Faculty Bios

Prior to coming to Langara in the summer of 2012, Kathleen taught English and Creative Writing at Emily Carr University. She is also a playwright and theatre critic for The Georgia Straight, where she has been writing about theatre since 1997. She enjoys sneaking opportunities to introduce students to Vancouver’s vibrant performing arts scene into as many courses as possible.

Kathleen’s first play, Swollen Tongues, is a comedy of love and manners written entirely in rhyming couplets. First produced in 1998 at the Women in View Festival, it has had productions throughout Canada; in London, England, where it earned a Critics’ Choice from Time Out; and a three-month run in Paris  (in a French translation by Marie Paule Ramo). Kathleen’s other full-length plays are Carol’s Christmas and The Family Way, which both premiered in Vancouver. She has also written or co-written several shorter plays in English (Beautiful on a Budget) and in French (Snow Queen, Rendez-Vous).

A recurring theme in Kathleen’s plays is that a unique and beautiful power comes from finding one’s voice. In her teaching, she tries to help students find this power within themselves through their writing, whether it takes the form of a job application, a journal, or a research essay. Kathleen believes that any form of writing is an opportunity for playful and meaningful expression.  

Stephanie is an experienced English as a Second Language instructor who has spent more than 15 years teaching in colleges and academies throughout North America and around the world. Stephanie holds a BA from UBC, a TESOL Diploma and a Master’s in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from Greensboro College in North Carolina.

Stephanie’s areas of focus are academic writing, the fundamentals of English grammar and communication skills for international professionals.

Prior to coming to Langara, Stephanie taught college preparatory classes for English language learners at Vancouver Community College. In her adventurous days, she taught business English in Ecuador, Argentina, and Uruguay, as well as English for newcomers in Durham, North Carolina. She spent a year as the only English speaker in a small rural village in Japan, so she understands how crucial cross-cultural communication skills are.

Stephanie specializes in working with 1106 and 1107 students to improve their writing skills and meet their entrance requirements. She also works with international professionals in specialized programs at Langara to boost their communication skills and achieve their academic and employment goals.

When Stephanie is not teaching, she enjoys exploring hiking trails, traveling and reading.

I most enjoy teaching popular culture, media, literary/cultural theory, prose fiction (especially dystopian fiction) and composition. Before coming to Langara, I taught literature and composition courses at SFU. My courses have included topics such as the centrality of terrorism to twentieth-century American literature, and literature that examines how definitions of the “human” have been transformed by technology. Otherwise, I’ve assisted in literature courses on utopias, violence, the gothic and numerous other topics. 

At UBC, I initially drifted between courses in fine art, classical studies and American history, but eventually majored in English, a subject which best combines my interests. I went on to earn my M.A. and PhD in English literature from SFU, where I pursued my enthusiasm for books, films, theory and pop-culture, and developed as a writer and teacher in the process. (I do still draw and remain a pretty good person to tour Roman ruins with though.)

Inspired by the current events of the time, I specialized in contemporary American literature and culture related to terrorism, surveillance and national security. My dissertation examined the relatively recent genre of 9/11 fiction, which consists of stories that explore the historical precedents for and socio-political consequences of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. During my career, I have presented my work at a wide range of academic conferences including the Modern Language Association, American Comparative Literary Association and Marxist Literary Group.  I’m currently preparing articles on topics such as surveillance and racial profiling in Martin Amis’s “The Last Days of Muhammad Atta,” subversion of pre-emptive doctrine in the film Minority Report, and the significance of the pre- and post-9/11 work of David Foster Wallace to how scholars of 9/11 literature define literary periods.

I’m probably equally as comfortable with high and low culture. Lately, I’ve been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Diaz and William Gibson, as well as almost anything intelligent about American politics, but also have been watching lots of Netflix and Marvel movies. Outside of the classroom (for now), my interests include Japan, hipster music, Beatles lore, Lego engineering, drawing, comic books, archaeology, bad movies and satirical news.

I quit high school and took a job in a factory because I didn’t like school. After a couple of years I decided to go back as a mature student. I studied Economics at the University of Waterloo but after second year jumped into English. After graduating UW I went on to McMaster University and York University. While completing my degrees I had some intriguing jobs. I taught history and literature at a jail for young offenders and I taught contract law, critical thinking and economics at colleges in Toronto. During and between these jobs I worked as a house framer, landscaper, and an auto assembly-line worker, not only to earn a living but to gain experience of the world outside school.

About twenty years ago I came to Vancouver to work in the English Department at UBC, where I taught essay writing, Canadian literature and Eighteenth-Century literature from 1996 until 2003. I also taught courses on the poet/engraver William Blake and on the landscape paintings of the Group of Seven for UBC Continuing Studies. From 2002 to 2006 I was Academic Director of UBC’s Humanities 101 Community Programmes, a pioneering outreach programme—the first of its kind in Canada—in the liberal arts and social sciences for students in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside who encounter economic and social barriers to education. For a year I was also Coordinator at the Humanities Storefront, an educational facility in the DES, at Cordova and Abbott, which brought free lectures and classes to the neighborhood before it was gentrified.

I’ve published essays and articles—on subjects ranging from Post-Colonial Literature to the use of metaphor in advertising and international finance—in Alphabet City, Canadian Dimension, Canadian Literature, English Studies in Canada, Jouvert, Left History, Vancouver Review and West Coast Line—and I regularly write creative nonfiction and commentary essays for subTerrain Magazine, where I’m also Features Editor. A few of my essays have been nominated for national and provincial magazine-writing awards, but none have won. In 2016 I published a book of these essays called Garage Criticism: Cultural Missives in an Age of Distraction, which was a Montaigne Medal Finalist. One of my essays, ‘’No Reading Aloud’’, was selected for publication in Best Canadian Essays 2017; another of my essays, "The Future is the Period a the End of the Sentence," was selected for publication in the Best Canadian Essays 2018.

I’ve been teaching at Langara since 2002. It’s a great place; I like it here. Besides standard first-year courses like English 1100, 1127 and 1130, which I love to teach, I’ve taught second-year courses on Banned Books, Graphic Lit, and Children’s/YA Literature, and more recently I’ve taught English 1125, Contemporary Linguistics, and 2100, Traditional Grammar. I’m here to teach students how to be stronger readers and more persuasive writers by showing them that “Literature” is not an irrelevant or mysteriously subjective field where anything goes but is a discipline built on the application of certain properties of language. When you think about it, so much of your life happens in language—whether on paper, out loud, or on screen—and an English class is an opportunity to figure out how it all works. 

Ruth has a BA (English Language major and German minor) from UBC, Vancouver BC, 1993, and an MA (Applied Linguistics & Cross- Cultural Communication) from Concordia University, Montreal PQ,1999.

Before coming to Langara, Ruth taught advanced English as a Second Language and College Preparatory Courses (including reading, writing, listening and speaking) at the Vancouver Community College. She has been teaching English as a Second Language at all levels from beginner to advanced, as well as all age groups from children to adults since 1993. She has taught English or the teaching of English in Japan, Germany, Montreal, Vancouver, and Africa.

Ruth has developed a special interest in cross-cultural communication, through her travels (for at least one or more years) in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and Africa. Teaching English 1107 and 1108 at Langara College involves not only teaching advanced grammar and writing skills, but also requires an understanding of the rhetorical differences across cultures. She feels privileged to receive perspectives from around the globe in her classroom and hopes to reciprocate by sharing a sense of Canadian academic culture for, as Katheryn Freston states, “Magic takes place when we really absorb the knowledge that we are all in this [world] together.”

I’ve been an instructor in English at snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ Langara College since 2015, and before that worked in the English department at UBC. At Langara, I teach courses in literature, communications, English-as-an-Additional Language, and academic writing and research. I have English degrees from University of Waterloo (BA, Rhetoric and Professional Writing) and the University of British Columbia (MA, PhD).

My research explores the formation of “publics,” and how public institutions such as health authorities or postsecondary institutions recruit individuals and communities into their service. My doctoral research, for example, examined the rhetoric of personal responsibility in public health messaging such as vaccination and hand hygiene promotion. To learn about this rhetoric, check out my article about handwashing campaigns in a 2019 issue of the Journal of Medical Humanities.

I have worked on several collaborative, tri-council-funded research projects, including a CIHR-funded study of vaccination history in Canada. Funded by the Scholarly Activities Steering Committee, my current research project explores the ways that universal or all-gender washrooms on campus support accessibility, diversity, and inclusion.

In addition to teaching and research, I receive disclosures as a Sexual Respect Ambassador and support the training subcommittee of the Mental Health Working Group. In 2021, I joined the newly formed Curriculum Review Committee, as the Faculty of Arts representative. I serve on the programming committee for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and am a registered death doula. I identify as white, queer, educated, able-bodied, and non-binary and use the pronouns “they” and “them.” In my spare time, I enjoy cooking, reading, cycling, bouldering, and hanging out in hammocks.

Karen Budra is both an English instructor and Educational Technology Advisor.  She believes, as MP Follett says in Creative Experience (1930), that “Concepts can never be presented to me merely, they must be knitted into the structure of my being, and this can only be done through my own activity.”  To that end, in 2016, she returned to university in Cambridge, UK, to complete a second graduate degree, this one an MA in Film & Television Production.  Stories in all their incarnations-literature, film, conversation-have always fascinated her, and she loves sharing that fascination with students and audiences.  She believes in the primacy of narrative and is happy to help students understand others’ stories as well as express their own.  When she’s not teaching, she’s traveling, dancing, or making short documentary films.

A prolific writer, Aaron Bushkowsky is a Vancouver-based playwright, film-writer, poet, novelist, and educator. His plays have been produced across Canada, the US, and Europe, and have received 9 Jessie Richardson Theatre nominations, more than any other Canadian playwright, winning two for Outstanding Original Play. Aaron has written over 20 plays and received almost as many professional productions across Canada, the US, and Europe including Farewell, My Lovely produced by Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre. Aaron is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre in film-writing. His film-scripts have received many options.  Aaron’s short film The Alley was nominated for five Leo awards and won the National Screen Institute’s Drama Prize.

Aaron teaches writing at Vancouver’s highly regarded theatre school Studio 58, and at Kwantlen University, Langara College, and Vancouver Film School. He has several published works, including two books of poetry Mars is for Poems (Oolichan Books) and ed and mabel go to the moon (Oolichan Books) which was nominated for a BC Book Award for Poetry.  His published drama includes Strangers Among Us, The Waterhead and other plays, and My Chernobyl all published by Playwrights Canada Press.  His first book of fiction was a collection of short stories The Vanishing Man published by Cormorant in 2005. Curtains for Roy, his first novel, was published in August 2014. It's a dark comedy about the Vancouver theatre world which garnered rave reviews from critics and made two Top Ten Book (2014) lists for Vancouver novels and subsequently nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award – Canada’s oldest literary award and only award for humour writing. Aaron is a grad of UBC (Masters, Creative Writing) and U of A (BA, English; B. Ed.)

Aaron also heads Solo Collective Theatre, a professional Vancouver theatre company and has been an influential dramaturge, mentor, and teacher to hundreds of new West Coast writers and students. Aaron is represented in theatre by Marquis Entertainment, Toronto. For more information: www.aaronbushkowsky.com

Kina Cavicchioli came to Canada as a graduate student from the UK looking for adventure, fell in love with BC, and stayed. She has taught at Langara since 2007 and is passionate about showing students how empowering and pleasurable literature and language awareness can be.

She has a BA in English and French Literature from the University of Oxford, an MA in American Studies from the University of East Anglia, and a hauntingly unfinished PhD on Victorian Women's Ghost Stories from UBC.

 Kina teaches first-year courses like Communications 1118, English 1127,1129 and 1130, as well as the two-part History of Theatre course (English 1181-1191). She has also taught second-year courses on Pandemic Narratives and the Literature of Madness.

Kina is currently the coordinator of the English Forum, a free monthly gathering hosted by Langara English instructors and guests in which to explore and discuss fiction, film, television, and culture of all kinds. Past Forum topics have included Game of Thrones, the Literature of Happiness, Jane Austen's novels, and Bioshock.

When she isn't teaching, Kina writes poetry, fantasizes about becoming a stand-up comedian, and runs away to Tofino as often as possible.

Simon Casey started his post-secondary education at Langara and then went on to receive a BA, BEd and MA from UBC and a PhD from the University of Toronto. He has been teaching at Langara since 1999. His publications include the book Naked Liberty and the World of Desire (Routledge, 2003), which is an analysis of the political ideas of D.H. Lawrence. He is currently working on a study of how Northrop Frye’s background in music informed his ideas about literature and the teaching of literature.

Other areas of academic interest: Romanticism, Modernism, British culture and history (1789-1930), with a special focus on the First World War and its aftermath.

Courses taught: English 1123, 1129, 2224 and Communications 1115.

Livia Chan is very sorry that she does not yet have a bio.

Toby is the Fall/Spring co-ordinator of the Langara Writing Centre, which provides free tutoring in the library, using a combination of faculty tutors and peer tutors hand-picked for their writing and communication skills.  

He teaches business communications and introductory composition courses, and is interested in rhetoric (the study of how people persuade each other of things) advertising, comic books and film. His taste in comics tends towards alternative and independent, and his taste in films runs from science fiction to foreign to documentary to historical to trashy rom-coms, with nearly everything in between, though he generally dislikes horror films. These interests often – but not always – make prominent appearances in his course materials.  

I have been teaching in the English department at Langara College since 2002. Before that, I taught at UBC and SFU (mostly in the English department, but also in Women's Studies and Educational Studies), and in the first cohort of a Canadian Studies program at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Before that, I earned degrees from UBC (a BA (Hons) and PhD in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education) and Carleton University (an MA in Canadian Studies). I teach a wide range of courses at Langara, and encourage students to grapple with the real issues of writing: what do I want to say? who is my audience and what is my purpose in saying it? how can I express my ideas as clearly and effectively as possible for that context? When I'm not working, I enjoy baking, knitting, walking, and -- of course -- reading.

Glenn Deefholts completed his degrees at SFU: a Bachelors in English with a Minor in Humanities (1994), a Masters in English (1998), and a Masters in Humanities (2015). His graduate work explored connections between philosophy and literature in the U.K., France, and Germany in the early twentieth century. His first thesis looked at ways that language can be experienced as ritual and as technology.  His second thesis was about Virginia Woolf and memoir, examining Woolf's assertion that in Europe in 1910, human character changed. 

Glenn has a TESOL certificate and, before coming to Langara, taught English for sixteen years to students from over thirty countries.  

In 2005, Glenn co-edited and contributed to The Way We Were: Anglo-Indian Chronicles, a collection of memoirs written by Anglo-Indians, describing their unique culture in India. 

At Langara, Glenn teaches a variety of courses, including English 1107, 1108, 1120, 1121, 1123, and 1129.  He likes the cultural diversity and small class sizes.  In his free time, he plays music and writes.  He loves  having students find a poem or novel that inspires them.

Susan Font has been an English instructor at Langara College since 2010 and relishes working and learning with her students. Previously, she was an instructor at UBC’s English Language Institute for two years.

She has a BA (Hons) in English Studies (Manchester Metropolitan University); a Post-Graduate Diploma in Journalism (Concordia University); an MA in Literature and Medicine (King’s College London); a Post-Graduate Diploma in TESOL (University College London); and a CELTA EAL/ESL certificate.

Susan was a reporter and research fellow in Southeast Asia, and a financial reporter on Fleet Street, London. Also in London, Susan instructed international students at a private English school, teaching general English, Cambridge Certificate courses, Business English, and IELTS/TOEIC preparation courses. She taught English language in various professional sectors in Montreal, and she is a published poet.

English has always been Susan’s passion and she relishes teaching and exploring the transmutable qualities of this language and its usage through varying intersecting spheres, whether the English of literature (ENGL 1127, 1129, 1100); business and technical communications (CMNS 1118, 2228); or grammar precision and linguistics (ENGL 1107/8, 1121).

Her research and writing instincts are multifarious: poetics; literature and the body/mind; socio/psycholinguistics; emerging identities in second and further language acquisition; global development; the history of medicine; and cobbling together her rudimentary French.

Sandra Friesen travelled from small town Ontario to coastal BC in 2008, and now couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.  After finishing a PhD and spending several stimulating years as a private tutor and entrepreneur, she was delighted to join Langara’s English department in 2017.  Sandra’s Mennonite background, years of international travel, and eclectic work history have shaped her passion for teaching English in a variety of forms, including language acquisition, professional communication, and literary analysis.

Sandra obtained her BA in English and French and MA in English from the University of Western Ontario, and earned her PhD at the University of Victoria.  Her dissertation on late 17^th century political humour and satire was (mostly) a delight to write - ask her how!

While at UVic, Sandra taught a range of first, second, and third year literature and composition courses, and especially enjoyed teaching poetry and historical literature.  Given the chance, she enjoys showing students that poetry and historical literature aren’t nearly as stuffy, dull, and incomprehensible as they might think.  Another of her goals – by far the most important – is to help students articulate their thoughts more clearly, purposefully, and effectively.  So far at Langara, Sandra has taught a wide variety of courses, including CMNS 1115, 1118, and 2228, ENGL 1107, 1121, 1127, and 1098/99, KINS 1101, and WMDD 4860.  She looks forward to teaching many more.

Outside of the classroom, Sandra can usually be found enjoying a coffee along the seawall, watching Netflix or a favourite sports team, or cooking up a delicious feast. 

I teach creative writing (fiction, screenwriting, nonfiction), English 1191 (Theatre History), 1123, 1129, occasionally 1130, as well as Writing Lives – a two-semester class in which students interview Elders who survived the residential school system and then collaborate with them on writing their memoirs.

My favourite thing about English class is when students find something in a story or even in a single sentence that breaks them out of the ordinariness of sitting in a hard desk, in a square classroom, and sparks a connection that permits them to realize the power of literature to make their world at once bigger and more shared. Not social media shared, but soul-shared.

In creative writing class, I find joy in working with students to find their unique voices and join the chorus of writers and artists whose experiences both reflect and shape our understanding of the complexities of what it means to be alive.  

I try to create a class environment that is warm, curious, inclusive, and hopefully fun.

I’m a writer myself and have a novel coming out in 2024 with Anvil Press. After We Drowned is a coming-of-age/environmental cataclysm story about a teenage boy in Louisiana (I guess someone forgot to teach me to write what you know.)

Also, as a result of the 2019-2020 round of Writing Lives, I had the opportunity to work with Squamish Elder Sam George and three former students (Tanis Wilson, Dylan MacPhee and Liam Belson) on the memoir The Fire Still Burns: Life in and After Residential School, which was published by Purich Books/UBC Press in 2023.

I’m a writer because I love writing, but also because it is through writing and the arts that we reveal truths, share our suffering, our courage, and make our souls grow. Kurt Vonnegut said that last part about making our soul grow, and he knew a thing or two about being soulful. I think of writers as being the secretaries of humankind, the eyes and ears of the world, telling us who we are and what we could be.

English or creative writing class won’t teach you how to invest your money or how to get more likes, but it’ll make you more deeply human and that is pure magic.

I have a BA in Honours English from McGill University, an MA in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto, and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC.

My website can be found here.

Alexander Grammatikos completed his B.A. Honours at Simon Fraser University (2008); M.A. at The University of York, U.K. (2010); and Ph.D. at Carleton University (2017).

Alex is passionate about teaching a variety of classes, including English 1107, which helps students to better understand the foundations of grammar and college writing, and English 1127, which encourages students to further develop their writing and research skills through an appreciation of short stories and other prose. He likes that the small class sizes at Langara allow for many opportunities for class participation and dialogue. Alex enjoys motivating students to become better writers and discussing various textual ideas and themes with them. Alex also expects to constantly learn from his students and is a firm believer in the idea that students thrive in nurturing settings wherein they are encouraged to pursue their personal interests.

Alex's research specialties include British Romanticism and nineteenth-century Greek literary culture. In his book, British Romantic Literature and the Emerging Modern Greek Nation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Alex investigates the ways in which late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British writers constructed Modern Greece and its people, and how these literary engagements with Greece produced and complicated Britain’s relationship with the then emerging Greek nation. Alex has also published articles on women’s involvement in the early nineteenth-century literary print market and British theatre and Greek independence.

Alex's other interests include tennis, hiking, reading, and good food. Alex was a recipient of the 2020 Langara College Golden Apple Award.

Edel sei der Mensch, hilfreich und gut. (Johann Wolfgang Goethe) 

["Humans should strive to be refined, helpful and good."]

Ph.D. (UBC) M.A. (UBC) TESL-certificate (UBC) Zwischenprüfung (Albertus Magnus Universität, Köln, Germany)

Publications – on the music of the north, Margaret Atwood, Malcolm Lowry, and James Joyce etc.

Interests – in literature: high modernism; some postmodernism; Japanese literature; European literature

Courses Taught – fiction, poetry, drama; academic writing; survey courses, the novella, cyberpunk; ESL

B.A. English (SFU), M.A. English (SFU): Modernism: Joyce, Lawrence, Pound

Main Courses: English 1121, 1100, 1123, 1129

Creative Writing Courses: Poetry, Short Fiction, Creative Non-fiction

Special Interest Courses: Canadian Literature: The Experimental Novel; Terribly Funny: The Serious Art of Laughter; The Beats: American Counterculture Literature of the 1950s and 1960s

Caroline Harvey's days revolve around reading and analyzing literature with students, saluting the powers of writers, and repeating the word “revise” with conviction. She favours satirical works that are full of brutal irony and spilled blood, but she also relishes writing that flows with revolutionary stances and visionary mantras.

Since she still actually believes that writers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world--and that they can only thrive with support and recognition--she also teaches various genres of creative writing, helps to judge Langara's magazine of student writing, W49, and runs Langara's Postcard Story Contest.

As a literary journalist, Caroline has interviewed authors and written over fifty book reviews, namely for The Vancouver Sun, and she was the poetry editor for the Vancouver Review for six years. Her own creative writing (personal essays about the alienating moments of urban life) has been published by local newspapers and Vancouver Review.

During her twenty-five plus years as an instructor, she has not once lost her passion for exploring the ways that good writing–and reading–transforms lives and societies. Revise!

Greg Holditch has been part of the Langara English Department since 2010. He teaches literary criticism, composition and business communication. His academic interests include print culture, trauma narrative, graphic novels and video games. Greg is the co-author of Bare Essentials: 10th ed (2021) and WRITE2: Canadian Edition (2016).

Greg firmly believes that Langara offers a unique learning environment (e.g. small class size, instructor availably) that has a fundamental impact on a student’s success. This learning environment informs his own teaching philosophy: his goal as an educator is to make students active participants in their own learning. To this end, he uses interactive group activities, classroom discussion, humour and popular culture to create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and their ideas.

In his free time, Greg nurtures his video game obsession, bikes at great speeds around Vancouver, and dreams about Scuba diving.

Dr. Tiffany Johnstone earned a BA from the University of Toronto (2004), an MA from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2005), and a PhD from the University of British Columbia (2012).  In the fall of 2016, she began teaching in the Department of English at Langara College and has been thrilled to be here ever since.  In addition to teaching at Langara, she taught Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland (2006-2007).  She also taught at the University of British Columbia (2007-2017) in the Department of English, the Arts Studies in Research and Writing program, the Coordinated Arts Program, and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice.  She has spoken at multiple international conferences and  published articles relating to northern travel literature, autobiography, women's literature, Canadian literature, and Indigenous literature.  She also co-edited Bearing Witness: Perspectives on War and Peace in the Arts and Humanities with Sherrill Grace and Patrick Imbert (McGill-Queens University Press).  Most recently, she published an article on children’s picture books by  Michael Kusugak in The Arctic in Literature for Children and Young Adults (Routledge).  She is a Sexual Respect Ambassador at Langara College.  She was also recently inspired by participating in the 2019 TCDC-organized Reconciliation Silversmithing workshop with coast Salish artist and instructor, Aaron Nelson Moody, and she recognizes that the college is on unceded Musqueum territory.  Tiffany believes strongly that a research and teaching community is only as great as its grassroots efforts to respect and nurture the intellectual and lived experiences of all students and instructors.  She is proud to be part of such a committed and diverse community of people here at Langara College snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ (House of teachings).

Estella Carolye Kuchta has taught composition, literature, and research writing classes in Canada, Japan, and China. She is the author of the novel Finding the Daydreamer and coauthor of the nonfiction book Ecologizing Education: Nature-Centered Teaching for Cultural Change. She has worked as a research assistant to Dr. Gabor Maté and an intern for CBC Radio. Her creative writing, journalism, and academic research projects have been published in newspapers, literary magazines, and academic journals in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English Literature from UBC and is completing a PhD in the Philosophy of Education from SFU. 

Tanya earned her M.A. from UBC in 2000 as a specialist in Canadian Literature and has been published in Essays on Canadian Writing and Studies in Canadian Literature.  What Tanya is most enthusiastic about, though, is teaching. She therefore considers herself lucky to have landed at snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ Langara where she is surrounded by creative colleagues and (mostly) dedicated students.  Tanya has been teaching a wide variety of EAL, first-, and second-year courses since she was hired in 2002, and she looks forward to continuing to do so until her retirement—in roughly 2040.

Tess MacMillan has been an instructor at Langara College since September 2002. Before arriving at Langara, she taught at UBC's Writing Centre and at Douglas College.

A native Vancouverite, she earned a BA (Hons.) in English from UBC before heading to London, Ontario where she received an MA in English from the University of Western Ontario.

Tess's areas of academic interest include First Nations literature (particularly the works of Thomas King), multicultural literature (especially Canadian and Caribbean), short fiction, and English grammar. Her non-academic interests include popular culture, yoga, and fashion as an artistic medium.

Tess teaches a wide range of first year courses including English 1107, 1110, 1127, and 1129. She enjoys teaching students grammar, writing skills, and literature and believes that everyone can find a poem to love.

Erin MacWilliam has been teaching post-secondary English literature and business and technical communication since 2004, and loves teaching the vibrant and intelligent students at Langara. Erin hopes that all students taking her classes find texts that spark joy and critical thought, and gain the tools to express themselves more effectively in writing. She aims to teach diverse works and promote an inclusive and participatory classroom.

A native Vancouverite, Erin has a B.A. (hons.) in English Literature and Geography from Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral research focused on the ways in which British cookbooks published between 1660 and 1760, along with the periodicals, literature, and philosophy of the time, shaped conceptions of physical and aesthetic taste. Erin’s current research interests include writing and literary pedagogy, eighteenth-century literature and didactic writing, print culture, taste and aesthetics, domesticity, and the public sphere. She is a beer-league softball player and chorister, and lets her cat Nubs boss her around. 

Paisley Mann has been teaching at Langara since 2014. She has a BA (English and French Literature) and an MA (English Literature) from the University of Victoria and a PhD (English Literature) from the University of British Columbia. Her dissertation and current scholarship focus on representations of the nineteenth-century city, specifically London and Paris, in British fiction and travel guides; she looks at how class, gender, and cultural values shape one’s understanding and experience of the urban environment. She has also published articles on film adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and on nineteenth-century illustrated serial fiction.

She teaches a variety of courses, including English 1100, 1121, 1127, 1130, and 2224. In particular, she enjoys teaching film studies, introducing students to Victorian literature, and helping students to improve aspects of their writing. She appreciates how Langara’s small class sizes allow for class dialogue and participation, and she strives to create a classroom environment that is both intellectually challenging and supportive. She aims to help students to become good readers of the culture around them and to see that fiction is not a retreat from but an entrance into contemporary debates and social critique.

Ameena Mayer has a Masters in English Literature from the University of Victoria. She has been teaching in Langara's English department for fifteen years. In her spare time, she enjoys singing, writing, and volunteering with seniors. She recently wrote a science fiction novel called Love from an Alien Sun, which will be published in spring of 2023 by Running Wild Press.

Currently, I teach English 1123, 1129, 1130, all interesting and practical first-year courses. I also teach 2236 (second-year creative writing: prose fiction) on a regular basis in addition to other second-year courses dealing with the relationship between pictures and words in literature, freak culture, and survivor types. I’m the author/illustrator of several graphic and illustrated novels including The Atheneum and The Marysburgh Vortex series, published and distributed throughout North America and Europe. I’ve taught at BCIT and VCC, and before that, I spent my academic career at SFU (with a focus on conspiracy theory and the works of Umberto Eco) and UBC (with a focus on violence in contemporary American literature and, in particular, the works of Cormac McCarthy). Before that, I was a professional musician and songwriter working at various production houses in Los Angeles and Toronto.

BA in World Literature, History Extended Minor from Simon Fraser University (British Columbia)

MFA in Creative Writing - Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College (New York)

Daniel is a teacher and a writer. When not teaching, he’s usually reading literature. If he’s not reading literature, he’s writing it. If he’s not reading or writing it, he’s thinking about reading or writing it. Or he’s watching really good TV. Or poor TV, but rarely awful TV. He tries to squeeze in time for video games. He walks his dog regularly. He’s in denial about his grey hairs. He understands the importance of exercise but has little patience for it. His interests are wide ranging, but usually cycle back to analysis of the human condition and alternating narrative points-of-view.

I have a penchant for Japanese writers but am interested in all far-flung literature. I like to look at which writers may have influenced others across space and time. I like to examine why some works translate and travel while others remain fixed. I stress cross-cultural reading and interdisciplinary study because this makes for a more well-rounded citizen of the world and a more attractive potential employee. 

I aim to make my classes fun and engaging, but not at the expense of hard work. Learning is hard work; becoming a better writer is hard work. Almost anything worth doing is hard work. And so we’ll work hard, and strive, and grow.

Thor Polukoshko has a B.A. and M.A. in English from Simon Fraser University, and has worked in the Langara English department since 2011.

His academic interests include postcolonial studies, critical disability studies, hip hop, authorship, graphic narrative, and contemporary BC poetry/poetics. His master’s thesis on Indigenous rap music, “Playing the Role of the Tribe: The Aesthetics of Appropriation in Canadian Aboriginal Hip Hop,” was published in a collection of essays entitled Selves and Subjectivities: Reflections of Canadian Arts and Culture (2012) by Athabasca University Press. Other publications include poetry, essays, and comics/illustrations in West Coast Line, The Incongruous Quarterly, and Memewar. Thor was one of the founding editors of the literary/interdisciplinary magazine Memewar. Thor was a recipient of the 2020 Langara College Golden Apple Award.

My area of expertise is twentieth-century American literature, with a focus on life writing, crime, and the American prison system. I have experience teaching in Canada, the US, and the UK. My work has been published in American Studies, Critical Survey, MELUS, and Canadian Literature, and I am currently working on a book project, The Defiant Ones: Masculinity, Race, and the Ex-Convict in Twentieth-Century American Literature. 

I was an imaginative child whose favourite activity, besides visiting a branch of the Vancouver public library, was slipping into the magical world of books where my imagination knew no boundaries. It is perhaps not surprising then that I decided to become an instructor of English literature. I have English degrees from Simon Fraser University (BA, MA) and the University of Alberta (PhD). An instructor in the English department at snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ Langara College since 2021, I teach courses in literature, academic writing, and English-as-an-Additional Language. Previously, I worked at Texas Tech University and the University of Alberta.

In my research, I consider books as transnational commodities and explore the growth of an international book trade in the late nineteenth century, as well as the publishers and authors who engaged with the social networks of the global book trade in the Victorian period. I am also interested in the Canadian and British authors who wrote for an international audience and used writing as a vehicle for imperial and global celebrity in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. I have published on the nineteenth-century international book trade, nineteenth-century Australian and British book trades, Canadian print culture and book history, social network theory, and author/publisher relations.

When I’m not teaching, I’m learning how not to kill plants, reading gruesome procedural mysteries, learning about hand-press printing, and making jewelry.

As an undergraduate in England, Sandra Finlayson studied Law before switching to English Literature, Language and French. She came to Vancouver via Los Angeles where she acquired Masters’ degrees in both Art History and English Literature.  In Vancouver, she learned how to teach English as an additional language, and since 2001, has been teaching a range of developmental and first year courses.

Her scholarly interests include material culture and Latinix fiction.  Off campus, she enjoys choral singing, fibre arts and vegetarian cuisine. 

I studied Art & Design, worked in fashion for a decade, and then returned to post-secondary to study Literature & Film. I have taught at Langara since 2004: first year courses, second year surveys, and specialty courses on Shape-shifters, Biographies, Biopics, and Rom-Coms. In 2013, I co-instructed on a UK Gothic Field School. I have worked as LET coordinator for many years, too. In my view, Langara College offers students exceptional opportunities.

My Awful life (A Resume)

I was seventeen when my parents separated. At first I lived with my mother, but we couldn't get along, so I moved in with my father. He took it as a personal victory. On my eighteenth birthday, we got drunk. That evening he said to me, “Son, there's something about your mother we never told you.”

So I quit College and spent six months backpacking in Europe. In Luxemburg I met a girl. Her name was Berenice, and she said she believed in God. She seemed afraid for me that I didn't, she said “Something terrible could happen.” She took me by the hand and guided me past ravines and tunnelled walls, sat with me on cafe terraces, in her yellow miniskirt, her skin like caramel. When the time came for me to leave, she pressed her cheek to mine. “You'll forget me,” she said, “but I won't forget. Not the holes in your shoes, or the way you pronounce my name. Not the things you said, when you thought you were only talking.”

Back home I got work slinging beer. Late nights, afterhours, cycling home as the sun rose. Day by day passed, the same; I felt I was living in a fish bowl. Then one night a regular locked himself in a toilet stall and opened his veins with a broken bottle.

I went back to school. My friends were getting married, taking on mortgages, having kids. My sister married an artist who sold Crystal Meth to pay the bills. At the wedding he was so euphoric he couldn't remember his lines. My mother cried and cried.

I entered university on a four-year B.A. course with Psychology as my major. After the first year I switched to Languages, Italian and French, dropped them after the first semester, and took up Philosophy and Far Eastern Studies. Finally I quit university altogether and joined a band. We hit the road, toured the redneck bars of northern Ontario. In Thunder Bay, a jealous boyfriend kicked our drummer down a set of cement steps; he went into a coma for three days and then died. We packed our equipment and drove home.

Here I am now, in my rainy city. I have no job, I'm on welfare. In this town everyone is rich, or poor, or thinks they're poor. I wait on Granville Street, wait for a plan, wait for direction. The other day I asked someone for spare change and he glared and I saw it was my brother-in-law. As it turns out, he and my sister have been separated for some time. He brushed me off with vague excuses. But as he was leaving, he said to me, "I heard about your mom."

Guy Wilkinson was born in Liverpool, England, the fifth of eight children. At the age of four he moved with his family to Saskatchewan, where there was space enough for such a large family to grow. After graduating from high school, he lived and worked abroad, in Poland and England before returning to Canada to earn an MA at the University of British Columbia. He now resides with his wife and three children in Port Coquitlam. He is the author of a monograph, At Work and Play: Philosophy and Parody in the novels of Witold Gombrowicz (Lambert Academic Publishing), a children’s book co-written with his daughter, The Bluzeziad (Paraguas Books), and a collection of short stories, Home Invasion & Other Stories (Booksmart).