Christine Estima is a playwright, novelist, performer and writer sleeping in some forgotten corner of a European railway station.
Her debut book THE SYRIAN LADIES BENEVOLENT SOCIETY, published by House of Anansi Press, hit the shelves November 14, 2023 and has received critical acclaim, named one of the Best Books of 2023 by CBC.
Her writing has appeared many publications. Her essays, op-eds, editorials, reportage have been published in The New York Times, The Observer, The Walrus, VICE, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, CBC, Etalk, Chatelaine, Refinery29, The National Post, Metro News Canada, New York Daily News, Bitch Magazine, Broadly, NOW Magazine, Maisonneuve Magazine, Spacing Magazine, J-Source, The UC Observer/Broadview Magazine, Nicki Swift, Glam, Explore, SheKnows, Inside Hook, The Grid, Rabble, AufBau Magazine, Blisstree, The Gloss, YYZ Living Magazine, Matrix Magazine, Exclaim!, Chart Magazine, Northern Ontario Magazine.
Her short stories, prose fiction, and academic essays have been published in The Toronto Star, Prism International, Notre Dame Review, GRAIN: Journal of Eclectic Writing, EVENT Literary Magazine, subTerrain Magazine, Prairie Fire Magazine, The Puritan, The Antigonish Review, The Madison Review, The Malahat Review, Descant Literary Journal, The New Quarterly, Room Magazine, Broken Pencil Magazine, Palaver Journal, VERGE Magazine, UKULA, CanPlay, The Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, and Canadian Theatre Review.
In addition, her fiction and non-fiction have been printed in 2023 BEST CANADIAN STORIES (Biblioasis), the travel anthology Navigating Customs: A Tendril Anthology (Cumulus Press), Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine anthology (Caitlin Press), and the anthology ToK: Writing the New Toronto.
She was a shortlisted finalist for the 2023 Lee Smith Novel Prize, and nominated for the 2018 Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism, where she was a short-listed finalist. She was also long-listed for the 2015 CBC Canada Writes Creative NonFiction prize, and was a finalist in 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada short-prose competition.
Photo by Graham Isador
As a Spoken Word artist, she has performed at The Moth (NYC), Spark London (UK), Storytelling Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal), Raconteurs (Toronto), True Stories Told Live (Toronto), Pressgang Storytelling (Toronto), The Spoke/Outside The March (Toronto), and Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids (Canada).
Playwrighting credits include, Thou Shalt Not COVID Thy Neighbour’s Wife (2021, Next Stage Festival, Toronto Fringe), The Appropriation Prize (2017, Social Capital Theatre, Unit 102/Operation 24), Vignettes In The Dark (2004, Toronto Fringe Festival), The Spadina Monologues (2005, The New Ideas Festival, Alumnae Theatre; 2007, Theatre Passe Muraille backspace, 2010 Foundry Theatre), and The Central Line(2009, International Women Playwrights Conference, Mumbai).
Christine holds a Master of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University (Toronto, Canada). Her award-nominated thesis explores narratives of gendered-ethnicities on the Toronto stage, post 9/11. Try saying that five times, really fast.
She has lectured at the Toronto International Festival of Authors, the Vancouver Writers’ Fest, The FOLD Festival, the Association for Canadian Theatre Research conference, the 8th International Women's Playwright conference, the 6th Global Conference on Storytelling, and was an invited panellist at both York University's Writing & Publishing Career Conversations, and Social Media Week Vancouver.
Christine was a cast member on the highly-controversial 2008 reality TV show When Women Rule The World, hosted by Steve Jones (T4, The X-Factor, Entertainment Tonight), which premiered on the Channel 4 network in the UK, and was produced by September Films.
She was also a cast member on the popular documentary series First Dates, which premiered on Channel 4 and was produced by Twenty Twenty.
Christine cannot wear white without spilling something on it, but you’ll still find her, most likely, in the fridge at 4am.