HELLO FOREVER! My name is Sophie.
I’m an award-winning writer and an experienced writing instructor who, perhaps weirdly, is equally at home writing unhinged satire for The New Yorker as I am writing achy personal essays about love and longing. Right now I’m particularly focused on writing about the climate crisis because, well, (gestures broadly to the entire earth). Some recurring themes in my body of work are: grief and the way we talk about it, intersectional feminism, climate justice, disability and body image, mental health, music, and dance. I’m particularly fascinated by the land of both/and — the places in life where two opposing forces are true and present at the same time.
I’ve been a longtime head writer for CBC Radio in Toronto, where I’ve written for radio shows like q with Tom Power, Because News, GO! with Brent Bambury, and TV shows like George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.
My humour writing has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and Reader’s Digest. One of those humour pieces, “If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear To God I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth”, was turned into a short film voiced by Jon Hamm. I’ve contributed numerous personal essays to Hazlitt, SubTerrain, The New Quarterly, Chatelaine, Outpost, and Today’s Parent. One of my longer essays, “A Body in Motion” — which is about how a major spinal deformity derailed my dance career — got adapted into an audio piece that aired on NPR’s Snap Judgment in 2023. I’m represented by Transatlantic literary agency and my first collection of personal essays is in development.
I’m currently the editor of NatureWILD, a nature magazine for kids in BC ages 5-12. Prior to that, I was the head writer at Moms Together, a nonprofit that aims to mobilize and empower Canadian moms to act as a unified voice for climate justice. I also served as the head writer for Gen Dread founded by Dr. Britt Wray, an author, researcher, and activist with Stanford University whose work focuses on the intersection of climate crisis and mental health. I wrote a very popular weekly newsletter to help people cultivate resilience, community, and adaptive coping strategies in the face of escalating climate crisis.
I hold an Honours B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Toronto and a post-graduate journalism degree from Toronto Metropolitan University. I’m also a graduate of Second City’s conservatory program in improv and sketch comedy. And in 2024, I earned a post-graduate certification in Trauma-Informed Creative Art Therapy through Antioch University in New York. I’m an active member of both The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Federation of British Columbia Writers.
I currently teach satire and humour writing for Second City Toronto and Los Angeles, as well as Alison Wearing’s memoir writing program and The Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson, B.C. I have previously been a guest writing instructor at Humber College in Toronto, Balance for Blind Adults, and The Sarah Selecky Writing School. In 2022, I founded Brave New Word, an online therapeutic writing workshop for people moving through grief and loss. You can learn more about it here.
My first children’s book, Katrina Hyena, about a laughing hyena who laughs at the wrong times, was published with Owlkids in 2024. Pre-pandemic, I performed stand-up comedy at local venues all over Toronto and produced a monthly show called Forever Jung where stand-up comedians did a set and then got analyzed by a therapist live on the stage.
I was born and raised in Toronto but now live in Nelson, British Columbia with my partner, our son, and an extremely floofy Siberian forest cat. I too am happiest in the forest with hot chocolate, a campfire, some instruments, some good friends, and a heart full of ’90s lyrics.