Waterfall, Cara: - Cara Waterfall is an Ottawa-born, Côte d'Ivoire-based poet, storyteller and mentor who teaches other writers how to sustain thriving, creative practices and reclaim their artistic identities. Her work frequently navigates the complexities of identity, place and intergenerational memory. She has post-graduate diplomas in Poetry & Lyric Discourse from SFU's The Writer's Studio, where she was mentored by Vancouver Poet Laureate, Fiona Tinwei Lam, and from the London School of Journalism. Her poems have appeared widely, including Best Canadian Poetry, SWWIM and The Night Heron Barks. She won PULPLiterature's 2023 Magpie Award for Poetry, Room's 2018 Short Forms and 2020 Poetry Contests. She is a three-time finalist for Radar Poetry's The Coniston Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Radiant Wound, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in May 2025, and explores her life in Abidjan after the second civil war. She recently finished her second poetry manuscript, The Lost Stations, and is working on a third about Nouchi, a hybrid language that unites crucial threads of Côte d'Ivoire's identity. Subscribe to Cara's Substack, Archipel, an ongoing dialogue between poets and creatives of all kinds, celebrating the ways we connect through mentorship, community and transitions, launching summer 2024. www.carawaterfall.com