19 Canadian writers to watch in 2019

The 2019 edition of our annual writers to watch list is here! Meet 19 authors who are making their mark on Canadian literature.

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Aminder Dhaliwal

Aminder Dhaliwal is a comic writer and television animatororiginally from Brampton, Ont.Her serial webcomic Woman Worldwas released as a graphic novel in 2018. The sweet and satirical book describes a world in which men have gone extinct and women have rallied to continue human existence.

Woman World received nominations for both the Doug Wright Spotlight Award andEisner Award for best humour publication.

• Aminder Dhaliwal aims to make feminism approachable in Woman World

Alicia Elliott

Alicia Elliott won gold at the National Magazine Awards in 2017 for heressayA Mind Spread Out on the Ground,published in the Malahat Review. She turned the essay into a book-length collection of the same name, offering a wide-ranging and critical look at the impact of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada and the U.S.

In 2018, Elliott was chosen by Tanya Talaga to be the recipient of the $10,000 RBC Taylor Prize for emerging writers.

• Why Alicia Elliott challenges us all to think critically about trauma, oppression and racism in Canada

Samra Habib

Samra Habib is a journalist and photographer.Her first book,We Have Always Been Here,is a memoir about her childhood in Pakistan, arriving in Canada as a refugee and coming out as a proud queer Muslim woman. Habib is also the creator of the photo documentary project Just Me and Allah, in which she travelled the world to document the diverse stories of LGBTQIA Muslims.

• Why Samra Habib wrote a memoir about growing up as a queer Muslim woman

Shazia Hafiz Ramji

ShaziaHafiz Ramjipublished her firstbook, the poetry collectionPort of Being, in 2018. The book is a smart and often sinister look into the many ways we are surveilled online, on the street, by the government or otherwise. Ramji is based in Vancouver.

Port of Being was shortlisted for the2019 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

• Why Shazia Hafiz Ramji writes poetry about modern-day surveillance and addiction

Tyler Hellard

Tyler Hellard's debut novel,Searching for Terry Punchout,was a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. The book follows a struggling sportswriter named Adam Macallister, who visits his estranged father a notorious hockey enforcer in an effort to revive his career.

Hellard is a novelist, copywriter and nonfiction writer based in Calgary.

• Tyler Hellard's Searching for Terry Punchout is an ode to hockey, small towns and facing your past

Philip Huynh

Philip Huynh's first book is the short story collection,The Forbidden Purple City,released in 2019. Across nine stories, Huynhexplores the diverse experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora. Among hischaracters are poets, outcast private schoolteenagers anda lonely young bride.

Huynh is also a lawyer and lives in British Columbia.

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Doyali Islam

Doyali Islam is the editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and has published two poetry books. Herfirst was the bookYusuf and the Lotus Flower,published in 2011, followed byheftin 2019.

heftlooks at the nature of illness, pain andsexuality and exploresthe notion of home in light of chronic pain and suspected autoimmune illness.

• Why Doyali Islam believes poetry and the physical body are connected

Ben Ladouceur

Ben Ladouceur's first collectionOtter,an exploration and celebration of friendship, love and queerness, won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best debut collection. His latest is the bookMad Long Emotion,which gazes playfully at relationships and love in the natural world.

In 2018, Ladouceur, who lives in Ottawa, wontheDayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ emerging writers.

Ta Mutonji

Ta Mutonjipublished her firstbook,Shut Up, You'rePretty,in the spring of 2019. The short story collection traverses the vibrant inner-worlds of women,exploring themesof race, class, migrationand femininity as they collide in Scarborough, Ont., where Mutjoni lives.

• Why Ta Mutonji wanted her first short story collection to challenge what diverse literature is supposed to be

Hasan Namir

Hasan Namir'sfirstbook, the 2015 novelGod in Pink,won the Lambda Literary Award for best gay fiction. Set in war-torn Iraqin 2003,God in Pinktells the story of a young queer Muslim man named Ramy who is pressured to find a wife by his strict brother and sister-in-law.

In Namir's first poetry collection, the 2019 bookWar /Torn, the writer offers a spiritual exploration of religion and masculinity.

• How this author learned his gay and Muslim identities could coexist and found hope in the process

Lindsay Nixon

Lindsay Nixon's firstbook, the memoirntisnak,was released to critical acclaim in 2018. ntisnakdraws from Cree, Saulteaux and Mtis tradition, exploring how the writer's life has been shaped by love, loss, family and community.

In 2019, Nixon won theDayne Ogilvie Prize, an annual$5,000 prize given to an emerging writer from the LGBTQ community.

• Lindsay Nixon discussesIndigenous masculinity and the lasting impacts of colonization

Ben Philippe

Ben Philippe published his debut novel,The Field Guide to the North American Teenager,in the spring of 2019. The YA book follows a wisecracking black French Canadian teenager named Norris who moves toAustin, Texas.Philippe has contributed to publications like Vanity Fair, The Guardian and Playboy.

Philippe was raised inMontreal, spent time in Texas, and is now based in New York.

• Why Ben Philippe wrote a YA novel about being a black French Canadian kid in Texas

C.L. Polk

C.L. Polk's debut novelWitchmarkstormed the fantasy writing scene, landing on shortlistsaround the world including the Nebula Award,Locus Award and Lambda Literary Award and in Canada, where it is nominated for aSunburst AwardandAurora Award. The book takes place in the aftermath of a major war and follows a young doctor named Miles Singer who must hide his magical healing gifts or be committed to a witches' asylum.

Polk is based in Alberta.

Zalika Reid-Benta

Zalika Reid-Benta explores race, identity and culture through the lens of second-generation Caribbean Canadians in her work. The Columbia MFA graduate's first book,Frying Plantain,isa series of interconnected stories featuring a young black female protagonist in aToronto neighbourhood.

George Elliott Clarke previously named Reid-Benta a writer to watch.

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Bindu Suresh

Bindu Suresh is a fiction writer and pediatricianbased in Montreal. Her first book, the novel26 Knots,weaves a poetic and very complicated love story:Araceli falls for a fellow journalist named Adrien, who is already in love with Pnlope, who can't decide between him and Gabriel, who is too traumatized by his father's abandonment to be a good partner.

• Jael Richardson's book pick: 26 Knots by Bindu Suresh

Arielle Twist

Arielle Twist made a powerful debut with the poetry collectionDisintegrate/Dissociatein 2019. The book depicts life for anIndigenoustranswoman, one dreaming ofa hopeful future and a clear path for self-discovery. The Nehiyaw writerhas previously contributed to publications like CBC Arts, Them, The Fiddlehead, PRISM International and Canadian Art.

Twist is from George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan andnow lives in Halifax.

• Arielle Twist explores grief in her poetry and finds a home in the Indigenous arts community

Matthew Walsh

Matthew Walsh released theirdebut poetry collection under the titleThese are not the potatoes of my youthin 2019. The book offers a confessional chronicle of Walsh's upbringingin rural Nova Scotia and thenmeandersacross the country as the poet explores their queer identity withhumour, surprise and frankness.

Walsh now lives in Toronto.

Lindsay Wong

Lindsay Wong's debut memoirThe Woo-Wooisa darkly comic story of her dysfunctional family who blame their woes on ghosts and demons.The Woo-Woowasa finalist for the 2018 Hilary West Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfictionand was defended byJoe ZeeonCanada Reads2019.

Wong lives in Vancouver andholds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University.

• Why books were a form of escape for Lindsay Wong

Teresa Wong

Teresa Wong's first bookDear Scarletis a moving graphic memoir about the author's experience with postpartum depression. Written as a letter to her eldest daughter, Wong offers an honest and tender account of motherhood, family and mental health.

Wong lives in Calgary.

• Teresa Wong chronicles her battle with postpartum depression in her debut graphic memoir