Margaret Christakos is a poet and fiction writer living in Toronto whose work has shown consistent interest in recombinant poetics, process writing and seriality. She has published six collections of poetry and one novel, and has given readings and seminars from her work since 1989. Her book Excessive Love Prostheses, "takes the confessional lyric poem and runs it through Kathy Acker's Cuisinart." It was awarded the 2003 ReLit Award for Poetry. ARC Magazine wrote of her 2005 collection Sooner: “So much to praise here: the writing is rich with fresh, startling urban imagery; the shifts of register and tone keep the reader on his or her toes; the handling of the disjunctive narrative/lyric line keep the poems kinetic yet filled with tension, restless, questing.” – Arc: Canada's National Poetry Magazine

Christakos has worked as a literary educator in various contexts over many years: During 2006 and 2007 she has worked online with high school students with Writers in Electronic Residence (WIER), as a poetry instructor at Glendon College (York University) and with the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program, where she teaches creative writing and facilitates the innovative lecture/reading series “Influency: A Toronto Poetry Salon.”

Christakos has a long relationship with designing and curating literary events in Toronto, trying to build community and interest new audiences in diverse poetics and poets. As Toronto representative for the League of Canadian Poets from 2000 to 2002, she organized the daylong poetry festival Poetry College, bringing together numerous poets in trendy restaurants along Toronto's College Street restaurant strip.

From 1992 until 1997, Christakos taught creative writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design. She edited MIX: The Magazine of Artist-Run Culture from 1994 to 1996, and has worked as an editor at Fuse Magazine, Women's Education des femmes, Fireweed, and for many freelance clients including Public, YYZ, AGO and Women's Press. In 2003-4 she worked as fulltime Coordinator of PEN Canada's Readers & Writers program. In 2004-05, she was Canada Council Writer in Residence with the English Department at the University of Windsor.

About her 2000 book Wipe Under A Love, the Journal of Canadian Poetry wrote,"[Christakos's] poems frisk, truncate, evaporate and return...These poems are something else." Her debut novel Charisma was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in 2001, and her poem "Pumpkins, for Claire" received the Bliss Carman Poetry Award that same year.

An experienced teacher, Christakos's approach in a workshop setting is to charge new writers with the excitement of merging, layering and firing various stylistic and sensory pleasures through language, inviting both story and interest in how story is rarely enough for poetry's capacious channels.

Christakos was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario. She lives in Toronto with her partner and their three children.

Awards
Trillium Book Award Shortlist, 2001, Charisma
Bliss Carman Poetry Award, 2001
Queen Street Quarterly Poetry Contest, 2nd Prize, 2001
ReLit Award for Poetry, 2003, Excessive Love Prostheses
Pat Lowther Memorial Award Shortlist, 2006, Sooner

Selected Publications
Not Egypt (Coach House Press, 1989) ISBN 0-88910-345-3.
Other Words for Grace (The Mercury Press, 1994) ISBN 1-55128-017-5).
The Moment Coming (ECW Press, 1998) ISBN 1-55022-362-3.
Wipe Under A Love (The Mansfield Press, 2000) ISBN 1-894469-01-1.
Charisma (Pedlar Press, 2000) ISBN 0-9681884-9-4.
Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House Books, 2002) ISBN 1-55245-102-X
Sooner (Coach House Books, 2005) ISBN 1-55245-159-3

Selected Anthologies
Plural Desires: Bisexual Women Writing Culture (Sister Vision Press).
The Last Word (Insomniac Press, 2002)
Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales (Women's Press. 2002) ISBN 0-88961-403-2.

Books in Print
Christakos, Margaret
Other Words for Grace Poetry (The Mercury Press, 1994) ISBN 1-55128-017-5, $11.95.
The Moment Coming Poetry (ECW Press, 1998) ISBN 1-55022-362-3, $14.95.
Wipe Under A Love Poetry (The Mansfield Press, 2000) ISBN 1-894469-01-1, $12.95.
Charisma Fiction (Pedlar Press, 2000) ISBN 0-9681884-9-4, $20.95.
Excessive Love Prostheses Poetry (Coach House Books, 2002) ISBN 1-55245-102-X, $16.95.
Sooner (Coach House Books, 2005) ISBN 1-55245-159-3, $16.95.

Margaret Christakos
mchristakos@hotmail.com
www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/narrativity/
www.alienated.net/lexiconjury
www.mansfieldpress.net
www.chbooks.com