MFA Community Update 2026
With over 200 MFA alum it’s not possible to keep track of all of the achievements but here are just some of the happy happenings from 2025, and a few late 2024 mentions too. Click the links for titles and publication info.
We celebrate new novels from Danila Botha, Sara Flemington, Alexis von Konigslow, Jacob McArthur Mooney, Greg Rhyno, and associated faculty members Shani Mootoo and Michael Redhill; story collections from Andrew Kaufman, Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross, and faculty member Catherine Bush; and poetry collections from Chris Bailey, Aisha Sasha John, Terese Mason Pierre, Hajer Mirwali, Jessica Popeski, Anna Swanson, Paul Vermeersch, and MFA coordinator Canisia Lubrin. Gabrielle Drolet and Joelle Kidd released works of nonfiction; Nadia Hohn launched a new children’s book; Terese Mason Pierre edited an anthology of speculative short fiction by Black writers in Canada; and D.M. Bradford translated the work of Louise Marois. Blessing O. Nwodo wrote, directed and featured in the documentary Dreaming in the West; Scout Rexe premiered Cult Play with Imago Theatre; Robert Chafe and Taylor Marie Graham published plays; and Beverley Cooper’s Humour Me premiered at Here for Now Theatre in Stratford. MFA faculty member Judith Thompson’s Queen Maeve is currently in production at the Tarragon.
Making waves in the greater community, in October Andrew Faulkner and Leigh Nash, co-owners of Assembly Press, announced that they are merging with Brick Books. Joelle Kidd took on the role of Prose Editor with Plenitude Magazine, and novelist Nancy Jo Cullen was the 2025 Queen’s University Writer in Residence. Teneile Warren was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for advocacy and activism for Black and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in Waterloo Region, and Nadia Hohn received the University of Waterloo Alumni Achievement Award for the Faculty of Arts.
Literary awards were a-plenty too, and awarded to so many of our current MFA students. Em Dial’s debut poetry was longlisted for the Raymound Souster Award and the CBC Poetry Prize; Maria Giesbrecht was a finalist for the 2025 Narrative Poetry Contest and won the 2025 Lesley Strutt Poetry Prize; Madeeha Hashmi was the winner of the 2025 Austin Clarke Prize in Fiction (alum Véronique Darwin was the runner up for this award in 2024); Kelly Pedro won a 2024 CRAFT Literary Flash Prose Prize and she was also shortlisted for the 2025 SmokeLong Quarterly Award; and K.J. Aiello was shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Prize for nonfiction. Alum Leanne Toshiko Simpson won the award for Never Been Better.
Phillip Dwight Morgan received the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers (Graham Slaughter was also nominated); Shane Neilson’s nonfiction was named a finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award; Mariló Núñez was awarded the Equity Showcase Cayle Chernin Award for Theatre; and Anna Lee Popham’s debut poetry collection was longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.
As per usual, regular and associated MFA faculty were recognized by a multitude of juries. Souvankham Thammavongsa won the Giller Prize for her novel Pick a Colour. Blain Watters’ short film Single Woman Seeking Child won the KCFF 25th anniversary pitch competition and has since been featured in over a dozen film festivals in Canada, the US, Mexico, the UK, and Italy. Canisia Lubrin’s Code Noir received the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, celebrating excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States. Code Noir also received the 2025 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. And Ayelet Tsabari’s Songs for the Brokenhearted won the National Jewish Book Award, the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award, and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for fiction.
Last but not least, a little shout-out to MFA associated faculty members Alicia Elliott and Blain Watters, who were welcomed onto the regular faculty roster in the School of Theatre, English, and Creative Writing this year. And a big thank you to Lisa Richter for her run as our social media coordinator, and Des McKenzie and Chi Leung Lee for hosting the Speakeasy Reading Series. Thank you to Brittany Coy-Pinnock for her valued contributions as the 2025-26 series unfolds. Please take note all, Speakeasy now takes place the middle Wednesday of each month at Another Story Bookshop (rather than Glad Day Bookshop)—and you can also always attend on Zoom.
Of course, if we’ve missed your literary news let me know and I’ll add it to this newsletter before I post it on our website. You can send your highlights to me, Libby Johnstone at cwmfa@uoguelph.ca, for distribution at any time or directly to Selena Mercuri at guelphmfasocialmedia@gmail.com, to share on our Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky.
And thank you, everyone, as we say goodbye to 2025, for the incredible initiative you put into the world. Best wishes for a generative and fulfilling 2026.