the tools and material to make their own poems answering the question, “Where is the Love?”
Robyn Diner and Erica James teach in the English Department at Vanier. They both love to write, and to see student creativity flourish.
10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Jennifer DeLeskie, editor-in-chief at Quist (with contributors Benjamin Kohn and Anahita Farahdel)
Marion Lougheed, writer, founder and editor at Off Topic Publishing
For the love of publishing
Jen DeLeskie speaks with two Quist contributors, Anahita Farahdel (Issue 2) and Benjamin Kohn (Issue 3), about their creative nonfiction pieces, “Drinking Tea with Tanhai” and “Names in a Bear,” exploring how love can become bound up with a place—or even with an idea of a place—and how that love can become complicated when the place itself is inaccessible. The presentation features readings from their work, a discussion, and a short writing exercise based on a prompt for attendees, followed by time for questions and conversation. Marion Lougheed, who runs Off Topic Publishing, a small publishing company that is basically just herself, with occasional help from a couple of volunteers, will then speak. She will discuss how running a micropress is mostly a labour of love. The rewards come from seeing great books go out into the world and supporting authors who might not otherwise find a place in publishing.
Jennifer DeLeskie lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). A lawyer and member of the Barreau du Québec, she has, in past lives, worked in Chiapas with a collective of organic coffee farmers, facilitated at the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialog on Development, and participated in archaeological fieldwork in Nunavut, Belize, France, and on the Saugeen Peninsula. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, The Globe and Mail, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Dalhousie Review, and elsewhere. She is Prairie Fire’s nominee for the Journey Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Award and longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and the Montreal Fiction Prize. Her debut novel, Everclear, was published by Flame Arrow Publishing this year. She is Editor-in-Chief and prose editor of Quist, the Quebec Writers’ Federation youth literary journal.
Benjamin Kohn is a first-year student at Middlebury College in Vermont. He wants to continue taking courses in creative writing and visual arts as well as other interesting courses that come his way. Outside of class, he likes to run by the cattle fields that surround campus, discover new places, and take part in the environmental group on campus.
Anahita Farahdel is a medical student at McGill University who has found her way to writing alongside her studies. Born and raised in Montreal, she remains deeply connected to her Persian heritage. She hopes to explore the intersection of medicine and storytelling as a form of advocacy and artistic expression. In her spare time, she loves playing music, watching and analyzing movies, walking in nature, and playing chess with friends.
Marion Lougheed grew up in four countries on three continents. She also lived on a sailboat for one summer. She runs Off Topic Publishing and writes across genres and styles.
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Cassandra Marsillo, public and oral historian, history teacher at Dawson College
Food for thought
In this presentation, Cassandra Marsillo will read from “Eating in St-Leo,” a piece that was published in Kitchen Work’s fall 2025 issue. It’s about all the ways I felt love through sharing meals with family and friends while growing up in Saint-Leonard, in Montreal’s east end. As a food historian, she finds meaning in everything from homemade soups to fast food burgers. Students will also be asked to reflect on the roles food has played in their lives through connections with loved ones.
Cassandra Marsillo is an oral and public historian, artist, and CEGEP history teacher based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal), telling and listening to stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore, particularly in relation to the Italian-Canadian experience and traditions from her family’s region, Molise. She is the author of the oral history cookbook Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage, published by the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Concordia University on the history of Italian food in Montreal.
2:00–4:00 p.m.
April Lepitre, Vanier College English Department
Coffee house
In the Theater Room, B-325.
Students, presenters and teachers are invited to come and read their literary works.