Jillian Christmas was born and raised in Markham, Ontario.  She currently lives in Vancouver, BC, where she serves as Artistic Director of  Verses Festival of Words. She has won Grand Poetry-Slam Championship titles at both the Vancouver BedRocc poetry-slam (2011), as well as the Vancouver Poetry Slam (2012, 2014).  To date, Jillian has held spots on five Canadian slam teams, has competed in nine North American national poetry slams, including proudly representing Vancouver at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Minneapolis, MN (2013), Austin, TX (2014), and Albuquerque, NM (2015). Jillian’s work has been published in a number of collections, most recently including Matrix New Queer Writing (issue 98), and celebrated anthology, The Great Black North.