About Me

Alena Papayanis is a Toronto-based essayist whose work explores later-in-life queerness, autism, identity, and the pursuit of connection. She began writing during the pandemic, and her essays have since appeared in The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, HuffPost Personal, Chatelaine, CBC Emerging Queer Writers, Xtra, and The Globe and Mail, among others. In 2024, her work was long-listed for the International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir. She is currently working on her first manuscript, a memoir in essays, and organizes a monthly queer nonfiction writing group in Toronto.