Angela Rawlings

In 2001, Rawlings received the bpNichol Award for Distinction in Writing when she graduated from York University. Since then, she has worked with several arts organizations, including The Mercury Press, The Scream Literary Festival, Sumach Press, Word: Canada’s Magazine for Readers + Writers, and The Lexiconjury Reading Series. In 2005, Rawlings hosted the poetry documentary series Heart of a Poet. She is also co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2005), an anthology featuring over forty emerging poets.Angela Rawlings (known as a.rawlings) is a Canadian poet, editor, and interdisciplinary artist who has presented and/or published work in Canada, Belgium, Iceland, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, and theUnited States. Her poetry has been translated into Dutch, French, Icelandic, Korean, and Spanish.

As an arts educator, rawlings has led creative writing workshops for Ryerson University, terminus1525.ca, Learning through the Arts, League of Canadian Poets, Ontario Arts Council's Artists in Education Program, the Toronto District School Board, Writers in Electronic Residence, and the Toronto Public Library system. She occasionally co-facilitates with Ciara Adams sound/text/movement workshops.

Rawlings' first book, Wide slumber for lepidopterists was published in spring 2006 by Coach House Books. In November 2006, Theatre Commutiny staged a full-length performance of the book as part of Harbourfront Centre's Hatch: Emerging Performance Projects series; Rawlings performed in and co-produced the show. In April 2007, Wide slumber for lepidopterists received a nomination for the Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Book of Poetry. The book was also awarded Alcuin Award for Book Design, and was listed in The Globe and Mail's top 100 books of 2006. In Autumn 2008, Belgian composer Sebastian Bradt created a choral score entitled X Our Rotten Beauties that uses text from Wide slumber for lepidopterists. The book is currently being translated from English to French by François Luong.

Rawlings also works in theatre, music, and dance. She taught ballroom, Latin, and swing dances from 2001-3. In 2005, she co-produced On the Money for Toronto's Fringe Festival, a play awarded the festival's Patron's Pick. She has also worked with Toronto's Theatre Gargantua, was on the board of directors for bluemouth inc. from 2008 to 2010, and is the president for Susanna Hood's hum dansoundart board of executives. Rawlings has collaborated with improvising musicians and dancers in Toronto and Vancouver such as Joe Sorbara and Jonathon Wilcke; sound poets such as Jaap Blonk and Paul Dutton; Belgian dancer Sarah Janssens; and the Logos Foundation's invisible and robotic instruments. She is a member of Christine Duncan's Element Choir.

Rawlings has been involved in several interdisciplinary collaborations. In 2010, Rawlings lent voice to bluemouth inc.'s New York City production of The Sea Museum. In 2010 and 2011, bluemouth inc. joined Rawlings to present an original work called The Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies for The Scream Literary Festival and Rhubarb Theatre Festival at Buddies in Bad Times, both in Toronto. Since 2009, Rawlings has been developing drift withNilan Perera and Julie Lassonde. She has a long-standing creative partnership with Maja Jantar, and they are actively developing several pieces for performance and exhibition.

In 2008, Rawlings received the prestigious Chalmers Arts Fellowship; this enabled her to spend 2009 and 2010 living and working in Belgium, Canada, and Iceland. She is currently developing several literary projects, including Ljóðapoems, EFHILMNORSTUVWY, Rule of Three, Órói, Sound Poetry, Vessel, and Cochlea.