Photo by Sarah Tanase
Kanika Lawton is a Cambodian-Chinese Canadian writer, editor, publisher, and film scholar.
She holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Film Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master's of Arts from the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute. She has presented her scholarly research across Canada and the United States, most notably at Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA)'s annual conference, the University of Toronto, Columbia University, Spiral Film and Philosophy Conference, Northwestern University, and the University of Southern California. Her peer-reviewed article on reimagining utopian thinking and (counter)memories in Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer (2018) is forthcoming in Spectator. She also served as an editor with the UBC Undergraduate Film Student Association and The Neutral: Graduate Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, a peer-reviewed, graduate student-led journal run out of the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute.
Kanika is the Founding Editor-In-Chief of L'Éphémère Review, Staff Director of Sundress Publications, and a poetry reader for Cotton Xenomorph. She has received fellowships from Pink Door and BOAAT Writer's Retreat and has been published in Ricepaper Magazine, Vagabond City Literary Journal, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, What Are Birds Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Parentheses Journal, among others. A four-time Pushcart Prize and two-time Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of the micro-chapbooks Wildfire Heart (The Poetry Annals, 2018), Loneliness, and Other Ways to Split a Body (Ghost City Press, 2018), Monster (Girl) Theory (post ghost press, 2019), and Theories on Wreckage (Ghost City Press, 2020).
Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Kanika currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she works in traditional and digital publishing.
She holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Film Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master's of Arts from the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute. She has presented her scholarly research across Canada and the United States, most notably at Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA)'s annual conference, the University of Toronto, Columbia University, Spiral Film and Philosophy Conference, Northwestern University, and the University of Southern California. Her peer-reviewed article on reimagining utopian thinking and (counter)memories in Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer (2018) is forthcoming in Spectator. She also served as an editor with the UBC Undergraduate Film Student Association and The Neutral: Graduate Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, a peer-reviewed, graduate student-led journal run out of the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute.
Kanika is the Founding Editor-In-Chief of L'Éphémère Review, Staff Director of Sundress Publications, and a poetry reader for Cotton Xenomorph. She has received fellowships from Pink Door and BOAAT Writer's Retreat and has been published in Ricepaper Magazine, Vagabond City Literary Journal, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, What Are Birds Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Parentheses Journal, among others. A four-time Pushcart Prize and two-time Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of the micro-chapbooks Wildfire Heart (The Poetry Annals, 2018), Loneliness, and Other Ways to Split a Body (Ghost City Press, 2018), Monster (Girl) Theory (post ghost press, 2019), and Theories on Wreckage (Ghost City Press, 2020).
Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Kanika currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she works in traditional and digital publishing.
