I’m Shazia. I wrote a book called Port of Being, whose listening practice and city-walking saved me. Glad to be here. Glad to be alive. My little book has been taught by David Chariandy, Jay Gamble, and Chelene Knight!
I write a lot. Most people know me as a poet, but I’ve also published fiction and I’m working on a novel. Art writing, literary criticism, and journalism are also how I like to make sense of the world.
I’ve been editing books and mags for a long time! I’m so grateful to be able to continue to do this work. I currently work as a substantive, line, and acquisitions editor for presses across Canada. I take great pride in helping emerging and established writers edit and place their work with reputable presses nationally and internationally. Some brilliant and generous authors I’ve worked with include Hasan Namir, Trynne Delaney, Jonina Kirton, Shani Mootoo, and Maylis de Kerangal. I’ve also worked as a poetry editor, arts editor (arts journalism), book reviews editor, and a fiction editor for various magazines like Prism International and THIS magazine.
I accept requests for sensitivity reads on a case-by-case basis; I am best suited to offer perspectives on poetic and narrative structures, nuances of mixed-race experience, family secrets, intersections of avant-garde and lyric writing, work that is interdisciplinary, regional, and prioritizes a sense of place, as well as work that is transnational and international in scope.
I also specialize in consultations that require knowledge of inter- and transgenerational trauma, sound, being stalked, mental health and addictions, Canadian multicultural policy, diaspora, immigration, colonial and postcolonial reimaginings, the Second World War, the global (long) eighteenth century, and the erotic.
As an instructor, I’ve taught creative writing, introductory composition, postcolonial literature, andart writing at the undergraduate level. I always feel happy after teaching! I also enjoy giving workshops in the community. In the past, I’ve given creative writing workshops at recovery centres in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and more recently, I gave one online called Poetry as Listening.
Sometimes I do book layout, design, and audio editing.
I am excellent at finding the cheapest flights! 🙃
I like archives, soundwalking, making music, mystical stuff, maps, dancing, and being by the water. I also like black forest cake, lions, and people who think before they speak.
I am very privileged and grateful to be able to live and work on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples (Vancouver) and the territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, and the Métis Nation (Region 3), in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta (Calgary).
If you prefer to learn about me in the third person, here she goes.
