ARCHIVED EVENT: The Shape of You: A Hermit Crab Workshop with Leanne Simpson

October 28, 2025 | 12:30PM

Register here.

Hermit crab essays have emerged as exciting and generative containers for personal storytelling over the past two decades. As their popularity has grown, these creative pieces have taken the shape of family recipes, instructional manuals, obituaries and other familiar forms, offering a protective space to begin the writing process and a chance to reimagine the cultural expectations of each shape.

As a mad writer, narrating my life has been challenging – both in the sense that I am often writing emotionally difficult stories AND stories that may be less recognizable for those who don’t share my lived experience. I find that working within a “shell” – as I did in my debut novel, Never Been Better, which uses the shape of a romantic comedy to explore mental illness – helps me understand and question the “rules of the game,” whether it’s the guiding structures of family, relationships, illness or even just the choreography of going on a date. It also makes for a very fun reading experience for those outside the story!

My hermit crab writing workshop is open to anyone trying to tell a “difficult” story in a creative and nonlinear way (fiction or nonfiction). No writing experience required – just life experience that you’re interested in reframing creatively. 

About the Presenter

Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a Japanese Canadian writer, educator and psychiatric survivor from Toronto. She loves writing joyful and messy stories about living with mental illness, and the moments of hope that help us get out of bed day after day. Leanne teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto and her debut novel Never Been Better recently won the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Romance.