Kasia van Schaik was born in South Africa, raised in BC, and has lived in Toronto, Berlin, and Montreal, where she earned a doctorate from McGill. Kasia van Schaik is currently an assistant professor of English and the co-director of Creative Writing at UNB. Her books include the Giller-nominated story collection We Have Never Lived on Earth (2022), the poetry chapbook, Sea Burial Laws According to Country (2018), and the co-edited essay collection, Shelter in Text: Essays on Dwelling and Refuge (2025). Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature, the LA Review of Books, Geist, Maisonneuve Magazine, and the CBC. She has read and presented work at literary festivals including the Blue Metropolis and Quebec City's Imagination Festival. Forthcoming in February 2026, Women Among Monuments is her debut nonfiction book. Part cultural criticism, part memoir, Women Among Monuments is a meditation on the enduring obstacles women artists and writers face in a world still unaccustomed to recognizing female genius.