Join Tea Gerbeza for the Winnipeg launch of How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press), featuring readings from Gerbeza and special guest Sarah Ens followed by a conversation about the lyric long poem and memory. 

This event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a YouTube stream. This is an in-person event on Saturday Apr 12 2025 at 7:00 pm, at Winnipeg’s McNally Robinson, Grant Park in the Atrium and Streaming on YouTube. Mask friendly.

Based on Tea Gerbeza’s experience with scoliosis, How I Bend Into More re-articulates selfhood in the face of ableism and trauma. Meditating on pain, consent, and disability, this long poem builds a body both visually and linguistically, creating a multimodal space that forges Gerbeza’s grammar of embodiment as an act of reclamation. Paper-quilled shapes represent the poet’s body on the page; these shapes weave between lines of verse and with them the reclaimed disabled body is made. How I Bend Into More is a distinctive poetic debut that challenges ableist perceptions of normalcy, and centers “the double architecture / of ( metamorphosis (.”

Tea Gerbeza is a queer disabled neurodivergent writer and multimedia artist from Treaty 4 Territory. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. How I Bend Into More is her first book.

Sarah Ens is a writer, editor, and book publicist based in Treaty 1 territory (Winnipeg, MB). She is the author of The World Is Mostly Sky and Flyway, which won the 2023 ReLit Poetry Award.

You’re invited to celebrate the launch of Tea Gerbeza’s debut poetry book How I Bend Into More! With special guests Cat Abenstein, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Dayne Blair, and Carla Harris, this will be a night not to miss. The evening will begin with performances by guest poets, a short break, and end with Tea reading from her book. Tea will be signing books after the event. A small special exhibition of artwork made for/inspired by the book will be on display and there will also be a door prize for an exclusive paper-quilled spine necklace made by Tea as well as a scanograph print from Tea’s Painscapes series.

Books by all poets will be for sale and Tea will have exclusive artwork available, too! Please note that drinks will be for sale by The Artesian (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic).

This event is in-person at The Artesian (2627 13th Ave, Regina, SK). Masks are highly encouraged during this event (when not eating or drinking) to keep those most vulnerable safe! Also note that the time for this event is in Saskatchewan time. Free and open to the public!

Accessibility information:

• The Artesian is a wheelchair accessible building (elevator is on the side of the building)

• Microphones will be used throughout the event

• Low/coloured lighting in the main space

• Mask friendly event

• Quiet downstairs area for folks to go if they need a quiet moment

• Venue is on a main bus route

• Street parking

About How I Bend Into More:

Based on Tea Gerbeza’s experience with scoliosis, How I Bend Into More re-articulates selfhood in the face of ableism and trauma. Meditating on pain, consent, and disability, this long poem builds a body both visually and linguistically, creating a multimodal space that forges Gerbeza’s grammar of embodiment as an act of reclamation. Paper-quilled shapes represent the poet’s body on the page; these shapes weave between lines of verse and with them the reclaimed disabled body is made. How I Bend Into More is a distinctive poetic debut that challenges ableist perceptions of normalcy, and centers “the double architecture / of  ( metamorphosis (.”

About the poets:

Tea Gerbeza is a queer disabled neurodivergent writer and multimedia artist. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. She is the winner of the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for poetry, and has published widely in magazines including ARC magazine, Action Spectacle, The Poetry Foundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2, among others. Tea resides in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 territory (Regina, SK) with her spouse, three dogs, and cat. She is one of four Pain Poets. How I Bend Into More is her first book. She hopes you spiral art from its pages.

Cat Abenstein (she/her) is a nueroqueer white settler creating in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 (Regina, SK.) A practicing spoken word artist, poet, and arts administrator, she is witness to the connection, community, and identity found through stories. Since 2012, Cat has taken her work to local, provincial, and national stages and has organized, hosted, and facilitated dozens of spoken word events for many organizations. When she’s not consuming books in all formats (yes, audiobooks are reading), she’s dreaming about the ways words weave us all together. She lives with her wife and two cats in a house older than all of their ages combined. 

Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (2016), and a chapbook, Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Event, Vallum, Grain, PRISM, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, among others. Her poems have been featured in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing and The Best Canadian Poetry 2021, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is queer and disabled, and one-quarter of a writing group called The Pain Poets.

Dayne Blair (she/her) is a lesbian writer, artist and philosopher living on Treaty 4 territory and the Homeland of the Métis; you might remember her as “That Weird Girl From High School.” Her poetry and prose examine queerness, disability, existential dread, and identity through speculative narratives, fantastic imagery, and humour. She has somehow tricked the Pain Poets into accepting her as their fourth member. When she’s not at work hacking the planet, she’s spending time with her bird-son Artie or watching horror movies with her loved ones.

Carla Harris (they/she) is a disabled mad queer nonbinary writer, performer and interdisciplinary artist from Treaty 4 territory, living in Regina Saskatchewan. They released their first chapbook, Obtain No Proof with Dis/ Ability Series of Frog Hollow Press, with publications appearing in ANTILANG (2021) League of Canadian Poets (2022), and the Humber Literary Review (2023). Harris is a member of the Pain Poets, and teaches improvisational writing and spoken word performance workshops. Currently, they are developing a book of poetry and an interdisciplinary play, both crafted in the expansive, adaptable framework of #CripTime.

Guelph authors Adam Lindsay Honsinger and Kasia Jaronczyk are launching their new novels on Saturday March 1, 7:00 PM, at the ANAF (32 Gordon St, Guelph). They'll be joined by guest authors Tea Gerbeza, Hollay Ghadery, and MA|DE. This is an in-person and mask friendly event.

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Adam Lindsay Honsinger is a writer, musician, and illustrator. He completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. His debut novel Gracelessland (Enfield & Wizenty) was published in 2015. His collection of short fiction, Somewhere North of Normal (Enfield & Wizenty) was published in 2018. His stories has been been published in literary journals such as Descant, Prism International, and Exile Quarterly, two of which were nominated for The Journey Prize Anthology, and one was awarded a Silver at the National Magazine Awards. His new novel, Giving Up the Ghost (The Porcupine's Quill), maps the internal and external trajectories of a family navigating the grief of losing a son / grandson / brother, a loss that has sent them spiralling into their own separate orbits.

Kasia Jaronczyk is a Polish-Canadian writer, artist and microbiologist. She immigrated to Canada at the age of 14. Her debut short story collection Lemons was published in 2017 by Mansfield Press. She is a co-editor of the only anthology of Polish-Canadian short stories Polish(ed): Poland Rooted in Canadian Fiction (Guernica Editions, 2017). Her stories were short-listed for the Bristol Prize 2016 and long-listed for CBC Short Story Prize 2010. She has published in Canadian literary magazines such as TNQ, Room, Prairie Journal, Carousel, The Nashwaak Review, Postscripts to Darkness, and in anthologies Wherever I Find Myself. Essays by Canadian Immigrant Women (Miriam Matejova, Ed. Caitlin Press, April 2017) and The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology (2016. Vol 9.). Her new novel, Voices in the Air (Palimpsest Press), is the story of two women and their families who hijack a Polish passenger plane flying from Wrocław to Warsaw in a bold attempt to escape Martial Law in Communist Poland and find safety in West Berlin.

Tea Gerbeza is a queer disabled neurodivergent writer and multimedia artist. She has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Regina. She is the winner of the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for poetry, and has published widely in magazines including ARC magazine, Action Spectacle, The Poetry Foundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2. Her first book, How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press), re-articulates selfhood in the face of ableism and trauma. Meditating on pain, consent, and disability, this long poem builds a body both visually and linguistically, creating a multimodal space that forges Gerbeza’s grammar of embodiment as an act of reclamation.

Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024, is a collection of very short fiction that deftly explores the subjugation of women through the often subversive act of fantasizing.

MA|DE (est. 2018) is a collaborative writing entity, a unity of two voices fused into a single, poetic third. It is the name given to the joint authorship of Mark Laliberte and Jade Wallace — artists whose active solo practices, while differing radically, serve to complement one another. MA|DE's writing has appeared in literary journals including The Ex-Puritan, Augur, and PRISM International, and 4 chapbooks, including the bpNichol Award-shortlisted A Trip to the ZZOO from Collusion Books. MA|DE's debut full-length poetry collection, ZZOO (Palimpsest Press), is a wild-blooded collection that turns conventional exhibitionism on its head, treating humans and animals as equal subjects of art, science and selfhood. ZZOO is a bestiary for the modern world.

Join Palimpsest Press and their Winter release authors Tea Gerbeza, Jade Wallace and Mark Laliberte (MA|DE), and Kasia Jaronczyk (via Zoom) at Queen Books (914 Queen St E, Toronto, ON) to celebrate their new books! Hosted by Jim Johnstone. Readings by all authors.

Please note that the 6:00 pm start time is EST. This is a mask friendly event. Hope to see you there, Toronto & area pals!

I’ll be reading alongside Medrie Purdham in celebration of Michael Trussler’s newest poetry collection, 10:10! Join us!

This event is in-person at The Artesian (2627 13th Ave, Regina, SK).

Join me, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Carla Harris, and jaz papadopoulos in celebrating Jes Battis’ debut poetry collection, I Hate Parties! We will be reading poems and chatting about disability poetics. There will be free cupcakes and other snacks!

This event is in-person at The Artesian (2627 13th Ave, Regina, SK). Mask friendly.

I’ll be reading with Robert Colman and Michael Trussler in celebration of Robert' Colman’s new book, Ghost Work!

This event is in-person at Tuppenny Coffee & Books (1433 Hamilton St. Regina, SK).

Join me in celebrating Cassidy McFadzean’s newest collection of poetry, Crying Dress! I’ll be reading from some new work alongside poets Tanisha Khan and Hannah Senicar. Hosted by Elena Bentley.

This event is in-person at Tuppenny Coffee & Books (1433 Hamilton St. Regina, SK).

I’m honoured to be English Students’ Association’s keynote guest speaker at their gala for the relaunch of the student lit mag, [SPACE]!

I’ll be talking about the power of creative writing & why we should continue to write.

This event is in-person at the University of Regina, College West (CW) 215

Schedule:

- Doors open at 5pm

- Creative writing guest speaker at 5:30

- Dinner at 6pm

- [SPACE] submission readings from the authors! (beginning 7:00-7:30)

- Dessert and mingling

Tickets come with a copy of the magazine.

Link to register:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYhCSeiIRdL3dr4kjtWUfP7vmWZxTzrQs0CD_dNjbHYAFMpw/viewform?usp=sf_link

I’ll be wearing a mask & I hope you will, too.

How do you remember? How have you healed your relationship with yourself, your past? Are there memories, knowledge that you are trying to reach, uncover? ​

Participants will learn basic quilling shapes and reflect on memory, culture, family, and selfhood through poetry. Like my last workshop back in June, participants will write lines of poetry on strips of paper, which will then be used to create a paper-quilled “memory-sculpture.” All levels of experience in poetry and/or paper quilling are welcome. All materials will be provided by the Art Gallery of Regina.

Masks are highly encouraged. A note on accessibility: Paper quilling is a dexterous art form, which may be inaccessible for some folks. A potential way to make it accessible is to invite someone along to collaborate in the creation of a paper sculpture.

This event is in-person at the Art Gallery of Regina (2420 Elphinstone Street, Regina, SK)

FREE!

Come and listen to Saskatchewan authors read from their recent books and publications at The Grotto in Vibank, SK! Featuring: Tim Blackett, Tea Gerbeza, Chelsea Coupal, Barry Holtslander, Hadley Holtslander, Donovan Mutschler, Lara Stoudt, and Jennifer Holtslander.

This event is in-person at The Grotto in Vibank Heritage Centre (101-2nd Ave, Vibank, SK).

I will be a guest reader at Spenser Smith’s launch of A Brief Relief from Hunger alongside Courtney Bates-Hardy! Come celebrate Spenser with us!

In-person at Tuppenny Coffee & Books (1433 Hamilton St Regina, SK). Masks are required!

Join us on July 23, 2023 from 2 - 4pm for a free poetry and intro-to-paper-quilling workshop with Tea Gerbeza!

Beds. We sleep in them, we dream in them, we rest in them, recover in them, are sick in them, feel pain in them, pleasure, safety, isolation. Beds are complicated places. Our relationships to our beds are complex, especially for those of us who are sick and/or disabled. Add in the complexities of pain—physical, mental, emotional, chronic, episodic, situational—and personhood. How does pain shape and inform identity? What is your relationship to pain like? What shapes would you give your pain if you could?

Poet and artist Tea Gerbeza will lead a workshop that blends poetry and paper-quilling. She will teach participants how to paper quill a few basic quilling shapes, and will invite participants to write original lines of poetry on paper strips based on prompts about pain—how one feels pain, thinks about pain, connects to pain. Then, participants will be encouraged to assign a shape to their pain from the few basic paper quilling shapes they’ve learned to make to create a paper-quilled bed (that doubles as a visual poem or poem-object). All materials needed for this workshop will be provided by the Art Gallery of Regina.

To ensure we have materials for everyone, workshop spaces are limited. Please register in advance to save your spot:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/bedscapes-a-poetry-and-paper-quilling-workshop-with-tea-gerbeza-tickets-648536418887?aff=oddtdtcreator

Accessibility: paper quilling is a dexterous art form. A possible way to make this workshop more accessible is to collaborate with someone. For instance, one person does the quilling while the other does the poetry and both create a bed.

I'll be sharing knowledge at this workshop on accessibility and social media with the Creative City Centre! We'll be covering why artists should work to make their social media content accessible, what accessibility practices are being used and how to do them (eg. image descriptions/ID, alt-text, captions, hashtags, etc.). I'll also be briefly covering accessibility practices across different platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube).

This will be a hybrid workshop--in-person and via Zoom. If you’re coming in-person, please consider wearing a mask. Be aware that there is construction on Broad street that makes it a little hard to access the parking lot.

PSA: I'm by no means an expert on this topic. All my knowledge comes from experience, research, learning from fellow creators and disability justice activists, and webinars I've attended on the topic.

Register for IN-PERSON here: https://creativecitycentre.wufoo.com/forms/mkovrg41k6ih5l/

Register via Zoom here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpd-GvqzwpHtMXTOQsxflJtoafhIfdoUGR#/registration

Featured poets & Writers Tea Gerbeza, Mordecai Martin, Nila Narain, and Daniel Schapiro read from their work. This event is also an open mic.

Event is via Zoom.

On Wednesday November 24, join me (Tea Gerbeza) and Emilia Nielsen for conversations about poetry, poetics, and experiential knowledge of disability with readings from us both!

Now that the event is over, you can watch a recording of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MzANPaCv4w&ab_channel=LeagueofCanadianPoets

Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqde2vqj0sEtYaQfM3sScnBJbE8rl2F0_A

About our talk:

Poetry, Poetics and Experiential Knowledge of Disability 

In this conversational exchange, poet and professor Emilia Nielsen and poet and multimedia artist Tea Gerbeza explore the many ways disability shows up in life, art, and writing. Reflecting on the impetus for their own critical and creative work in disability studies and crip theory as well as the many questions that remain unanswered where the representation and reality of disability is concerned, Nielsen and Gerbeza urge for a rethinking of disability poetry so that it might include fierce love, pleasure and even joy all while unpacking ableism and ableist common sense logics. Here, the poetry and poetics of disability aspire to be as disruptive and unruly as the bodies and minds from which the work emerges.

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More about the series from The League of Canadian Poets: “The Canadian Association for Health Humanities and the League of Canadian Poets are partnering to deliver a series of monthly rounds focused on health, arts and humanities. These live sessions will feature both artists and professionals in the Health Humanities field for a multi-faceted conversation about topics related to healthcare, art, healing, and humanities.

In this ground-breaking new series, health humanities and poetry come together under the same scope, combining artistic expression with health practice and research. The conversations of Cross-Pollinations will illuminate new and emerging insights and perspectives on healthcare opportunities and challenges, healthcare approaches and advances, as well as build bridges of connection between health professionals, humanities and the arts.

This series is ideal for people in arts communities, poets and writers, as well as those working in healthcare.” (https://poets.ca/cross-pollinations/)

Please note all times listed are Saskatchewan time.

Register for the event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_ME-wJ8uQTWG7XOOop-6hQQ

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First Draft: Conversations on Writing is an online talk series that dives into themes that affect our writing lives. Writing helps us to understand things and to communicate these findings to our audience, even if our audience is ourselves. Sometimes we are driven by these themes, other times they’re the things that hold us back – what we learn through the process can be revolutionary. The quest to be understood unifies all writers.

This event features a 15-minute talk presented by Shannon McConnell around the theme of expectations. Following the talk is an interview conversation to dig deeper into the theme, hosted and moderated by Tea Gerbeza.

Participants are welcome to submit questions in advance of the event to swgevents@skwriter.com.

Shifting Expectations: The Beauty of the Unforeseen

What do we do when our great ideas don’t unfold as we planned? Should we abandon them and move on to another idea? Or should we embrace the unforeseen as an opportunity rather than a setback? In this talk, Shannon McConnell will explore embracing the unexpected in our writing as an opportunity for growth, to hone our craft, and to forge new and beautiful creative paths. Pulling from her experience with historical research and poetry, Shannon will discuss the struggles (and victories) of working with shifting expectations in her own writing.

Presenter

Shannon McConnell is a writer, educator, and musician originally from Vancouver, now living in Kingston, Ontario. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in untethered, Louden Singletree, Rat’s Ass Review, and more. She holds an MFA in writing and an MA in history from the University of Saskatchewan. In 2018, she placed second in the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award for Poetry. In 2020, her debut poetry collection, The Burden of Gravity, was published by Caitlin Press. In 2021, The Burden of Gravity won the First Book Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. She currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University.

Host and Interviewer

Tea Gerbeza (she/her) is a bi, disabled writer and multimedia artist creating in Treaty 4 territory (Regina, SK) and on the Homeland of the Métis Nation. Tea’s work has appeared in Release All the Words Stuck Inside You III, Room Magazine, antilang., and spring, among others. Find out more on teagerbeza.com.

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This event will be recorded and made available for 30 days on the SWG YouTube channel following the event: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRAIIcrpQW0NcY6ZM0GGSzw

Join Thistledown Press and McNally Robinson on Oct 6 at 7 PM (CMT) for the virtual launch of Diana Hope Tegenkamp's Girl running. Diana will be in conversation with Tea Gerbeza. This event will take place on Zoom.

Register for the event here: https://buff.ly/3nWM24A

Join poet Tea Gerbeza as she discusses her influences, her process and her poetry career. Get help with your poetry: strategies for revision, how to submit work, rejection and how to keep going.

Register here: https://www.reginalibrary.ca/attend/programs/4932529