Jenny Sampirisi

Who is Jenny Sampirisi?

Jenny Sampirisi is a Canadian poet, novelist, editor, and university instructor, living in Toronto. She is the author of the novel is/was and experimental poetry narrative Croak.

Sampirisi graduated with an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor in 2006 where she studied with poets Susan Holbrook, Di Brandt, Margaret Christakos and Marty Gervais. She collaborated with Margaret Christakos and Rachel Zolf for a polyvocal, multimedia staging of Christakos' polyvocal performance of Orphans Fan the Flames and Zolf's Masque. In 2007 she founded the visual poetry website OtherCl/utter, a place to play with language and image.

Sampirisi is the former Managing Editor of BookThug, where she also edited the Department of Narrative Studies imprint, focusing on innovative prose. She is co-founder and co-director of the Toronto New School of Writing, a series of reading and writing workshops designed and facilitated by working writers. The school has featured workshops and performances by Phil Hall, Alice Notley, Anne Waldman and Anslem Berrigan among others.