Teaching
Fountain House
Leanne is the first Writer-in-Residence for Fountain House NYC, the world's largest mental health clubhouse. She will spend the 2024-2025 year supporting emerging writers living with mental illness as they write, publish and perform their creative work at Fountain House Gallery. Leanne is proud to be part of the Fountain House community, helping break down the stigma around serious mental illness diagnoses and sharing the joy that comes from finding kinship during challenging times in our lives.
Trinity College
Since 2017, Leanne has been teaching at the University of Toronto through the First Year Foundations program and the Trinity College Writing Centre. The winner of U of T’s 2023 Teaching Excellence Award, Leanne teaches seminar courses in Disability Arts and BIPOC literature that build connections between academic research and creative writing.
As a doctoral student in Social Justice Education at OISE, Leanne’s courses are built upon a foundation of community practice, inspired by her previous teaching experience in psychiatric wards and cultural centres across Toronto. Leanne also founded Trinity’s BIPOC Writing Circle in 2020, which offers creative writing workshops and field trips for racialized students and allies across the university. You can read more about her on-campus programs below.
TRN 194: Literature & Wicked Problems
Wicked problems are inequities so deeply entrenched within dominant societal beliefs that potential “solutions” often reveal additional systemic barriers and overlapping violence. In this class, it is important not just to understand the ableism present in our society, but also to question how disability has come to be framed as a problem itself.
Through our reading and writing practice in TRN 194, we will reflect on how disabled storytellers are pushing back against harmful stereotypes and reductive narrative expectations, while highlighting the rich tapestry of disability literature.
TRN 196: Joy & Resistance in Diverse Storytelling
In contemporary literature from Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) authors across Canada and Turtle Island, there is a resurgence in diasporic stories that capture the joy and resistance of carving space for community against the mechanisms of the state. In this course, we will explore how BIPOC literature has intersected with social problems and activist movements, reading short creative pieces and critical essays from both emerging and established voices.
In addition to examining these texts in relation to scholarly frameworks, current events, and community knowledge, we will also emphasize elements of storytelling that can be applied to our own artistic work. Creative writing prompts will be a foundational part of our time together, and there will be plenty of opportunities to share – or internally reflect on – your writing process.
BIPOC Writing Circle
Since September 2020, Trinity's BIPOC Writing Circle has been providing space for racialized students to share their experiences, build their creative practices and connect with each other. For 3 weeks of the month, we meet virtually to write in response to literature by BIPOC authors. In our final monthly meeting, we meet in-person for a field trip or hands-on workshop, opening up our space to allies across the university.
This program is run by Leanne Toshiko Simpson and Zoe Imani Sharpe. We hope that by making BIPOC literature part of Trinity's culture and providing mentorship for racialized students, we can support the next generation of emerging writers.
The Shape of You: A Hermit Crab Writing Workshop
Hermit crab essays have emerged as exciting and generative containers for personal storytelling over the past two decades. As their popularity has grown, these creative pieces have taken the shape of family recipes, instructional manuals, obituaries and other familiar forms, offering a protective space to begin the writing process and a chance to reimagine the cultural expectations of each shape.
As a writer, narrating my life has been challenging in the sense that I am often writing emotionally difficult stories AND stories that may be less recognizable for those who don’t share my lived experience. I find that working within a “shell” — as I did in Never Been Better, which uses the shape of a romantic comedy to explore mental illness — helps me understand and question the “rules of the game,” whether it’s the guiding structures of family, relationships, illness or even just the choreography of going on a date. It also makes for a very fun reading experience for those outside the story!
Contact me if you're interested in hosting a warm and entertaining mental health writing workshop.
Leanne can be booked to facilitate a mental health writing workshop! To inquire, please fill out a contact form by clicking the button below.
