Dr. Cynthia Spada

Born in Boston, I earned my PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on 20th-century prose in English and Japanese. Before moving to Canada in 2017, I taught academic writing, creative writing, and literature in the United States and Japan and conducted field research in Poland on a Fulbright grant. Since 2019, I’ve taught academic writing and literature courses at the University of Victoria. At Royal Roads University, I teach courses in interdisciplinary and academic writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and I also designed their first literature courses.

I've published one novel (The Floating World/Ballantine) and one academic monograph (The Demimonde in Japanese Literature/Cambria Press). I've written short stories, creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and humor for many print and online publications, including Ploughshares, The Mississippi Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Salon, Electric Literature, The Conversation, Room, The Antigonish Review, Witness, storySouth, Asymptote Journal, and Prairie Fire, who chose me for their 50 Canadian Women Writers Over 50 issue. One of my essays will be included in the forthcoming Best Canadian Essays 2026 anthology (Biblioasis Publishing).