We are pleased and excited to announce that Jasmine Sealy is Langara's 2025 Writer in Residence.

The Writer in Residence program provides an opportunity for the college community to engage with an established writer. The program allows the Writer in Residence to pursue their own creative projects while being available to Langara students for classroom visits, one-on-one writing consultations, and events—including a public reading for the community. The position runs for three months at the start of the spring term (January to March) and is made possible through the support of TD Insurance. The Writer in Residence is hosted by the English department. 

Learn more about our 2023 Writer in Residence: Rawi Hage

Learn more about our 2024 Writer in Residence: Evelyn Lau 

About Jasmine Sealy, Langara’s 2025 Writer in Residence

Evelyn Lau

Jasmine Sealy is a Barbadian-Canadian writer. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the UBC School of Creative Writing where she won the 2020 UBC/HarperCollins Canada Best New Fiction Prize for her debut novel, The Island of Forgetting (2022). Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and is included in Best Canadian Stories and the Journey Prize anthology. The Island of Forgetting was named a best book of 2022 by the CBC, The Globe and Mail, and The Sunday Times in the UK. It was also shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and it won the 2023 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. 

During her tenure at UBC, Jasmine worked with emerging writers both as a tutorial assistant and as prose editor at PRISM international magazine, where she prioritized the inclusion of work by marginalized, previously unpublished writers. She has taught creative writing at Capilano University and was the inaugural Writer in Residence at the UBC School of Creative Writing in 2023. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband and two sons. 

One-on-one Consultations

Jasmine will be available for creative writing mentorship with members of the Langara community (students, faculty, and employees) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from mid-January to mid-March. Students can submit fiction or creative nonfiction to Jasmine and receive free feedback during a one-hour, in-person meeting.

To secure an appointment, students must go to Jasmine’s office (A302) and add their details to the sign-up sheet posted on her office door. After a student signs up, they should send their work to writerinresidence@langara.ca, using the following format: Word or PDF format only, 12-point font, double spaced, up to 10 pages. Work must be submitted at least one week in advance, so Jasmine has a chance to read it and provide thoughtful comments. 

Jasmine will be available on the following days: Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Appointments are available on a first come, first served basis. 

Events

For questions about the Writer in Residence program, email writerinresidence@langara.ca

Help cultivate a love for reading and writing by contributing to the Writer in Residence program. Donate now.