An interview with Writing in the Margins judges Gwen Benaway, Alicia Elliott, and Jalani Morgan
This year marks the eighth edition of Briarpatch’s Writing in the Margins contest, where we invite our readers to bring to life issues of social, political, and environmental justice. Winners are published in Briarpatch, and have the chance to win $1,950 in prizes. This year, for the first time, we’re expanding the contest beyond poetry and creative non-fiction to introduce a documentary photography category, which will be judged by Jalani Morgan.
GWEN BENAWAY, the judge of the poetry category, is a trans girl of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She has published two collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead and Passage, and her third collection, Holy Wild, was published by Book*hug in September. She lives in Toronto and is a PhD student at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.
ALICIA ELLIOTT will judge our creative non-fiction entries. Alicia is a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River living in Brantford, Ontario. She won a National Magazine Award in 2017, and was chosen by Tanya Talaga to receive the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award in 2018. A Mind Spread Out On the Ground, her debut book of essays, is forthcoming from Doubleday Canada in March 2019.
JALANI MORGAN is an established Toronto-based photographer, visual historian, and photo editor who is known for his editorial, documentary, and gallery-collected work. His creative work explores visual representation within a Black Canadian context and focuses on documenting and portraying images of Black life both in Canada and internationally.
Briarpatch editor Saima Desai talked to Gwen, Alicia, and Jalani about their politics, writing, and photography.
What do you think is the role of writing in social movements?
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