Meet Our Team

Maya Ameyaw

Maya Ameyaw was born and raised in Toronto by a family of artists. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in the InkWell anthologies, The Double World (2017), The Unexpected Sky (2018), I Am a Lake (2019), and Brillance is The Clothing I Wear (2021) which she helped to compile and curate with grants from the Toronto Arts Council. When It All Syncs Up, her debut young adult contemporary novel, will be published by Annick Press in May of 2023.

Kathy Friedman

Kathy Friedman’s debut collection of short stories, All the Shining People (House of Anansi, 2022) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. Her writing has previously appeared in literary magazines including The New Quarterly, PRISM international, Grain, Geist, Room, Canadian Notes & Queries, Humber Literary Review, and This Magazine. Kathy has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a BFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She teaches creative writing in Humber College’s Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing Program.

Kilby Smith-McGregor

Kilby Smith-McGregor is a past InkWell Instructor, and is currently providing program support for the Reinhilde Cammaert Memorial Scholarship. She is the author of the poetry collection Kids in Triage (Buckrider Books / Wolsak & Wynn) and her writing has been published in Brick, The Kenyon Review, and Conjunctions, among other journals. She works as a freelance graphic designer for indie presses and other literary organizations in Ontario and beyond.

David James Brock

David James Brock is a playwright, poet, and librettist whose plays and operas have been performed in cities across Canada, the US, and the UK. He is the winner of the 2011 Herman Voaden Canadian National Playwriting Award for his play Wet. Brock is the author of two poetry collections, Everyone is CO2 & Ten-Headed Alien both released by Wolsak & Wynn. He has created text for opera and new music with companies that include Noise Opera, Tapestry New Opera, Young People’s Theatre, the Canadian Art Song Project, Write off The Keyboard, FAWN Chamber Creative, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. For Scottish Opera, Brock co-created Breath Cycle with Gareth Williams, a multimedia operatic theatre project developed with cystic fibrosis patients, which was nominated for a 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Award. His most recent play, A Million Billion Pieces premiered at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre in 2019 and was nominated for 5 Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

For more information, visit his website at www.davidjamesbrock.com. 

Dominik Parisien

Dominik Parisien is an editor, writer, and poet. He is the author of the poetry collection Side Effects May Include Strangers (McGill-Queen’s University Press) and his writing has appeared in Maisonneuve, PRISM International, EVENT, This Magazine, and The Literary Review of Canada, among others. He co-edited, with Navah Wolfe, The Mythic Dream, Robots vs Fairies, and The Starlit Wood, all published through Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press, and Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, with Elsa Sjunneson. He also edited the 2019 and 2020 program for the FOLD and he is an associate prose editor for Plenitude Magazine. As an editor, he has won the Hugo, Shirley Jackson, British Fantasy, and Aurora Awards. Dominik is a disabled, bisexual French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.

Alexandra C. Yeboah

Alexandra C. Yeboah is a Brampton-based writer, emerging artist, creative wanderlust, and contemplative thinker. A second-generation Canadian to immigrant parents, Alexandra is keen on writing on bicultural identity and the myriad ways it intersects with our everyday experiences. Through her participation as an artist in the Mayworks Festival’s Labour Catalyst program in May 2021, she published a booklet that profiled twelve leading labour activists in Canada. Her personal essays and poetry explores identity, self-acceptance, playful discovery and growth, and cultural heritage. Today Alexandra remains a devoted fan of exploratory walks, impromptu karaoke sessions, curious adventures, and lengthy, rambling conversations. She is working on her first collection of non-fiction stories. 

Past Instructors & Collective Members

Leonarda Carranza
Eufemia Fantetti
Ana Rodriguez Machado
Jeff Latosik
Stuart Ross
Leanne Toshiko Simpson

Past Instructors

Westwind Evening
Elyse Friedman
Liz Howard
Mahak Jain
Kilby Smith-McGregor
Andrea Thompson

Guest Mentors & Instructors

Roxanna Bennett
Yvonne Brown
Antonio Michael Downing
Sheung-King
Rowan McCandless
William S. Meneses
Guillaume Morrissette
George Zancola