Creating Mentorship for Deaf and Disabled Writers

Jes Battis teaches literature and creative writing in the prairies. Their work has won the Saskatchewan Book Award, been shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, and included in the Canada Reads Competition. They are the author of nine novels, an award-winning collection of poetry, and multiple academic monographs. Their work centres characters that are trans, queer, disabled, and neurodiverse. Photo: Devin Wilger.

Conyer Clayton is a queer writer and editor from Louisville, Kentucky living in Ottawa. A MacDowell Fellow, Tin House Novel Summer Scholar, and author of two award-winning poetry collections and ten chapbooks, their third full-length collection of poetry, the lake-shaped excuse, is forthcoming in fall 2026 with Wolsak and Wynn. Photo: Curtis Perry. 

Therese Estacion is the author of Phantompains — a finalist for both the 2021 Indies Foreword Reviews and 2021 CLMP Firecracker Award. She has been a guest editor for ARC Poetry Magazine and Feels Zine, and was an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She is currently seeing clients as a psychotherapist in training. Photo: Isabelle Côté.

Paola Ferrante is a writer living with depression. Her debut fiction collection, Her Body Among Animals (Book*hug Press, 2023), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, and a Silver Medal Winner in Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards. It was published in the UK by Influx Press. Her fiction has been longlisted for the Journey Prize, and her debut poetry collection, What to Wear When Surviving a Lion Attack (Mansfield Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She was born, and still resides in, Toronto, with her partner Mat and their son. Photo: Rob Skuja.

Tea Gerbeza (she/her) is the author of How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press, 2025). She is a neuroqueer disabled writer and multimedia artist with a very loud laugh. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. Most recently, her poem “Body of the Day” was a People’s Choice Award finalist in Contemporary Verse 2’s 2024 2-Day Poem Contest. She also made the longlist for Room Magazine’s 2022 Short Forms contest. Tea won the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for poetry. Her work appears in Poetry Pause, ARC Poetry Magazine, Action, Spectacle, The Poetry Foundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2, among others. Her writing is preoccupied with themes of reclaiming disabled identity, embodiment, disability and queer justice, queer platonic friendships, memory (particularly bodymemory, postmemory), intergenerational trauma, and the complexities of pain. Photo: Ali Lauren Creative Services.

Dr. Keiko Honda, a former cancer epidemiologist, transformed a life-altering illness into a mission. After a rare autoimmune disease led to wheelchair use at age forty, she founded the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) in 2014. Awarded the City of Vancouver’s Remarkable Women Award (2014) and the King Charles III Coronation Medal (2025), Keiko champions intergenerational connections and empowers marginalized voices through art. Her inspiring journey is captured in her memoirs, Accidental Blooms (2023), Hidden Flowers (2025), and The Broken Map Home (2025). 

Miranda Newman is a bestselling author. Her debut memoir-in-essays, Rough Magic (McClelland & Stewart, 2024), a collection about living with borderline personality disorder, won a 2025 Silver Nautilus Award and was a finalist for the 2025 Balcones Prize for Nonfiction. Miranda’s work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Broadview Magazine, The Walrus, and more. Miranda mentors writers with lived experience with the support of Yale University and The Writers’ Union of Canada.

Ardra Shephard is the author of Fallosophy: My Trip Through Life with MS (Douglas & McIntyre, 2025). She is the blogger and podcaster behind the award-winning Tripping On Air, and the host and creator of television’s Fashion Dis (AMI+). A columnist with Healthline’s BezzyMS (Ask Ardra Anything), Ardra is a sought-after writer, consultant, and speaker. A leader in the disability rights movement, Ardra serves on multiple advisory boards to advance accessibility and inclusion in Canada and beyond. Photo: Alkan Emin. 

Léa Taranto is a disabled Chinese Jewish Canadian writer who lives with OCD and comorbid disorders. Her debut novel, A Drop in the Ocean, is based on an adolescence in inpatient treatment. An MFA graduate of the University of British Columbia, alumnus of Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio, and member of PRISM International’s poetry board, she resides on traditional, unceded Halkomelem and Squamish territories in BC.

Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a Japanese Canadian writer, educator and psychiatric survivor from Scarborough. She loves writing joyful and messy stories about living with mental illness, and the moments of hope that help us get out of bed day after day. Leanne teaches creative writing and disability arts at the University of Toronto and her debut novel Never Been Better recently won the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.