The Writer in Residence (WIR) program started in 2022 as a way to connect students with professional writers. The WIR has a year long tenure and participates in 3 events including Durham College Social Justice Week in January of each year. 

Current WIR

Jess Taylor

Jess Taylor is a writer and poet who works on the traditional lands of the the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat peoples and the Missaussagas of the Credit, in the city now called Toronto. Her second collection, Just Pervs, was released by Book*hug in Canada in September 2019. Recently, Just Pervs was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction. A short story from that collection, "Two Sex Addicts Fall in Love", was long-listed for The Journey Prize. The title story from her first collection, Pauls (Book*hug Press, 2015), "Paul," received the 2013 Gold Fiction National Magazine Award. Play is her first novel.

Jess is currently working on a second novel, Experiencer; a third story collection, The Problem; and a memoir, Pelvis. Jess also runs an Instagram series called Stop the Doom-Scroll, where she interviews one writer a month and invites them to read short passages from their recently published books. When Jess isn’t writing, reading, or collaborating with other writers, she parents and works in heathcare education.

Past WIRs

Iryna Starovoyt

Iryna Starovoyt is a poet, essayist, academic, and Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University. 

Born in Lviv, Ukraine, she made her poetry debut with the book No Longer Limpid (1997) which reserved her a place within the new generation of writers since Ukraine’s independence. She hosted a literary review program "Tomy "on regional TV. Starovoyt’s work has been featured in several anthologies and individual poems have been translated and published in Polish, Lithuanian, English, Romanian and Armenian, and set to music. She has been representing Ukraine at many high profile literary events across Europe, e.g. the European Culture Forum 2005 in Luxembourg, the European Female Writers’ Congress in Budapest (2008), Bjornstjerne Bjornson World Symposium (2010) in Oslo and Lillehammer. Her book of selected poems A Field of Foundlings (2017) in English translations has been published by the Lost Horse Press in the US opening the series of contemporary Ukrainian poetry in English translations.

She has been awarded the Key to the City award from the Lviv City Mayor, serves as the Head of the Jury for the transnational literary prize UNESCO's City of Literature based in Lviv and is appointed expert for the "Translate Ukraine" program.

She teaches Critical and Creative Thinking, History of Ideas and Cultural Practices and leads a research seminar in Cultural studies and has been lecturing and reading at a dozen of Universities , like Greifswald University, Germany, University of Turin, Italy, Cambridge and UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Great Britain, Groningen University, the Netherlands and Uppsala University, Sweden.

She authored three volumes of poetry and a number of essays. She serves as an academic director of the Biennale of Trust, co-edited "Ukraina moderna" and co-organized literary festival "Lem’s City".

Alvin Ntibinyane

Ntibinyane alvin Ntibinyane, originally from Botswana, is a former investigative journalist and the co-founder of the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit organization specializing in journalism that serves the public interest.

With a journalism career spanning over 20 years, Ntibinyane began as a cub reporter at Botswana Guardian and The Midweek Sun, advancing to become the northern bureau chief and later the head of investigations. In 2014, he took the helm as editor of Mmegi newspaper, Botswana's independently-owned daily becoming the youngest editor of a national newspaper in the country. He then established the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism in 2015.

Ntibinyane's investigative focus encompasses illicit financial flows, corruption, governance, and the erosion of public trust. His work has gained international acclaim, especially his involvement with the Panama Papers project in 2016, in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which led to a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2017. He is also a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network through his work at INK.

Completing a fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in 2018, Ntibinyane explored the impact of non-profit investigative journalism in Africa. He began teaching at the University of Regina in 2020, offering courses in investigative journalism, journalism and society, and research techniques for journalists. In 2022, he joined the faculty at Durham College, teaching in the journalism and mass media program.

Ntibinyane holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Honours) in Journalism and Media Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and a Master of Journalism from the University of Regina (Canada). He is pursuing his doctorate at Western University, focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice.