The Maza Team
Namitha Rathinappillai
she/they
Namitha is a queer, Tamil-Canadian spoken word poet, artist, and writer who has entered the poetry community in 2017. She is currently based in Toronto, and was the first female and youngest director of Ottawa’s Urban Legends Poetry Collective (ULPC). They are a two-time Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) team member with ULPC, and they published their first chapbook titled ‘Dirty Laundry’ with Battleaxe Press in November of 2018. In 2019, they won the RBC Youth Ottawa Spirit of the Capital Award for Arts and Culture.
Franz Seachel
she/her
Franz is a South-Asian settler residing on unceded Coast-Salish lands. She is a writer, organizer, workshop facilitator and multidisciplinary artist. She believes art makes living bearable and is doing her best to put more colour into the world. She means this both in the sense of brightening up the mundane with creation, as well as in her mission to uplift the truths of marginalized bodies. She is currently working on her first novel, in addition to other multidisciplinary art projects. Franz hopes you dream often; she hopes you find reasons to stay.
Kiranjit Shoker
she/her
As a South Asian Canadian artist forged from the cracks of diaspora, the writing and performances curated centre around agency and self-determination. In exploring race, gender, and colonialism with raw humanity, Shoker’s art builds on empowerment and restoration of self.
Anjalica Solomon
they/she/he
Anjalica is a genderfluid bird watcher, tree hugger, astrology boyfriend and expansive lover. A multidisciplinary artist born in Chandigarh India and raised on what is colonially known as “Vancouver, BC” on the stolen and unsurrendered territories of the Coast Salish, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. They are a vocalist, songwriter, lyricist, loop pedalist, poet, playwright, actor, organiser and performer. They aim to make art that forges a path for queer, South Asian futuristism. In 2021 they toured a collaborative work of poetic-diasporic-dance theatre “Wings over Water” across the West Coast at Nanaimo and Vancouver Fringe. New music is on the way with their band Glow Motive, comprised of themselves and poly-queer partner Oceaan Pendharkar! Anjalica is currently working on their forthcoming collection of poetry with Write Bloody Publishing. Their debut full length collection will be available for purchase in the spring of 2023.
Cassandra Myers
they/she
Cassandra is a queer, trans, crip, mad, South Asian-Italian, from Toronto, Ontario. Cassandra has performed her award winning poetry across North America and has received the Best Poet Award at CUPSI. A Masters of Social Work Candidate at York University, Cassandra is an arts-educator, crisis intervention counsellor, and youth worker. A Pink Door fellow, her work can be found in Overheard Press, The Shortline Review, and ARC's Magazine Poem of the Year Honourable Mention (2020).