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Jessica Bebenek

Jessica Bebenek

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Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet, bookmaker, and educator living between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabe territory. Her most recent chapbook is You Don’t Get Out Much (2024) & her debut full-length collection, No One Knows Us There (Book*hug Press, 2025), has been shortlisted for the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s A.M. Klein Prize and the Concordia First Book Prize.

No One Knows Us There

From wherever I am, I will send word like a golden thread, roll an unravelling ball through time toward myself. In this stunning debut collection, Bronwen Wallace Award finalist Jessica Bebenek presents two distinct and moving portraits of early womanhood. The first is that of the devoted, caregiving granddaughter navigating hospital hallways and the painful realities of palliative care. The second is that of a woman a decade older, compassionately looking back on her younger self. In this second half, Bebenek rewrites poems from the first, honouring unimaginable loss and turning it into genuine healing. At once sensual, visceral, and dreamlike, No One Knows Us There takes us from the sterility of the hospital into the sumptuous natural world. We face horror in a manicured garden and discover beauty in a suncapped lake. A theoretical mathematician leads us to an elk encounter, the crooked bodies of birds are found in the spring thaw, and we become our own pet snail in a mason jar. Ultimately, grief is radically transformed through plainspoken yet lyrical language, and this keen examination of trauma evolves into a striking celebration of the inevitability of change.
22.95 $
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25
April 2026

FRYE Cabaret

Join us for our first ever FRYE Cabaret! Our six authors will read from their latest work, accompanied by drummer, percussionist and composer Martin Daigle. 

Presented in partnership with l’Été musical de Barachois

15.00 $
Event details and registration
27
April 2026

How Far the Light Reaches

This event will begin with a Flash FRYE reading by Rebecca Salazar (antibody, M&S), followed by an in-conversation with Jessica Bebenek (No One Knows Us There, Book*hug) and Canisia Lubrin (The World After Rain, M&S). Join our guests as they discuss the many ways in which we can care for loved ones, as well as honor and mourn unimaginable losses.

10.00 $
Event details and registration
28
April 2026

Poetry & Zine-Making for Self-Expression: a workshop with Jessica Bebenek

LIMITED PLACES! Sign up to reserve your spot! Have you ever wanted to share your writing with like-minded people, but weren’t sure how? This workshop will explore writing poetry and making zines (do-it-yourself mini-books) as creative, accessible ways for anyone to tell their story and find community through self-expression. Participants will leave the workshop with new writing and their very own zine which they can easily & affordably reproduce to share with friends, family, and other zinesters. This workshop has very limited places, please be mindful when signing up. You might be taking someone else's spot if you don't show up!

Free
Event details and registration