Faculty

Emily Pohl-Weary (Executive Director) is an award-winning author. Her books include young adult mystery Strange Times at Western High and ghost love story A Girl Like Sugar. She edited the superhero anthology Girls Who Bite Back and literary conga line Kiss Machine magazine. Her feature-length screenplay about a graffiti artist recently received financing from Astral Media’s Greenberg Fund. Emily has led workshops for schools, libraries, and community agencies across North America. For two years, she has facilitated the Sagatay Men’s Writing Group for First Nations, Metis and Inuit men living in transitional housing (through Na-Me-Res). In 2008, she founded Parkdale Street Writers for 18-29 year-olds in the neigbourhood where she grew up. She is a part-time acquisitions editor for educational publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, and is a PhD student in Adult Education/Community Development at U of T. She’s also writing a new young adult novel (forthcoming with Penguin in 2013).

Jesse Hirsh (Director) is an internet strategist, researcher, and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada. He has a weekly nationally syndicated column on CBC radio and owns and operates Metaviews Media Management Ltd., which is a combination of a think-tank and a consultancy that engages in research, strategic consulting, and runs events. Jesse is also actively involved with MacLaren McCann, one of North America's most successful multi-disciplinary advertising agencies, as a member of their Idea Council, which serves as a combination advisory board and think tank for the company. For two years, he was the host of an interfaith show on the Rogers and OMNI networks called 3D Dialogue. Educated at the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto, his passion is educating people on the potential benefits and perils of technology.

dianah smith (Director) is a Jamaican-born, Ottawa-raised writer, teacher and arts educator. She is the Founder of ‘A’ is for Orange (www.aisfororange.org), a reading series featuring queer Caribbean emerging writers. Dianah is the recipient of several grants, including (most recently) a Writers’ Works in Progress grant, Ontario Arts Council, to complete her first novel. For the past year, Dianah has been the writer-in-residence at Parkdale Street Writers. She has been published online with No More Potlucks and Rabble.ca and in The Best of Rabble 2009, Siren, Flirt, and Shameless Magazines.

Irfan Ali (Operations Manager) is an emerging writer and poet. Until very recently, he was one of the main program coordinators at the LOFT Youth Program at the Christie Ossington Neighbourhood Centre. In this role, he developed several new initiatives, including a series of life skills workshops for at-risk youth, a music industry arts workshop, silkscreening workshops, and a tutoring program. Since finding his inner writer as a member of the Parkdale Street Writers, Irfan’s poetry has earned him a place in the competitive Diaspora Dialogues mentoring program. He is working on a poetry manuscript, a graphic novel with graffiti artist Logan Miller, and an online web-series.

Josh Hehner is variously a paramedic (formerly with Toronto EMS, now involved in international humanitarian work in emergency medicine, as well as medical support for Toronto sports teams and at large concert and sporting events), a martial artist (2nd degree black belt with 16 years experience studying and teaching Aikido and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), and an educator with over two decades of teaching experience in a variety of fields (including martial arts, rock climbing, outdoor education, emergency medicine, First Aid and CPR). He is also co-founder of, and Director of Community Medicine Programs for, a Peruvian-Canadian charity called Para el Mundo (PaM), which works in northern Peru in the areas of community medicine, education and social services.

Adhimu “Mindbender” Stewart is a hip hop lyricist and historian, and a Canadian culture documentarian. He has performed with EL-P, Pharoahe Monch, Del and others, played countless shows across North America, received international press, and inked distribution deals with Urbnet and Sonic Imprint (UK). He has been featured in movies with 50 Cent, Mos Def, and Don Cheadle, and written for Pound and Now. Mindbender has been a Parkdale Street Writers program assistant since 2009.

Marc Weisblott is the editorial director of Metaviews. His media experience dates back to the earliest FM radio days of the University of Toronto's CIUT, followed by a long association with Eye Weekly, and contributions to other print media outlets in the U.S. and Canada. As the first professional blogger in Canada, he developed original online content for the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, with countless stories, trends and memes examined along the way. Recently, he piloted the social media news service Mondoville, and was the national affairs reporter for Yahoo! Canada.

Daniel Joseph is currently a PhD researcher at Ryerson University in their Communication & Culture program. He is also a research associate at the Counterpublics Working Group for the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, and a regular contributor to Metaviews. His main interest lies in understanding the role videogames play in democratic society, with a focus on the political economy of productive digital labour as well as Canadian cultural and regulatory policy. Daniel has also written extensively about military videogames, gamification, political games, MMORPG's and digital economics.

Chris Reed is Artistic Director of Small Print Toronto, a non-profit organization that stages writing workshops and literary events for young people and children, that he founded during the four years he spent running This Is Not A Reading Series for Pages Books & Magazines. He spends his days working as Publicist at University of Toronto Press. Chris is the author of the forthcoming novel, Beat Surrender.

Vikki VanSickle is Program Director at Small Print Toronto, and host of their Children Story Jam workshop series. Her celebrated novels include Words That Start With B and Love Is a Four Letter Word. Vikki spends her days working as Publicity and Marketing Coordinator at HarperCollins Canada.

Edward Keenan is a senior editor and columnist for The Grid magazine in Toronto. In addition to running a freelance writing business as a sideline to his full-time job, Edward has received media executive training through the Rotman School of Management, has experienced the writer-editor relationship from both sides of the desk, served in management in both small and large companies and once owned and operated a restaurant. A Ryerson University School of Journalism dropout, he has been a visiting lecturer in various courses on writing and publishing at the University of Toronto and Centennial College, and has taught and mentored dozens of editorial interns over the course of nearly a decade.