Skip to content Skip to main navigation
MENU
Department of English
Search

The Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence Program

The Simon Fraser University Department of English is pleased to announce that the 2026 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-residence is Shani Mootoo.

Shani Mootoo

Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and raised in Trinidad, relocating to Canada in her early twenties. She practiced initially as a video maker and visual artist, and for the last thirty years Mootoo has concentrated on novel writing, poetry and photo-based work. She has authored several novels, including Starry Starry Night, Polar Vortex and Cereus Blooms at Night, and poetry books, including Oh Witness Dey!, Cane | Fire, and The Predicament of Or. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causa from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award, The National Library’s Library and Archives Scholar Award, and the 2026 Blue Metropolis Violet Literary Prize. She lives in Southern Ontario.

Shani Mootoo is offering writing consultations to SFU students and the public from September to December 2026. Consultations are available on Wednesdays (10 AM-4 PM). All consultations will be 45 minutes long. Writers may submit up to ten pages (double spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font) of their work. To book an appointment with Shani to discuss your writing, please email: englsec@sfu.ca (beginning September 8th, 2026).

20th Anniversary Celebration

Our anniversary celebration was held on February 7th, 2025. Check out photos, video, and a recap of the event here.

Celebrated alumni writers

The writers who have taken up the Residency so far are a highly accomplished group, with many of them receiving prestigious awards and critical acclaim. 

5

Governor General's Award winners

4 finalists

4

Writer's Trust of Canada Award winners

3 nominees

1

Giller Prize winner

2 shortlists

Other accolades include:

  • Amazon First Novel Award
  • International Dublin Literary Award
  • Lambda Literary Award
  • Booker Prize shortlist

It was an experience that I thorough enjoyed, mainly for the opportunity to pause and to connect with this wonderful community of writers and thinkers. Writing is a solitary effort—I really value that about it but I also value perhaps more so the ways in which writing connect us to community through dialogue, through network, and through time.

Cecily Nicholson

2016-2017 Writer-in-Residence
2018 Governor General's Award winner

It was a really great experience for a number of reasons. I got to do a writer-in-residence in my city, the people that I got to work with in the English department, and of course the writers that I got to meet—the quality and caliber of work that came across my desk was incredible to me. I learned a lot about my own writing practice in the process of working with other writers and talking about their work.

Ivan Coyote

2018-2019 Writer-in-Residence
2020 Governor General's Award finalist

The best part of being a poet is the people you meet and the friendships that you make. Being the writer-in-residence at SFU allowed me to experience this in a profound way. The interactions that I had with students, faculty, and members of the community really allowed me to take my poetic practice off the page, and for that, I am truly grateful. 

Jordan Scott

2015-2016 Writer-in-Residence
2018 Writers' Trust of Canada Poetry Prize

With Thanks

The Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence Program gratefully acknowledges generous support from the Shadbolt Endowment, Canada Council for the Arts, SFU's Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, SFU's Department of English, and the Ellen and Warren Tallman Endowment.

Writer-in-Residence Committee

The Writer-in-Residence Committee was established by the Department of English to work in consultation with the resident writer to design and coordinate their schedule of duties and activities. Committee members include Stephen Collis (Department Chair), Cornel Bogle, Clint Burnham, Joanne Leow, Sophie McCall, and a graduate student representative.

Past Writers-in-residence

Search
Search
close