Kim Fahner lives, writes, and teaches in Sudbury, Ontario. Her most recent books are The Donoghue Girl (Latitude 46, Fall 2024) and The Pollination Field (Turnstone, Spring 2025). Kim was the fourth poet laureate of the City of Greater Sudbury (2016-18) and was the first woman appointed to the role. Her essay, "What you carry," won 1st place in The Ampersand Review's 2024 Essay Contest. In 2023, her essay, "Before she went away," won 2nd place in Prairie Fire's McNally Robinson Booksellers Creative Nonfiction Contest. Also in 2023, one of Kim's poems was shortlisted for The Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest. Kim is the Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada (2025-27).
Eco poetry
Ekphrastic poetry
The two main creative writing workshops that I offer revolve around eco poetry and ekphrastic poetry. In both cases, I spend some time speaking about the genres, offering examples of poems that are reflective of that genre, and then I read some of my own work to give a sense of the variety of ways in which you can write about the environment or visual art. I also weave time into the workshop for individual writing, offering writers prompts to generate new poems. Then, we spend time discussing any questions that might have arisen during the workshop.
I feel most comfortable using ekphrastic poetry to work with school-aged emerging poets, using visual art as a prompt for the creation of new poems. In my ekphrastic poetry workshops, we look at specific pieces of art by Canadian artists and have conversations around how descriptive and poetic language works in poetry. Then, we create a class poem together. Prompts will be offered to the students so that they can continue exploring the genre after my visit to their classroom.
I also write as an eco poet, so I'm happy to offer a workshop that highlights the work of a few key eco poets and facilitate discussion around how poets can help to advocate for environmental protection and conservation. This would also include the creation of a poem, with prompts offered to the students so that they can continue exploring the genre after my visit to their classroom.
