About

Black Iris is the online literary magazine of Donna Bailey Nurse. It is designed and illustrated by Mallory Drumm. Donna Bailey Nurse is a Canadian literary critic. She is the author of two volumes of collected writing, What’s a Black Critic To Do? and the editor of Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing. Donna is a contributor to The Walrus, The Boston Globe, Maclean’s and The Literary Review of Canada. Her work has also appeared in Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. Donna is a columnist for The Next Chapter on CBC Radio. She has conducted on-stage interviews for The International Festival of Authors, Luminato, Toronto Public Library and at the Gardner Museum and curated events for several institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario. Donna taught Arts Journalism at George Brown College and has delivered lectures on Black Canadian literature to Mount Allison University, The University of New Brunswick, the University of Toronto and various clubs and institutions and she also delivered the keynote lecture on Austin Clarke’s novel More for the City of Toronto’s One Book Club.  A former member of the Toronto Arts Council’s Literary Committee, Donna has also been a judge for the Governor General’s Non-Fiction prize, The Amazon First Novel Award, The CBC Poetry Prize and The Hilary Weston Non-Fiction prize. She is on the jury of the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

IN the media

Work By Donna