Amber Dawn is a writer and creative facilitator living on unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, Canada). Her debut novel Sub Rosa (2010) won the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction and the Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize. Her memoir How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir (2013) won the Vancouver Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her poetry collection Where the words end and my body begins (2015) was a finalist for BC Book Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her sophomore novel Sodom Road Exit (2018) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the BC Book Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her collection of long poems My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems (2020) was a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.

She is the editor of three anthologies With A Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (co-ed. Trish Kelly, 2005), Fist of the Spider Women: Fear and Queer Desire (2009) and Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry (co-ed. Justin Ducharme, 2019).

All of her books are published with Arsenal Pulp Press.

She currently teaches creative writing Douglas College, as well as guest mentors at several drop-in, community-driven spaces in the Downtown Eastside, an area impacted by poverty-related issues and beloved for its tenacity and creativity.

Short Bio:

Amber Dawn is a writer and creative facilitator living on unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver, Canada). She is the author of five books and the editor of three anthologies.

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