Dr. Jenna Butler (she/her) is an award-winning poet, essayist, editor, and teacher. She is the author of three books of poetry, Seldom Seen Road, Wells, and Aphelion; a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail; and the Arctic travelogue Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. Her newest book, Revery: A Year of Bees, essays about beekeeping, climate grief, and trauma recovery, was a finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award in Non-Fiction and a longlisted title for CBC Canada Reads 2023. As a queer BIPOC writer and grower, she speaks internationally on diversity in environmental writing, equitable land access, and reciprocal ecological relationships in farming. Butler is a professor of creative writing, a writing mentor, and an off-grid organic farmer in northern Treaty 6.
I regularly give presentations on a variety of topics, including experimental poetry, memoir, preparing manuscripts for publication, funding and residency resources for a writing life, writing our relationships with place, and BIPOC access to land in both literature and life. I can tailor a presentation to a specific audience, age group, or focus.
I regularly give workshops on a variety of topics, including experimental poetry, memoir, genre-jumping from memoir to poetry, editing, preparing manuscripts for publication, funding and residency resources for a writing life, writing our relationships with place, and BIPOC access to land in both literature and life. I can tailor a presentation to a specific audience, age group, or focus.
I offer three focal school presentations: living the writing life (hints, tips, and suggestions for establishing a lifelong creative practice); travel writing (with a focus on life aboard a tall ship in Svalbard), and writing our land-based stories (connecting students to the stories of place that they carry with them).