2024 Writers Workshop
Our Speakers
Our guest speakers are creative individuals and artists residing in Toronto, Canada, who have successfully established careers in their respective fields. They will share insights about their artistic journey, the specific disciplines they work in, and how to generate income and maintain financial literacy as artists.
Khadijah Salawu
Khadijah Salawu is an actor, writer, creative producer and an artist-educator based in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Arts York drama program at Unionville High School, along with University of Toronto’s Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies program.
With play at the center of her work, Khadijah uses collective creation, improv and movement to help individuals and teams tap into their creativity to build confidence, leadership skills and unlock their potential. Khadijah has facilitated workshops for companies and organizations that include Instacart, CAMH, Stratford Festival, Ivey Business School, the Federal Government of Canada, Reel Abilities, Arc’teryx, and Centre for Immigrant Services.
She has served as the Artistic Director, co-founder and co-producer of FreeUp! – an annual nation-wide youth-led Emancipation Day celebration, wherein the CBC Gem Emancipation Day 2020 Special received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Performing Arts Program at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards. She is currently developing the Crown Chronicles with support from the OAC Theatre Recommender Grants and played the role of Jesse in the independent feature Learn To Swim which was an Official Selection for the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for a NAACP Image Award.
Khadijah brings her love for imagination and storytelling to young people as an arts educator at Soulpepper Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, tdsbCREATES and St. James Town Community Arts.
Select artistic credits include: Learn To Swim (2021 TIFF Selection), Pretty Hard Cases (CBC), FreeUp! Emancipation Day Special *2020/2021 (CBC GEM, *2021 Canadian Screen Award Nominee for Best Performing Arts Program), and Cocoa Butter Wishes (OBAC).
Terese Mason Pierre (she/her)
Terese Mason Pierre is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Walrus, ROOM, Brick, Quill & Quire, Uncanny, and Fantasy Magazine, among others.
Her work has been nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, Best of the Net, the Aurora Award, and the Ignyte Award. She is one of ten winners of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize, and was named a Writers’ Trust Rising Star.
Terese is an editor at Augur Magazine, a Canadian speculative literature journal, and co-Director of AugurCon, Augur‘s biennial speculative literature conference.
She has co-hosted poetry reading series, spoken at conferences, organized literary events, judged writing contests, and facilitated creative writing workshops.
She is the author of two chapbooks, and she is an MFA Candidate at the University of Guelph. Terese lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
