Leesa Dean
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leesadean.bsky.social
Leesa Dean
@leesadean.bsky.social
Poet and CWRT instructor, editor, community arts. Author of 2 books and some chapbooks; book 3 forthcoming from Gaspereau 2026. Lots of 📕ish tattoos. On Sinixt Territory in BC. www.leesadean.ca
I don’t take the bus anymore because I live in the middle of nowhere, but I find great joy in knowing that others get to be illuminated by poetry on their commutes! LOVE Poetry in Transit ❤️❤️❤️ @readlocalbc.bsky.social
↪Swipe to find out how place impacts these Poets’ work

Join us tomorrow from 2-3:30 PM @wordvancouver.bsky.social in Robson Square to hear readings from our featured poets! followed by discussion and Q&A.

Read the full interviews here:
www.readlocalbc.ca/2025/09/17/p...
Poetry on the Bus: Spot These 10 BC Poets on Your Next Ride
Celebrating 29 years of Poetry in Transit with a conversation with this year's selected BC poets.
www.readlocalbc.ca
October 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
One year away from this honour and still going strong!
The You’re Still Doing This? award for poets aged 45-55
October 4, 2025 at 3:38 PM
❤️❤️❤️❤️
October 4, 2025 at 3:36 PM
I love this series, How Does a Poem Begin. This just in from Em Dial: “It is the where that contributes to a poem’s possibility and how it opens up something in the reader. It is the where that decides which side of history the poem lies upon.”
October 4, 2025 at 3:36 PM
It’s Friday night and I’m definitely taking about poetry 🙌🙌
my favorite topic of conversation is poetry. like, i'm not kidding! i want to talk about poetry on a friday night! i will! also, i love talking about food while eating different food
July 19, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
my favorite topic of conversation is poetry. like, i'm not kidding! i want to talk about poetry on a friday night! i will! also, i love talking about food while eating different food
July 19, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
“We’ll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want” Pierre Eliot Trudeau stated as his 1969 white paper on Indian policy was rejected by First Nations. Canada wants certainty for resource extraction. This is why they’re in a rush to legislate First Nations inherent rights under crown sovereignty.
As @terrilltf.bsky.social reminds, the Chrétien/Martin budget imposed the 2% cap on all Indigenous spending which warped a lot (from education to health to social spending) for First Nations communities in Canada.

And now this, which is way worse. Liberals are amazing colonizers.
Indigenous services will be hit hard. A stunning $4.5 bil in cuts, 1 of 5 dollars in cuts is just reduced transfers to First Nations to provide police, ed and health care. Gutting Indigenous social programs is not an "ambitions" way to find "savings". 3/x
www.datawrapper.de/_/pZ6Zq/
July 18, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
This piece by @meghanor.bsky.social nails the big problem looming for literature and AI, and it isn't any of the problems (copyright, homework, slop, bias, energy) most people spend their time worrying about: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/o... A fantastic and well-informed essay.
Opinion | The Seductions of A.I. for the Writer’s Mind
www.nytimes.com
July 19, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
“Trump is using military forces to stop a protest — I want y'all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us.”

Doechii at the #BETAwards
June 10, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
This is precisely correct.
June 9, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
Canisia Lubrin wins the 28th annual Danuta Gleed Award for her short fiction collection Code Noir #CanLit
writersunion.ca/news/winners...
Winners Announced for the 28th Annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award | The Writers' Union of Canada
writersunion.ca
June 6, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
Congratulations to Valérie Bah (Vehicule Press), winner of the 2025 Amazon First Novel Award, and to Vicky Zhu, winner of the Youth Short Story Award. Check out our full coverage of this majestic evening here!
#AmReading #Novel #CanLit #ShortStory #Prizes
open-book.ca/News/The-Win...
The Winner of the 2025 Amazon First Novel Award Has Been Revealed!
The winner of the 2025 Amazon First Novel Award is Valérie Bah, author of Subterrane (Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press), as revealed in yet another majestic ...
open-book.ca
June 6, 2025 at 6:40 PM
The name for this essay came to me in a dream, so I followed that dream until I found Wordsworth above Tintern Abbey in the jaws of a goth snake… Intrigued? Thanks for reading! #poetry #essays #writing #canlit #writingcommunity
June 5, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Some days are random AF: in the past hour I have helped a dude push a 35 foot power pole down a bank into our backyard and edited a poem about the Neptune Equester. Now I feel like I should write a poem about a 35 foot power pole 🤣 #writing #poetry #rurallife
June 4, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Someone asked me two days ago at an event why I write and I was like, to save myself. I think they were expecting more, but that is the most accurate three-word summary I can think of 🤷‍♀️ #blueskywriters #writingcommunity #writing
May 31, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
Celebrate Asian Heritage Month with these NeWest classics!!

#NeWestPress #AsianHeritageMonth #CanLit #CanadianLiterature #Canadian #AlbertaReads
May 30, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
In Zilla Jones' novel, an opera singer gives a voice to the Grenada Revolution #CanLit
www.cbc.ca/books/booken...
In Zilla Jones' novel, an opera singer gives a voice to the Grenada Revolution | CBC Books Bookends
She discussed The World So Wide on Bookends with Mattea Roach
www.cbc.ca
May 30, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
Congratulations to this year's #BertonHouse writers-in-residence!
◢ Jesse Keith Butler
◢ Cody Caetano
◢ Krista Foss
◢ Helen Knott
◢ Angela Long
◢ Rebecca Thomas
Learn more about this year’s residents here: bit.ly/4k3schN
#CanLit #PierreBerton
May 26, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
Deadline: May 30. Poems in dialogue with other poems.
Edited by Kyeren Regehr @byallmeanswrite.bsky.social & @zoeidadickinson.bsky.social
planetearthpoetry.com/after?ss_sou...
#canpoetry #canlit
May 27, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
“Death steals everything except our stories.”
― Jim Harrison
May 14, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Bid your hearts out for an important cause and a jazzed up bookshelf!
Check out this auction fundraiser, with all funds going towards eSims to help Palestinians in Gaza stay connected with each other and the rest of the world. My most recent book (+extras) is there along with lots of amazing fiction, poetry, memoir, etc: tinyurl.com/authors4esims
May 13, 2025 at 4:46 PM
YES!!! 😍😍
May 13, 2025 at 4:44 PM
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Two recent titles: Natalie Rice's Nightjar and Sean Howard's Overlays
May 9, 2025 at 2:11 PM
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Two most recent spring titles: John Terpstra's A Carpentry of Words and Wood and Sue Goyette's Future Howl
May 9, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Leesa Dean
We've a wonderful excerpt up from Saad Omar Khan's Drinking the Ocean at the Miramichi Reader:
miramichireader.ca/2025/05/exce...
Excerpt: Drinking the Ocean by Saad Omar Khan
Excerpted with permission from Wolsak & Wynn Press
miramichireader.ca
May 12, 2025 at 2:16 PM