Speakeasy Reading Series

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Speakeasy Reading Series

Speakeasy is the reading series of the University of Guelph's Creative Writing MFA program. All are welcome.

Visit us here for information about our monthly readings, recommencing in September 2021.

04/14/2026

Tomorrow's event is a special one for who'll be wrapping up her last Speakeasy as co-host with a reading! Register at the link in our bio and join us tomorrow at 7pm!

Desiree Mckenzie is an award-winning poet, arts educator, national poetry slam champion, and voice actor living in Toronto. Her poetry and voice have been featured in works for CBC’s Poetic License series, When Sisters Speak, Clearco Financial, Button Poetry, Kids Help Phone and Home Depot. She facilitates a range of community poetry programs for organizations such as JAYU, VIBE Arts, Unity Charity, and Poetry in Voice. Her debut spoken word EP, Wet Hair, is now available on streaming platforms. In December 2022, she opened for Rupi Kaur on her world tour stop at Massey Hall. She is currently an MFA candidate in the University of Guelph Creative Writing program and working on her first book of poetry.

04/13/2026

Two more nights until our April Speakeasy featuring ! Click the link in our bio to register now!

Antonio Michael Downing is the author of the acclaimed memoir Saga Boy, called by Giller winner Ian Williams, "the triumph of Blackness everywhere," and children’s book, Stars in My Crown. He is also the host of the CBC Radio program The Next Chapter where he discusses books with readers and authors. He spends his time writing books, singing songs, and trying to make his grandma proud. Black Cherokee is his debut novel.

04/10/2026

Joining us at our April 15th Speakeasy is alum, !! Aga's novel, Becalming, will be released on April 14th, right in time for you to get yourself a copy at our Speakeasy!! Register now at the link in our bio.

Aga Maksimowska is the author of GIANT, the 2013 Toronto Book Award finalist coming-of-age novel about premature sexual development and the fall of Communism in Poland. Her stories and essays have been published in Brick, The New Quarterly, The Humber Literary Review, White Wall Review, The Lincoln Review, Room, The Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. Her second book, BECALMING, will be out in April. She lives in Toronto.

04/09/2026

Jennifer LoveGrove will be joining us at this month's Speakeasy where we'll be hearing poems from her latest release, The Tinder Sonnets! P.S. a little birdie told us you'll be able to get your hands on some copies if you join us in person at !

Jennifer LoveGrove’s latest book is The Tinder Sonnets (Book*hug, 2026). She is the author of the Giller Prize-longlisted novel Watch How We Walk, as well as three poetry collections: Beautiful Children with Pet Foxes (longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award), I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel, and The Dagger Between Her Teeth. She is currently working on a new novel and creative nonfiction. She divides her time between downtown Toronto and Squirrel Creek Retreat in rural Ontario.

04/08/2026

UofG's very own will be joining us at next week's Speakeasy on April 15th! We're so excited to have her! Register now at the link in our bio!

Kelly Pedro (she/her) has won the CRAFT Literary Flash Prose Prize and was a 2024 SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow. Her fiction has appeared in CRAFT, PRISM international, The New Quarterly, Cleaver, Flash Frog, jmww, Tahoma Literary Review, Fractured Lit, Moon City Review, NELLE, and many other lovely literary magazines. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and was shortlisted for the 2025 SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction and Room’s 2022 Fiction Prize. She’s an Associate Flash Fiction Editor at jmww and is finishing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. She lives on the Haldimand Tract—land that was promised to the Six Nations of the Grand River. Learn more about her work at kellypedro.ca.

04/07/2026

Our last Speakeasy of the school year is coming up on April 15th and we'll be hearing from some awesome writers! Check the link in our bio to register!!

03/19/2026

We had such a great time at last night's Speakeasy reading! We had an eco-warrior family and hope persisting in inherited trauma, we had apocalyptic wastelands, and death parties, and we even went a little feral. We're so grateful for our readers, .d.s.johnston and for our speakeasy community. Special shout out to for hosting us.

Watch this space for details about next month's Speakeasy on April 15th.

03/18/2026

There's still time to register for tonight's speakeasy! You'll hear from , our Humber reader for tonight. Register at the link in our bio!
Zachary Tomblin is a writer and artist originally from Paris, Ontario.

He is a third-year-student in the Bachelors of Professional and Creative Writing program at Humber Polytechnic. In the past he has been published in the Humber Literary Review for short horror.

Zachary strives to write unnerving dream-like horror stories inspired by his own strange and often horrific dreams.

03/17/2026

One day left to register for tomorrow's Speakeasy where we'll hear from ! Laurie's fourth book, Calling It Back to Me will be released on March 24th. In the mean time, register for our speakeasy at the link in our bio!
Laurie D. Graham grew up in Treaty 6 Territory, outside of amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta), and she has lived in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, Ontario) in the Territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg, since 2018, where she is a poet, an editor, and the publisher of Brick magazine. Her first book, Rove, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second and third books, Settler Education and Fast Commute, were both nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry. Her newest collection, Calling It Back to Me, is out this spring from McClelland & Stewart.

03/16/2026

At this month's speakeasy, we'll be hearing from .d.s.johnston! We're so excited about her debut novel The Fall-Down Effect which will be released April 21! While you wait, come see Liz read on March 18th at Another Story Bookshop in Toronto!
LIZ JOHNSTON grew up in Revelstoke, B.C., and now lives and writes in Toronto. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Poets & Writers, The Fiddlehead, and Grain, among other publications. She is an editor of Brick, A Literary Journal. Her debut novel, The Fall-Down Effect, comes out April 21, 2026, from Book*hug Press.

03/13/2026

MFA student, will be joining us at our March speakeasy next week! We're so excited to have one of our resident playwrights read for us! Register at the link in our bio.
Annabel is a playwright, freelance writer, and educator whose work is rooted in storytelling and collaboration.

With writing partners Alison Lawrence and Mary Francis Moore, she co-wrote the widely acclaimed Bittergirl (Scirocco Drama), Bittergirl – The Musical (the most produced Canadian musical of the 2017/2018 season), and the book Bittergirl: Getting Over Getting Dumped (Penguin Canada/US; Distribuidora Brazil), as well as the plays Flush and Synchronecessity. She is also co-writer of Beyond – The Musical with Amy Sky and Steven Mackinnon. Annabel has three new plays — Feedback, Reunited, and The Long Way Home — currently in development.

She holds a BA in English from Western University, is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Theatre Arts: Performance program, and is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, specializing in playwriting.

03/12/2026

's very own Maria Giesbrecht will be reading this month! Maybe we'll get a taste of A Little Feral, available for pre-order now! Register for this month's Speakeasy at the link in our bio!
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Maria Giesbrecht's work explores her Mexican and Mennonite roots. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Literary Review of Canada, Narrative, Grain, CV2, Canadian Literature, and elsewhere.

She is the winner of the 2025 Jack McCarthy Prize, the Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize, a finalist for the 2025 Narrative Poetry Prize, a Best of Net nominee, and the founder of Gather, an international writing community that connects poets worldwide. Born in Durango, Mexico, she now lives near Toronto, Canada.

Address

315 Roncesvalles Ave
Toronto, ON
M6R 2M6

Website

https://www.instagram.com/speakeasyreadings

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