The Eighteen-Eleven Collective is made up of Manahil Bandukwala, Alicia Haniford, Ren Iwamoto, Julia Lye, Browen Matheson, Paige Pinto, Cossette Penner-Olivera, and Megan Waldron. Based out of Ottawa and Toronto, the group met during their shared time at Carleton University… in room 1811 of the English department. From writer’s circle to co-collaborators, read their story here.
Meet the members of 1811
Manahil Bandukwala is the author of two chapbooks, Paper Doll (Anstruther Press, 2019) and Pipe Rose (battleaxe press, 2018). Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, including PRISM, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, Room, The Poetry Annals, Parentheses Journal, Coven Editions, Bywords, and other places. She was the 2019 winner of Room magazine’s Emerging Writer Award, and won the Lilian I. Found Award in 2019 for her poem, “Things I have learned from laundry.” She won 2nd place in the George Johnston Poetry Prize for her poem, “Pipe Rose.” She is on the editorial team of Canthius. See her work on Twitter at @manaaaahil, Instagram at @bandukwali, or on her website, manahils.com.
Alicia Haniford is the sixth and most secret Spice Girl. A part-time medievalist and full-time cat mom, she hails from London, Ontario (the better London). Information on her previous publications is highly classified, but you may submit an Access to Information and Privacy Request via her Instagram, @alicia.haniford.
Ren Iwamoto Ren Iwamoto is a Japanese-Canadian writer and editor from the tenth dimension, whose work has been featured here and there. She may or may not have a criminal record. She can be found on Twitter @reniwamoto or on her website, rkiwamoto.wordpress.com.
Julia T. Lye was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and educated at Carleton University with a degree in English Literature. She graduated in 2019, the same year she published her first novel with Deebee Books, Anelisha Knight in The Yarns of Gods. Her stories are published in two other anthologies, What Lies in Wait and The Stranger Side of Tomorrow, and she won’t be stopping anytime soon. Find her books on Amazon, and find her at www.julialye.com
Browen Matheson has a BA in English and a BS in life. She would like you to know that she is not a writer; she just has a lot of ideas. If you would like to purchase her intellectual property Browen accepts cash, cheques, and good books. The money collected will go towards paying off her student loans and supporting her love of conventions. Browen currently lives in Toronto where she is pursuing a career in book publishing and investing her free time in theatre, tabletop RPGs, and secondary characters.
Paige Pinto is an occasional writer and on-again/off-again Austenite. Her fiction has been published in In/Words and The Mays XXVI. Hopes and dreams TBD. Don’t talk to her when she’s hungry.
Cossette Penner-Olivera is a Peruvian-Canadian English student at Carleton University. She hails from Toronto. This is her first official publication, but she has been invited to read her flash fiction at university literary events. Her short story “Flapper” received an Honourable Mention in Carleton’s Fiction Writing Competition. Like any self-respecting author, she drinks a little too much coffee. Hobbies include writing fanfiction and memorising three-hour musicals by heart—including Les Mis, the one she’s named after. She’s currently working on turning Helen and Mouse’s story into a full-length novel—you haven’t seen the last of them yet.
Megan Waldron is a twenty-seven-year old recent graduate from Carleton with a degree in Honours English and a Concentration in Creative Writing. Originally hailing from London, England, she has called Ottawa home for the past sixteen years. Her love for reading has grown with every year and she visits her local library nearly every day. In 2019 she won the Carleton University Fiction Competition. She relates to fictional characters like Matilda and Hermione to the point of obsession, and is always writing stories in her head, even if they don’t always make it down to paper. Her favourite authors include J. K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, Cathy Glass, Robert Galbraith and Jodi Picoult. Megan’s to-be-read pile is already in danger of burying her but she continues to add to it every day.
The Eighteen-Eleven Collective 