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Join Our Literary Scavenger Hunt at Word On The Street 2025
Diaspora Dialogues is thrilled to be part of this year’s Word On The Street festival with our Literary Scavenger Hunt!
📍 When & Where: September 27–28 at David Pecaut Square in downtown Toronto
This fun and interactive activity invites festival-goers to explore the event, celebrate Canadian books and writers, and win exciting prizes along the way.
We’re proud to feature an incredible lineup of artists:
Ashley Hasfal
Rasiqra Revulva
Pratap Reddy
Martin Gomes
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio
Ai Jiang
Word On The Street is one of Canada’s premier literary celebrations, bringing together hundreds of author readings and a vibrant marketplace that showcases the country’s best books and magazines.
We can’t wait to see you there!
Call for Nominations to the Board of Directors
Diaspora Dialogues Charitable Society supports emerging writers to turn their craft into a career through mentorship, professional development and opportunities to publish and present their work. Founded in 2005, DD runs long- and short-form mentoring programs (drama, fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and children’s lit); professional development seminars; public author talks and interdisciplinary events; special projects and more.
More than 800 writers and artists have participated as mentors or mentees, emerging playwrights or dramaturges, commissioned artists or panelists, readers or performers. More than 550+ new literary works have been created, 450+ events produced and an audience in excess of 350,000 Canadians has attended those events.
Diaspora Dialogues is based in Toronto. Our programming is both GTA-specific and national.
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DD seeks nominations for additions to our volunteer Board of Directors. The board is primarily concerned with governance. As we celebrate our milestone 20th anniversary in 2025 with a major celebration event planned, and work with a fundraising professional to further diversify our fundraising base, we ask board members to contribute to those efforts where possible.
We seek expressions of interest, or recommendations, for individuals who:
• Are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion;
• Are passionate about literature, books and/or theatre and the role the arts play in enriching society;
• Have previous governance experience as a board director, with registered charities or are willing learn;
• Are respectful, positive, pro-active and collegial.
The DD board meetings 4 times per year, with meetings taking place on Zoom. There are occasional in-person meetings in Toronto as well (with digital livestream available).
Those elected serve a term of two years and are eligible for three terms for a total of six years, unless also an officer in which case those can be extended.
If you think this might be you, please submit an expression of interest with biography to Helen Walsh, president of Diaspora Dialogues, helen@diasporadialogues.com by Feb 7, 2025. Please feel free to forward this call to anyone you think may be interested and a good fit for our organization.
We thank you very much for your interest in DD!
ARCHIVED EVENT: Publishing for Playwrights
November 21, 2024 | 12:30pm EST
In this one-hour workshop, we’ll explore the unique world of publishing for playwrights, from understanding the submission procedures to navigating the editorial process. We’ll also discuss various play publishers, including major players and smaller independent presses. Whether you’re a seasoned playwright or new to the scene, this session will equip you with the knowledge to take your script from page to stage and into publication.
Register now.
About the Presenter
Annie Gibson is the publisher at Playwrights Canada Press. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Annie followed her love of theatre and books to its logical conclusion: publishing plays. She’s worked at Playwrights Canada Press since 2005, and as publisher since 2008. She also loves baseball and baking.
Annie is passionate about the book industry and the supply chain that gets books into the hands of readers. A former member of the board of directors of both the Association of Canadian Publishers and eBOUND Canada, Annie currently sits on the board of the Book and Periodical Council. She is an active member of the BPC’s Freight and Distribution Committee and is a co-chair of the ACP’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
Open Call for Submissions: 2024 Long Form Mentorship
Diaspora Dialogues invites submissions from emerging writers in both the GTA and across Canada who currently have a full or near-full draft of a manuscript. We accept novels, short story collections, creative non-fiction/memoir, works intended for young adults and poetry. Complete or near complete means that the writer has up to 85,000 words or 300 double-spaced pages of prose; or up to 25 poems (50 pages maximum). Submissions will consist only of excerpts from these works (see guidelines below).
Diaspora Dialogues is committed to supporting a literature that is as diverse as Canada itself. Writers are encouraged to keep this mandate in mind, but addressing this theme directly is not essential in the submission.
Notifications will be made at the end of December. The mentorships will begin in early 2025 and run for six months. Assigned mentors are at the discretion of Diaspora Dialogues.
The deadline to apply is 11:59 on November 29, 2024.
Please read all of the guidelines carefully and email your submission to
Zalika Reid-Benta at zalika@diasporadialogues.com. Submission forms can be found here.
DD Partners with Word on the Street to Produce Literary Scavenger Hunt
Join us on Sunday September 29, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM and 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM for an exciting literary scavenger hunt that will lead Torontonians on a journey filled with poetic clues, hidden books, personalized readings, and literary surprises!
With a focus on urban ecology and sustainable neighborhoods, artists and writers will provide the clues for participants to collect on their hunt. Individuals or small groups who complete the challenge can win a book of their choosing from our prize table. Family-friendly, this event promises fun for all ages.
About the Artists:
Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist from Changle, Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, The Masters Review, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop’s 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. The first book of her novella duology, A Palace Near the Wind, is forthcoming 2025 with Titan Books. Find her on X (@AiJiang_), Instagram (@ai.jian.g), and online (http://aijiang.ca).
Ashley Hasfal is a professional 2D Designer and Comic Artist from Toronto, ON. As a graduate of the Sheridan College Bachelor of Applied Arts Animation program, she trained to hone her craft in 2D TV animation, design and Illustration. Pages of her comic INITIUM were displayed in the Geppi Entertainment Museum as part of the Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture and Beyond exhibit in Baltimore, Maryland in 2013. She held a graphic novel masterclass for artists with the Brampton Arts Organization in 2023. In 2021, she ran a graphic novel masterclass with Diaspora Dialogues and was a mentor with Project 10’s Line Up! Youth Comics Arts Mentorship Programme in 2020. Ashley’s current focus in comics is rooted in the supernatural, highlighting Caribbean mythology.
Charlie Petch (they/them, he/him) is a disabled/queer/transmasculine multidisciplinary artist who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto. A poet, playwright, librettist, musician, lighting designer, and host, Petch was the 2017 Poet of Honour for the speakNORTH national festival, winner of the Golden Beret lifetime achievement in spoken word with The League of Canadian Poets (2020), and founder of Hot Damn it’s a Queer Slam. Petch is a touring performer, as well as a mentor and workshop facilitator. 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 film with Opera QTO, Medusa’s Children, premièred 2022. They have been featured on the CBC’s Q, were the Writer In Residence for Berton House (2023), were long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2021. Their solo show “No one’s special at the hot dog cart” debuted at Theatre Passe Muraille and is traveling to Peterborough’s Market Hall with Theatre Passe Muraille.
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian community worker, speaker, and founder of Filipino Talks– a program that builds bridges between educators and Filipino families. Her work with newcomers in Toronto’s schools and libraries and as a tour guide in Toronto’s Little Manila inspired her debut novel, Reuniting with Strangers. It was longlisted for Canada Reads, a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award, and won the silver medal for multicultural fiction at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Jennilee is a founding member of Salaysay, a collective of Filipino writers based in Toronto. Reuniting with Strangers is a finalist for the 2024 Toronto Book Awards.
Martin Gomes (he/they) is an Afro/Latino, queer writer & composer born & based in downtown Toronto. Their poetry has allowed them to work with organizations such as CBC, Sony, TOLive, DesignTO, The Meridian Arts Centre, Withrow Common Art Gallery, The Harbourfront Centre, and the TTC in partnership with Poems in Passage. As an artist facilitator, poetry has taken Martin all over the GTA as an Artist Facilitator with organizations like Thrive Youth, Unity Charity, VIBEArts, and JAYU. As a performer, he’s graced stages in Toronto like Bluma Appel Theatre, Soho House, and Nuit Blanche, as well as stages in Ottawa and Lisbon. With their art, he hopes to set an example of authenticity and empathy wherever possible in an attempt to spread messages of loving each other even through all the noise.
Rasiqra Revulva is a disabled queer femme writer, multi-media artist, editor, musician, and performer; developer and co-editor of the Hybrid/Experimental Section at The Ex-Puritan Literary Magazine; and half of the experimental electronic duo The Databats (Slice Records). She has published three sold-out chapbooks of glitch-illustrated and/or augmented poetry: Cephalopography (words(on)pages, 2016), If You Forget the Whipped Cream, You’re No Good As A Woman (Gap Riot Press, 2018), and Sailor, C’est l’heure (The Blasted Tree, 2021). Cephalopography 2.0 (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020), is her award-nominated debut collection.
