Current Writer-in-Residence: Elio Zarrillo

Elio Zarrillo is a prairie-born queer who spends their days making plays and poems with and for their loved ones. Originally from Treaty 1 territory, they are based on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing & Theatre at the University of British Columbia. They work nationally as a playwright, actor, director, poet, and dramaturg.

While live performance creation makes up the bulk of their work, they’ve been making poems longer than anything else. Their latest confessional, playful and synaptic poetic experiments investigate and explode their experiences of transness, recovery, inadequacy, disability, and (dis)embodiment. Their voracity for poetics and theatrical storytelling come together as they develop LIAM, a hybrid poetry-performance work about one wanderer’s ruthless search for a new name.