Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal (Facilitator)

Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal (she/her) is a critical race feminist, writer, former lawyer, child of immigrants, and facilitator who grew up on the traditional, present and future territories of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt, Tsawwassen and Musqueam First Nations. With over 20 years of facilitation and teaching experience, Preeti is committed to arts-based methodologies as a source of personal and collective empowerment, transformation and community-building. She has led arts-based workshops across Turtle Island, and firmly believes that stories change the world by altering our ways of seeing, feeling and being with one another and the planet.

Before leaving her legal career, Preeti articled at a boutique litigation firm and clerked at the Federal Court of Canada. She then pursued a Master of Laws where she used theatre and performance art to investigate how law lives in the body with a focus on race. While pursuing her MFA at the University of Guelph, she taught creative writing and social justice at the college level. Preeti has received over two dozen awards for community service and academic excellence, as well as artistic support from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and BC Arts Council. She is a two-time writer in residence at Voices of Our Nation (VONA), a Deer Lake alumna and a Banff alumna. Her creative writing tends to examine themes of touch, grief, power, diasporic Punjabi life, magic and prayer, love, liberation and sexuality. It has appeared in numerous publications, including PRISM International, The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Canadian Notes & Queries, The Humber Literary Review, Looseleaf and Held Magazine, amongst others. She has forthcoming work in The Capilano Review, and is currently completing a poetry manuscript before returning to her novel. If you want to learn more about her or her writing workshops, you can find Preeti on IG @jadooberry / @write.with.preeti or at https://linktr.ee/Jadooberry.

Photo Credit: Ella Cooper