Kate Harris chosen as Laurier’s winter 2027 Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence

Oct. 5, 2026
For Immediate Release

Creative nonfiction writer Kate Harris has been chosen as Wilfrid Laurier University’s Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence for the winter 2027 term. Harris will be the first author who has won the Edna Staebler Creative Nonfiction Prize (2018) and returned to Laurier as Writer-in-Residence.

Harris, a former Rhodes scholar, is the award-winning author of Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road, a lyrical adventure tale that reflects on the history of science and exploration. The book won the RBC Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction and The Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Literary Nonfiction, among a host of other awards in the year it was published. Her second book, Falling to Earth, forthcoming in late 2027, is a memoir about searching for life as we don't usually know it—in a cabin, in the cosmos, and in a tiny northern community in the Boundary Ranges.

Harris’s writing has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, CutBank, Arc Poetry Magazine, Outside, and The Walrus, among other publications. She is a team leader for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, which is the flagship publication of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and the managing editor for Global Environmental Politics, a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by The MIT Press.

“Harris writes with the curiosity of a scientist and the voice of a poet whether she is aiming for space or exploring the landscape near her northern home,” said Emily Urquhart, assistant professor in the Department of English and Film Studies and chair of the Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence committee. “Her passion for mentorship is a natural extension of that desire to learn and explore.”

Harris works with emerging writers in her roles as a faculty member at the Banff Centre and the Port Renfrew Writer’s Retreat.

“Few things bring me more joy than helping people navigate the daunting terra incognita of bringing a literary project, however modest or ambitious, to life,” said Harris.

During her term as Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence from January to March 2027, Harris will work with students and faculty at Laurier’s Waterloo and Brantford campuses, visiting classes, working one-on-one with emerging writers, hosting workshops and giving guest lectures, beginning with her first public talk on Jan. 28 at the Robert Langen Art Gallery on Laurier’s Waterloo campus.

For the duration of her residency, Harris will relocate to the Waterloo region from her home in northern British Columbia where she lives off-grid in a cabin. She plans to work on a new writing project, a lyrical non-fiction narrative in which learning to fly is an adventure in itself, but also a launching point for wider meditations on the importance of limits, the difficulties of learning new instincts, and above all the challenges of staying oriented in the chronic vertigo of contemporary life.

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. Visit the Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence page for a list of previous writers-in-residence.