Celebrate our new major in Creative and Professional Writing with readings from UWaterloo English alumnus Antonio Michael Downing and UWaterloo professor Lamees Al Ethari.

Antonio Michael Downing, musician, speaker and author of the novella Molasses and the acclaimed memoir Saga Boy was named a Top Emerging Artist in Nonfiction by the RBC Taylor Prize. His novel Black Cherokee comes out with Simon and Schuster in 2024, along with a children's book, Stars in my Crown.

Lamees Al Ethari teaches creative writing at UWaterloo English and her poetry collection, From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris came out in 2018, followed by a memoir, Waiting for the Rain (2019). She is a nonfiction editor with The New Quarterly and co-founder of The X Page: A Storytelling Workshop for Immigrant Women. She is working on a collection of short fiction titled The Fortuneteller and Other Stories.