welcome to storied selves!

I’m Sonja Boon (she/her), a mixed-race writer, researcher, flutist, teacher, and stitcher of stories.

Creative play is at the heart of everything I do: I’m a committed pantser and thrive on interactive and non-linear approaches that celebrate the wonder, pleasure, joy, and delight of words, rhythms, textures, sounds, and stories.

I am an award-winning teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience in creative writing, classical music, and university settings in Canada and the UK. Quite simply, I love being in a classroom, both as teacher and as student. I love the energy, the community, and the zing that comes from thinking and writing and creating and musicking and dreaming and imagining together.

The unofficial bio: I love laughing, the colour red (and purple and yellow and blue and…), improv quilting, archives, my curls, walking along the shore, chocolate, the Atlantic wind, flute playing, shortbread, old houses, books that sweep me into other worlds, sunshine on waves, rice pudding, travelling, feminist theory, a cozy duvet on a cold night, toast with honey and butter, big earrings, old photographs, found poetry, icebergs, extra old Gouda cheese, family histories, and more. I spend my days writing, stitching, reading, fluting, teaching, walking, and dreaming along the shores of Nova Scotia.

The official bio: I’ve published creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry in a range of literary magazines, including Riddle Fence, ROOM, The Ethnic Aisle, GEIST, and Pinhole Poetry, and my memoir, What the Oceans Remember: Searching for Belonging and Home, came out in 2019. As a flutist, I’ve performed around the globe for audiences both large and small, from a command performance for the Crown Prince of Japan and patients in a palliative care ward, to appearances with the Toronto Symphony in Roy Thomson Hall, and as a soloist with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. I hold a PhD from Simon Fraser University and have taught at Memorial University, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Bangor University. I’ve also offered workshops and webinars for the Creative Non-Fiction Collective, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, the American Library Association, and Early Music Vancouver. Want an even more fulsome bio? You can check my website (sonjaboon.com) or find my CV here.

Want to know more about my writings and recordings? See below.

photo by Ritche Perez, 2023