Kath Healing (they/them) is a queer, trans, disabled poet and performer based in Victoria, BC.

Originally from Northern England, they write across page and stage.
Their work explores what happens when lived experience collides with the systems meant to name, classify, diagnose, explain, or contain it.

Their poetry appears in The Malahat Review, PRISM international, The Fiddlehead, Contemporary Verse 2, Grain, Foglifter, and elsewhere.
They won the 2025 Victoria Writers’ Society Poetry Contest.

Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is a Black mother who spends time with forests and waters on unceded lands of the T’Sou-ke First Nation.

Her work strives to instigate action in service to world-building, social change, and collaboration. Her poems live in wildness, Recenter Press, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, MAYDAY, Torch, Elysium Review, Rise Up Review, and other portals. Her first full-length poetry collection, DREAMS FOR EARTH, arrived in 2025 from Deep Vellum.

Travel with her at fatimaayanmalikahirsi.com or on social media via @fatimaawritingdoula. She wants you to laugh loudly, to know the names of your neighbors, and to join the BDS movement.

Emmett MacMillen (they/them) is a trans nonbinary interdisciplinary artist, writer, and event producer working on the unceded lands of the lekwungen People (Victoria, BC). They received their degree in Interdisciplinary Performance at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus in 2016 and have been involved with a number of performance projects and installations over the years.

They are the co-author of three publications, and recently was awarded second place in the 2025 Inspired Word Café Poetry Prize for their poem ‘rain shadow’, as well as opened for the Victoria launch of Michael V. Smith’s poetry book ‘Queers Like Me’ in October 2025. Emmett volunteered, worked for, and eventually became the Managing Director of literary non-profit Inspired Word Café in 2022, helping to launch Inspired Word Café’s first festival, Fireweed Eco Fest.

Currently, Emmett works as the Producer for Intrepid Theatre and the Victoria Fringe Festival. They also produce the semi-regular TransFiXed Cabaret, a variety show of all trans-performers, and the Trans Pride Poetry Night at Caffe Fantastico. Alongside their day job of producing indie and emerging theatre, they continue reading at open mics, writing, and performing in town as drag thing Earle Gay.

Miranda Jay is a BIPOC, Neuroqueer,
every-kind-of writer. She writes articles, essays, music, and short fiction, and is currently seeking representation for a novel. She has always been a poet.

Her work—part therapy, part confession, part rebellion— is an engine to advocate for child rights, decolonization, and social justice. It is also how she metabolizes life on a planet where she perpetually feels like an alien.

She is often astonished to find herself surrounded by ocean, on an island of crows—and that, in itself, feels like poetry.
She was recently a judge in the Victorious Voices competition. Her poetry has been published in
Art of Autism and Ex-Communications.

We look forward to seeing you then! Doors at 6:00pm, sign up for open up is at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm ⏰

Anjalica Solomon is your favourite local genderfluid-bird-watching-heart-eyed-astro-queer. They blend their Desi roots and Pacific NorthWest up-bringing in art forms such as singing, songwriting, loop pending, poetry, and the spoken word.

They are known and beloved as an organiser and multi-disciplinary performer based in what is colonially known as Vancouver, BC on the stolen and unsurrendered territories of the Coast Salish, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and MusqueamNations.

Anjalica is currently exploring new genres such as screenwriting, non-fic and playwriting as an MFA student in The School of Creative Writing at UBC.

Their poetic work often seeks to proclaim the possibilities of love and resilience. Anjalica is a poet of startling emotional intellect and candour whose work testifies to a deep faith in beauty, the power of nature, and ultimately, the human capacity to salvage integrity, radiance and joy from moments of struggle. In this way, Anjalica Solomon’s poems and performances offer robust visions of hope, tenacity, and love.
Their debut poetry collection “Apocalypse Joy” is out NOW with Write Bloody North Publishing!

Steven J. Thompson is a writer, poet and spoken word artist. He has written articles for Monday Magazine, participated in the CBC Poetry Face-off and his poetry has appeared on doors and windows of local downtown shops. Steven’s work has been included in publications such as Oratoriallis and MuseMedusa. All of these are accomplishments he’s stumbled into on his path working to be a better human.

Steven is a three-time member of the Victoria National Poetry Slam team and has performed at festivals and events across Canada. Such events have included Vancouver’s Word on the Street, The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and The Calgary International Spoken Word Festival where he opened for Shane Koyczan.

He is a graduate of the Banff Centre Spoken Word Program where he studied under Sheri-D Wilson and Juno Award-Winning dub poet Lillian Allen. However co-founding Tongues of Fire and the Victoria Poetry Project are Steven’s proudest accomplishments.

Jeremy Loveday is a poet, arts educator, and community builder from Victoria, BC, on the territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən People. He co-founded and served as the longtime artistic director of the Victorious Voices youth poetry festival. Jeremy’s dynamic performances earned him the title of Victoria Poetry Slam Grand Champion three times. In 2020, he was honoured with the Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award. His work has been published in reputable platforms such as Huffington Post, CV2, Funicular Magazine, National Observer, CBC, Claudia, and Best Canadian Poetry 2023. Jeremy’s first full-length book, Maybe the Starling, is now available through Write Bloody North.

Hey #teenwriters, curious about the rhythmic and empowering terrain of spoken word poetry?

Story Studio and @victoriapoetryproject have teamed up to offer Verse & Voice, a FREE workshop series for high-school-aged writers who want to learn how to write and perform their own original poems 🎤

We’ve been working with a creative group of teens over the last few months, but we’d love for more aspiring poets to join us for our final three workshops.

Our next workshops are:

✨ Tues, March 10 · 4-5:30pm w/ Dave Morris (tomorrow!)
✨ Wed, March 25 · 4-5:30pm w/ Hoélune Hernandez
✨ Tues, April 7 · 4-5:30pm w/ Sam Ferraby

All workshops are in-person at NeighbourSpace (708 Douglas Street).

Pam Stewart writes about change and self-acceptance, the beauty and the not so. She’s a performer, facilitator and event producer. A former Victoria slam champion, she got her start in spoken word before publishing a book of personal essays, I Really Thought It Would Be Easier Than This, in 2019. She represented Victoria at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word four times, twice at the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam, was once a frequent contributor to Elephant Journal, and was the first and only Riot Grrrls Poet in Residence. To see her perform live is to feel it.

As an English teacher and spoken word poet, Lucia (Lu-CHEE-a) De Luca plays with stories in the classroom and at the mic. She is a community and self-taught narrative poet who aims to turn unenjoyable life events into empowering performances. Lucia is the first two-time recipient of QWF’s Ian Ferrier Spoken Word Prize. She performed at the 1st Accenti Magazine International Festival of the Arts in Italy and has shared her craft in cities across Canada and Australia. Her self-published chapbook, Chronically Healing cradles tales of her past self, family, Italian heritage, chronic illness, and love.

To be an artist is to undertake the process of changing yourself. In every part of William’s work, this idea is a source of energy. Weaving together rythmic verse and narrative poetry, his poems are written not to be understood in isolation, but in relationship to person and environment. His current poetic project “Dogboy” looks at the fracturing of a psyche strained by scarcity and isolation, and is part of “Pantheon”, a collective project that you are now involved in. We Create Myth.