My name is Ayla, I’m an undergraduate English student at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, and I’m currently finishing up my three-term Co-op experience. When I first began, I thought I would be working ‘English-specific’ jobs like technical editing or working as an intern at a publishing house. Now, towards the end, I’ve learned that the skills I’ve built during my degree have allowed me to contribute meaningfully in a variety of professional environments: the ,  and . 

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Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our newest Writer in Residence, Monia Mazigh!

Monia will be joining us for the Winter term and will be available for individual appointments. Anyone interested in meeting with her individually can book an appointment .

Monia Mazigh is an academic, award-winning Canadian author, and human rights activist. She writes in French and English and to date has authored a memoir, three novels, an essay, and a critically acclaimed collection of short stories. Monia Mazigh is an Adjunct and Research Professor at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University in the Department of English Language and Literature, where she is the Writer in Residence for the Winter 2026 term.

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ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University English professor Adam Barrows says he has carried a lesson from every theatre role he’s taken on throughout his life.

His most recent one, General LĂśwenheim in 9th Hour Theatre Company’s production of Babette’s Feast, is no exception.

The play follows two Lutheran sisters, and how their community in northern Norway embraces French refugee Babette. What follows is a story of transformation through art, grace and acceptance, culminating in a feast prepared by Babette. 

The show will run at  from Nov. 6 to 15. 

The Charlatan sat down with Barrows to learn more about his history with theatre and the meaning behind Babette’s Feast. 

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By Sophie Drache and Erica Raley

In preparation for the 2025-2026 Munro-Beattie Lecture on October 15th, students Sophie Drache and Erica Raley spoke with lecturer  over the phone about trans relationships, censorship, and the power of storytelling in creating networks of resistance. Ivan Coyote is a writer, storyteller and performer. They have created four films, seven stage shows, three albums, and authored 13 books. Their most recent book published in 2021, Care Of, is a collection of correspondences between Ivan, fans, readers and audience members, co-authoring a story of relationality that Ivan says is essential in our modern political moment. 

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“Creativity has always found me, whether it was through painting, mix media art, drawing, sewing, wood working, floral arranging, journaling, crafting, but it wasn’t until a trip to Ireland and the UK in September of 2018 I found storytelling. It was my second night staying in a cozy, old brick Airbnb on a cobblestone street in Edinburgh Scotland, when I had a vivid dream where from the antique store across the street, a mysterious object was reflecting the electric blue light from the full moon in the shape of a door on the side of my wardrobe. Of course, I awoke before seeing what was on the other side of this mystical door, but I did awake with this powerful impression that I needed to write this story. In January 2019 I found the Ottawa Writer’s Workshops where I devoured every morsel of novel writing knowledge and within a year, I had written my first 70,000-word manuscript. No publisher would touch it because the writing wasn’t strong enough, so I wrote another novel, and another one. The Unsung Song of a Wren is the sixth novel I have written and my first novel to be greenlit by a publisher.”

Erin has found her niche in writing mystery and literary fiction with a paranormal twist. She is currently writing the second Wren Roussel mystery and editing her manuscript titled, Welcome to Marigold Horizons (literary fiction), which is about five souls that find themselves trapped in the funeral home where their cremated remains have been abandoned.

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Sumac Literary Magazine is named after and inspired by the staghorn sumac plant that grows on the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University campus. While staghorn sumac thrives throughout the City of Ottawa, varieties of sumac are also found around the world. The Algonquin word for sumac is “KĂ gĂ giminaganj,” or “KĂ gĂ gimin” meaning “fruit of the sumac.” In Algonquin communities, as in other communities and cultures, sumac plants are used in recipes, medicines, and textiles. We acknowledge that our teams and facilities are situated on the traditional and unceded territories of the Algonquin nation, and that many of us are uninvited guests on this land. We acknowledge and thank the stewards and caretakers of this land and watershed. Their presence here reaches back to time immemorial and we hope that our contribution, Sumac Literary Magazine, has a positive impact.

Read Issue Three: Planting Roots, .

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Congratulations to Ben Ladouceur (B.A. English ’09 / M.A. English ’12) on the publication of his first novel, (Book*hug Press, forthcoming April 2025). An award-winning poet, Ben has turned to fiction to tell a story of queer life in Centennial-era Canada. Of the novel, writer Loghan Paylor says: “Ben Ladouceur has crafted a raw, intimate portrait of queer desire and resilience against the well-researched and cunningly detailed backdrop of Expo 67 and 1970s Montreal.”

Pre-order your copy now!

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By Dr. Ruth Panofsky

Ruth Panofsky teaches in the English Department at Toronto Metropolitan University.

I enter the lecture hall, survey the new cohort, and suddenly see myself as I once was: a first-year student looking attentive, hopeful, and uncertain.

I was seventeen when I started university, excited to be living away from home, and relieved to be done with high school science and math. I was primed to immerse myself in the study of literature. But I was also apprehensive—just like today’s students.

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Professor Julie Murray and Professor Andrew Wallace are taking part in the Library Lecture Series hosted by the Ottawa Public Library this Fall. Professor Murray discussed Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein, on October 28; and Professor Wallace will discuss the lesser-known Jane Austen novel, Persuasion, on November 23.

Click to register for Professor Wallace’s upcoming lecture.

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