A smiling young man with short blond hair, wearing a dark jacket and a light blue collared shirt, sitting near a window with curtain, with a green plant in the background.

Graham Slaughter is a Toronto-based writer whose work has been shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Bronwen Wallace Award, the RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award, and longlisted for the Masters Review Novel Excerpt contest.

His stories are published or forthcoming in PRISM international, Bodega Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Toronto Life, The Toronto Star, and elsewhere. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University.

He is currently working on a coming-of-age novel and is seeking representation. Reach him at grahamslaughterwrites@gmail.com.

Portfolio

Breach | Bronwen Wallace Award finalist, 2025

While their stories diverged, my parents could both agree that my strangest tendencies were a direct result of my backwards origin. Growing up, I gained a reputation for collecting dead baby birds in the spring that had fallen from their nests and giving them backyard burials. The garden along our back fence was lined with popsicle-stick crosses. My father thought I had an unhealthy tolerance for the disgusting, but my mother laughed it off, saying it must be because I was a breach.

To me, they both felt wrong. I thought every creature, even the forgotten ones, deserved a proper sendoff.

The Hermitage | PRISM international (Forthcoming 2026)

Nina smiled without teeth and looked out the window. The night sky was starless. The moon hung half-empty over their vast acreage. ‘Bucolic’ was the word she’d used the first time they walked across the estate, twenty years ago, after Clark’s Big Deal went through and they could afford to build a mansion outside the city like they’d always dreamed of when they were youngish and semi-poor. Clark’s response, which she liked to bring up at cocktail parties, half-joke and half-stab: Bucolic — isn’t that a disease?

A Spell For Oliver | Bodega Magazine

A woman in a yellow puffer jacket hands out white roses, still studded in thorns. We hold them gently to avoid cuts. Others pass around votive candles stabbed through plastic cups to catch the wax. Dusk glows pink and tangerine in the village windows, giving them the illusion of life. Lots of people like to hate this city as a pastime, especially those who’ve never been here, but we find beauty in the plainest places. It’s part of what we love about each other, our aptitude for silver linings.

Praise for my Work

“‘Breach’ transforms personal grief into a resonant exploration of fatherhood, masculinity, and reconciliation with raw honesty and evocative lyricism. Graham Slaughter skillfully balances narrative with introspection and metaphor, weaving together a poignant birth story, a father’s late-life suicide, and the haunting image of whales breaching — creatures both distant and awe-inspiring. This beautifully crafted, vulnerable essay lingers in the mind, marking Slaughter as a writer of immense depth, skill, and courage.”

— 2025 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award creative nonfiction jury

A man in a suit and glasses standing at a clear podium with the letters 'WT' on it, speaking to an audience in a room with large windows, two red banners with white geometric designs and the words 'Writers' Trust of Canada', and a green, leafy outdoor background.