Short forms are a big deal these days — and they’re fun to whip up! Join creative non-fiction writer Taslim Jaffer in a generative writing workshop where she will provide prompts and examples to help you get stories down on the page. Inspired by the works and teachings of Beth-Ann Fennelly, Abigail Thomas, Rachel Thompson, and more, the exercises will serve to bring your everyday stories into the literary spotlight. Because life (and writing) isn’t about the grandiose, but the small moments that fill our existence.

Location: Room C215, UBC Robson Square

Type: Workshop

Host: Taslim Jaffer, Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home (co-edited with Omar Mouallem; Book*hug Press)

About The Host

Taslim Jaffer

Taslim Jaffer is a writer, editor and writing instructor from Surrey, B.C. with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from University of King’s College. Her bylines appear in Macleans, CBC, WestCoast Families, Peace Arch News & more. She is the winner of the 2022 Creative Nonfiction Collective/Humber Literary Review contest and recipient of a 2021 Silver Canadian Online Publishing Award. Taslim has been teaching memoir and expressive writing in community and rehabilitative settings since 2015 and is a panelist, moderator, and instructor at literary arts festivals. She is co-editor of the award-winning anthology, Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity and Home (Bookhug*Press, 2024) and was the 2025 City of Richmond Writer-in-Residence. Her work-in-progress is an essay collection exploring cultural inheritance, liminality and parenting as a first-generation Canadian.