About

Margo LaPierre edits fiction and creative non-fiction. She completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Ryerson University in Toronto, and graduated from the Ryerson Chang School’s Publishing Program. She is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. In her volunteer work, she is newsletter editor of Arc Magazine, a poetry selection jury member of Bywords Magazine (www.bywords.ca), and an alumnus mentor in Ryerson University’s Chang Career Flash Mentoring Program. In 2019, she was the sole recipient of the Claudette Upton Scholarship, an annual, national award that recognizes a promising student editor from among Editors Canada’s student affiliates. She is a member of the poetry collective VII, also comprising Manahil Bandukwala, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Conyer Clayton, nina jane drystek, Chris Johnson, and Helen Robertson. 

Her first book of poetry, Washing Off the Raccoon Eyes, was published by Guernica Editions in 2017. Her poems have been published in Room Magazine, CAROUSEL, Carte Blanche, The Feathertale Review, subTerrain, filling Station, Arc Poetry Magazine and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2021 Room Magazine Award for Poetry and the 2020 subTerrain Lush Triumphant Award for Fiction. She has received honourable mentions in Grain Magazine’s 2021 Short Grain Award for Fiction, The New Quarterly‘s 2020 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Award, The Writers’ Union of Canada’s 2020 Short Fiction Award, and the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ 2018 Battle of the Bards. Her poem “Bear Skin Rug” won the silver award for poetry at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Awards in 2017. She has been editing fiction for Guernica Editions since August 2018, and has been freelance editing since January 2019. After over a decade in Toronto, and a year and a half in Taiwan, she now lives in Ottawa with her husband and goldendoodle puppy.

Margo is working on a novel and collection of short stories. Her second collection of poetry is currently out on submission. She gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in funding these projects. In July 2021, she completed the Sage Hill Writing Fiction Course with mentor Yasuko Thanh and in August–September 2021, she participated in the Banff Emerging Writers Intensive Online Program with mentor Amber Dawn. 

 

Margo is a member of Editors Canada (Ottawa-Gatineau branch), the Writers’ Union of Canada, the League of Canadian Poets, and of the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society.