Laurier welcomes novelist Thea Lim as winter 2025 Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence

Oct. 23, 2024
For Immediate Release

Novelist Thea Lim, an award-winning author of fiction and a generous member of the Canadian writing community, has been selected as Wilfrid Laurier University’s Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence for the winter 2025 term.

Lim has served as a creative writing faculty member, lecturer, workshop leader and mentor at the University of Toronto, Sheridan College, the Writers’ Trust of Canada, Writers’ Union of Canada and University of Guelph. Her critically acclaimed 2018 novel, An Ocean of Minutes – described as “a love story, an imaginative thriller and a dystopian narrative” by Publisher’s Weekly – was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and ALA Reading List for Science Fiction, longlisted for Canada Reads, and named a Globe and Mail “favourite book of the year.”

As the 2025 Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence, Lim will deliver guest lectures, including a public talk in January titled “Boring Worlds: The Storytelling Power of the Mundane.” Students and writers in the Laurier community will have the opportunity to receive one-on-one manuscript feedback during Lim’s office hours. She will also offer writing workshops in the genres of fiction and non-fiction designed to spark creativity and literary exploration while also working on her own writing projects, including a detective novel titled Years Without a Weekend and a series of essays on “how to be an artist.”

Lim served as a juror for the 2022 Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction and the 2023 Trillium Book Award. She has also held positions as the Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor at University College, University of Toronto and as writer-in-residence for the Toronto Public Library and University of Toronto Scarborough. Lim grew up in Singapore and now lives with her family in Toronto/Tkaronto. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Houston.

The Edna Staebler Laurier Writer-in-Residence was established in 2012 through a bequest from the late Edna Staebler (1906-2006), a prolific creative non-fiction writer and author of the popular “Schmecks” series of books that celebrate the culture of Waterloo Region. The writer-in-residence position supports writers with a funded residency each winter term, as well as the development of emerging writers.

Lim’s 2025 residency follows experimental poet Nasser Hussain’s residency during winter 2024 and novelist Donna Morrissey’s residency in 2023. Previous Edna Staebler writers-in-residence and visiting writers include novelist and essayist Ali Bryan (2021), fiction writer Carrianne Leung (2020), poet and novelist Gary Barwin (2019), novelist Alison Pick (2018), creative non-fiction writer Emily Urquhart (2018), novelist Pasha Malla (2017), novelist Ashley Little (2017), playwright Drew Hayden Taylor (2016), poet Sonnet L’Abbé (2015), playwright Colleen Murphy (2014), and creative non-fiction writer Andrew Westoll (2013).