Kelly Norah Drukker is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her debut collection of poems, Small Fires (McGill-Queen’s University Press), won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and the Concordia University First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal (2016). Petits feux, the French-language translation of Small Fires by Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, was published by Le lézard amoureux in 2018.
Kelly's poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Malahat Review, carte blanche, Vallum, The Goose, Contemporary Verse 2, Montreal Review of Books, The Island Review, The SHOp, enRoute Magazine, Rabbit Poetry, Room Magazine, Literary Review of Canada, Poetry New Zealand, and other publications. Her poetry has received a CBC Literary Award (2006), a Norma Epstein Prize for Creative Writing (2013), and has been long-listed for the Montreal International Poetry Prize (2011). In 2020, Kelly's non-fiction essay “Thin” was a finalist for the 3Macs carte blanche Prize, and in 2022, her work was selected as a finalist for both the Montreal International Poetry Prize and the Accenti Poetry Contest.
Kelly has performed her work at venues such as the Blue Metropolis literary festival (Montreal), the Salon du livre de Montréal, the Trois-Rivières International Poetry Festival, Prose in the Park (Ottawa), Lit Live (Hamilton), The Art Bar (Toronto), The Argo Bookshop Reading Series (Montreal), the Festival of Authors (Toronto), Sappho Poetry Night (Sydney, Australia), North West Words (Letterkenny, Ireland), and Charlie Byrne's Bookshop (Galway, Ireland). As an educator, Kelly has taught creative writing workshops at Concordia University and the Quebec Writers' Federation, and through the Writers in the CEGEPS program. Kelly holds a Master’s degree in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University, and is currently pursuing her PhD in interdisciplinary Humanities at Concordia.
I am available to give readings of my poetry and creative nonfiction, artist talks, and to take part in multi-disciplinary collaborations and panel discussions. Themes of past presentations include place-based writing; memory and place; diasporic writing; Irish-Canadian identity; poetry and translation; and the English-language writing scene in Montreal.
I offer creative writing workshops in which participants are encouraged to generate new material on the spot through guided exercises, free writing, and memory work. My emphasis is on the workshop as a place to build, rather than critique, new writing. My particular interests are in poetry, creation nonfiction, place-based writing, oral history, family narratives, and memoir. Some examples of workshops I have designed, and am prepared to offer, include:
"Expanding Our Poetic Range through Memory, Place, and the Senses" (Quebec Writers' Federation)
"Wearable Memory" (Concordia University)
"Ekphrasis: Poets in Conversation with Visual Artists" (Concordia University)
"The Poet's Toolkit" (Writers in the CEGEPS Program)
"Telling Our Stories: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction" (Writers in the CEGEPS Program)
In a classroom setting, I am prepared to offer readings of my work, followed by a discussion about travel and exploration of landscapes—and this includes those in our own backyard—as fertile ground for poetic material.
I am prepared to collaborate with teachers of any level to tailor workshops to their students' needs. Some previous workshops I have facilitated with young learners include "The Poet's Toolkit" and "Telling Our Stories: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction."
