Archived Event: From DD to Published Author

Join us for a special workshop hosted by DD alum Denise Da Costa and Reema Patel. Denise and Reema, once mentees in DD’s mentorship programs, have gone on to become published authors. During the workshop, the two will share their writer’s journey as well as advice for aspiring authors who hope to see their work on shelves one day.

VIDEO:

About the Presenters

Denise Da Costa is a Canadian poet, novelist, and essayist whose work is featured in Subdivided: City Building in an Age of Hyper Diversity. She is an alumnus of the Humber School of Writers and 2017 Diaspora Dialogues program. Before earning her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from York University, she studied graphic design, showcasing her work at the annual Eden Mills Art Festival. She resides in the GTA with her husband. Her debut novel, And the Walls Came Down will be published in June 2023 by Dundurn Press.

REEMA PATEL holds a B.A. from McGill University and a J.D. from the University of Windsor. After working in Mumbai in the youth non-profit sector and in human rights advocacy, she has spent the last ten years working in provincial and municipal government. Such Big Dreams is her first novel, an excerpt of which won the Penguin Random House Student Award for Fiction at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives in Toronto, where she works as a lawyer.