D. M. Bradford: Reading & Launch

SFU’s Department of English is delighted to welcome D. M. Bradford as our 2025 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence. Please join us for a reading from Darby, followed by a reception on Thursday, October 2nd (7-9:30 PM) at SFU’s Harbour Centre campus (Room 1400-1410).

Doors will open at 6:15 PM, so guests can enjoy tea and coffee, a cash bar, and a light snack before the event starts. Darby will then read poetry, and a reception will follow.

Bio

Darby Minott Bradford is a poet, editor, and translator. They hold a BA in Literature from Concordia University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and edit Poetry Pause, the League of Canadian Poets poem-a-day newsletter. They are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021), an interdisciplinary memoir that explores the versioning aspects of Bradford and their family’s histories with abuse and trauma. The collection won the A.M. Klein QWF Prize for Poetry, was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Governor General Literary Award and Gerard Lampert Memorial Award, and was longlisted for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Their most recent hybrid collection, Bottom Rail on Top (Brick Books, 2023), works to complicate prevailing conceptions of Blackness by staging one personal present alongside American histories of antebellum Black life. The book was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award and the A. M. Klein Prize and was named a 2023 Best Canadian Poetry Book by the CBC. As a translator of Quebec writing, Bradford’s work is focused on experimental poetic practices on the margins. Their first translation, House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson (Brick Books, 2023), received the Warland Award and John Glassco Translation Prize, and was also shortlisted for the Governor General Literary Awards. Their latest translation, Ring of Dust by Louise Marois, was published by Brick Books in spring 2025. While currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ peoples, Bradford makes their home in Tio'tia:ke (Montreal) on the unceded territory of the Kanienʼkehá:ka nation.

Venue and Accessibility

This in-person event takes place at the SFU’s Harbour Centre campus (Room 1400-1410). It is easily accessible by transit and near SkyTrain. The campus is wheelchair accessible and has wheelchair accessible washrooms. Gender neutral washrooms are also available.

Note: This event will be photographed. Please inform the photographer if you do not want your picture taken.

Host or Publisher SFU Department of English