Tongues On Longing and Belonging Through Language

Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She wrote her first story in English in 2007. She is the author of The Art of Leaving, finalist for the Writer's Trust Hilary Weston Prize, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and has been published internationally. Her translations appeared in the New Quarterly, Berlin Quarterly, Paper Brigade, and Mantis. She teaches creative writing at The University of King's College MFA, the University of Guelph Writing MFA, and at Tel Aviv University. She lives in Toronto.

Eufemia Fantetti is a graduate of The Writer's Studio and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her short fiction collection, A Recipe for Disaster and Other Unlikely Tales of Love, was runner up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and winner of the Bressani Prize. Her writing has been nominated for the Creative Nonfiction Collective Readers' Choice Award and was listed as a notable essay in the Best American Essay Series. My Father, Fortune-tellers and Me: A Memoir was released in 2019. She teaches at Humber College and the University of Guelph-Humber and co-edits The Humber Literary Review. She lives in Toronto.

Leonarda Carranza was born in El Salvador to a family of Indigenous and African ancestry. She holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. Her children's book, Abuelita and Me, will be published by Annick Press in winter 2022. Her essays have been published in Room, The New Quarterly, Briarpatch, Humber Literary Review, and Best Canadian Essays. She is the winner of Briarpatch Magazine's seventh annual Writing in the Margins contest, was shortlisted for PRISM International's short forms contest, and was the winner of Room's 2018 short forms contest for her piece, "White Spaces Brown Bodies." She lives in Brampton.