OTTER LITERARY - Key Persons
Alex Brett writes about the joys, wonders, and perils of science. Her second mystery, Cold Dark Matter, was shortlisted for a Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime Novel Award. She has written non-fiction articles on topics as varied as dark energy, the science of lying well, and the dubious history of gender research. She has also worked as a park naturalist (BC Parks), a science educator and interpretive planner (Canada Museum for Science and Technology), and a science writer and editor for, among others, the National Research Council of Canada, Environment Canada, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
Dr. Petra Richterová is a scholar, photographer, and filmmaker who received her doctorate from Yale University (2010) specializing in the Arts of the African Diaspora. She has photographed for Jazz at Lincoln Center, Blue Note Jazz Club, and The Black Rock Coalition, among others. Her images have been shown at Columbia University, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Petra's first short film, On My Mind (Blue Note Records), premiered with Afropunk in 2020, and her second short film, Are You Hearing Me?, premiered with Vibe Music Collective in 2021. She was a 2021-22 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library) where she was completing her scholarly book on AfroCuban dance, Rumba: A Philosophy of Motion. Petra is a Professor of African and African American Art History at Savannah College of Art and Design. She spends her time between Brooklyn and Savannah.
Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator. Using painting, installation, and performance, Syrus explores social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely across Canada in solo and group shows, and his performance works have been included in local and international festivals. Syrus is curator of the That's So Gay show and a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama, part of the Performance Disability Art Collective, and a core-team member of Black Lives Matter (Toronto). In addition to penning a variety of journals and articles, Syrus is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020), and illustrator of picture book I Promise (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019). Syrus earned his PhD at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and is Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts at McMaster University.
Emily Pohl-Weary has been called "a shining example of a writer who has made a difference in her community through mentorship." She's an award-winning author, editor, arts educator and creative writing professor.
She has published seven books, most recently Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl (YA fantasy, 2013) and Ghost Sick (poetry about tragedy and resilience in downtown Toronto, 2015). Previous novels include Strange Times at Western High (middle-grade mystery) and A Girl Like Sugar (ghost love story). She also co-authored the Hugo Award-winning Better to Have Loved, the memoirs of her gender-bending grandmother Judith Merril, who wrote and edited science fiction in 1950s New York City.
Her anthology Girls Who Bite Back compiled writing and art by 34 contributors who examined pop culture examples of superwomen and created new fictional heroes. She has written comics and book reviews, published a literary magazine and acquired content for high school English textbooks. For two decades, she led regular community writing programs for street-involved youth, men living in transitional housing, and women in prison.
Emily has a PhD in adult education from the University of Toronto. For her dissertation, she researched the benefits of community-based writing groups and egalitarian writing pedagogies. She is an assistant professor in the UBC School of Creative Writing, where she teaches writing for young readers and speculative fiction.
Kristy Jackson is a communications professional by day, writer by night. Kristy loves books of all kinds, and has led a program to help Santa bring books to kids in remote Indigenous communities each Christmas since 2018. She is also a volunteer board member with a local non-profit dedicated to improving literacy in her community. Kristy is a member of Whitefish Lake First Nation #128 (a.k.a. Goodfish Lake) who lives near Saskatoon, SK, with her husband and their two sons. She has been practicing the writing craft since TVs had rabbit ears, and writes for middle grade, YA, and adult audiences.
Rachel Schwartz Fagan is passionate about storytelling and children's books. She has an M.Phil in Children's Literature from Trinity College Dublin and is currently completing a Master of Teaching at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE). She has worked as a reading and writing tutor, ESL teacher, theatre critic, and bookstore monkey. Rachel is an avid zinester and was shortlisted for Broken Pencil's Best Perzine Award in 2018 and 2020. Her picture book manuscript was longlisted for CANSCAIP's Writing for Children Competition, and she has been published in the UC Review. In her free time, she draws (badly), embroiders (a little better), argues with her dog (often loses), and reads (of course).
Job Titles:
- Editor - in - Chief and Founder of Thepurplefig.Com
Trish Bentley is the editor-in-chief and founder of thepurplefig.com. She has an MA in Critical and Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire, and a BA from The New School University in New York City. She runs regular writing workshops for both adults and children, has been a regular columnist for The Huffington Post, and has written for The New York Press, 12 St. Journal, and shedoesthecity.com. She has also published the children's book, About Town with Benny Be. Trish lives in Toronto with her husband, their three boys and her four-legged daughters, Tessa and Evie.