Tena Laing completed her MFA at the University of British Columbia where she wrote a collection of short stories and was on the editorial board of Prism Magazine. She is an identical twin originally from Newfoundland, living and writing in Toronto; however, she has also called Halifax, Quebec, Tokyo, and Calgary home.
An alum of The Banff Centre, Sage Hill, The Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking, and The Humber School for Writers where Wayson Choy galvanized her to take her writing more seriously by telling her to just quit her job and write her book.
Her writing explores the edge where things unravel, the ways characters cope with fear and reach for hope or find distraction in moments where they face the disconnect between the lives and relationships they had yearned for, and the ones they actually have. It speaks to these opposing realities: the severed personal connection and the instant intimacy that our growing obsession with, and reliance on, technology has wrought, as well as the shifting relational power dynamics between romantic partners, friends, colleagues, and family members – particularly sisters.
Her mentors and instructors have included Miriam Toews, Wayson Choy, Alison Pick, Alyssa York, Merilyn Simmonds, Wayne Grady, Nancy Lee, Alix Ohlin, Doretta Lau, Bronwen Tate, Zac Hug, and John Vigna.
She worked as graduate assistant for the three popular UBC/edX How to Write a Novel courses: Structure & Outline, Writing the Draft, and Edit and Revise, and was a graduate teaching assistant for the Intro to Fiction and Intro to Creative Writing undergraduate classes.
Tena won the Muskoka Novel Marathon Manuscript Contest and was a finalist for both The Fiddlehead Short Fiction Prize and the Writers’ League of Texas Novel Manuscript Contest.
Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies. She has read her writing at The Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Local Writers Read event at Writers at Woody Point. She is currently revising her first novel and is the creative non-fiction reviews editor at The Artisanal Writer.