About
BlackLit Canada

Who We Are

BlackLit Canada is the public identity of the Canadian Black Literature Institute, a nonprofit organization developing programs, resources and partnerships to support Black Canadian literature throughout the country.

Our Beginning

Flyer for AfriCANthology event. Featuring images of four Black poets and cover artwork of AfriCANthology book. Event details: Saturday, June 18 at 7:00 p.m. at St. Francis Centre for Community, Arts & Culture.

BlackLit Canada began in 2021 as AfriCANthology Canada, a nonprofit created in part to support the launch of a Black Canadian cultural project of the same name. The first major output of the project was the anthology AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets, originally published by Renaissance Press.

A June 2022 showcase in Ajax, Ontario, held to promote the anthology, led to the founding of BlackLit Durham, a series of literary showcases held every other month. The series begins its fifth season on October 25, 2026.

The BlackLit Durham program was expanded with the launch of the Canadian Black Literary Festival in August 2026. During the planning stages of the inaugural festival, the organization adopted the Canadian Black Literature Institute name to reflect a broader commitment to Black Canadian literature and the people who create, study, publish and share it.

Our Future

Three individuals seated on stage in a panel discussion, each holding a microphone. The woman in the centre is speaking, while the other two listen attentively. They are seated in white chairs with a large screen behind them.

BlackLit Canada is growing from its beginnings in Durham Region into an organization with a national purpose. We want Black Canadian literature to be easier to find, better documented, more widely read and studied, and more consistently supported. That calls for something bigger than a sole focus on events. It calls for developing resources, relationships and opportunities that will serve writers and communities over time.

Our plans include making the Canadian Black Writers Directory accessible to the public, developing book projects that centre Black Canadian book-writing, creating professional development opportunities, and pursuing research, publication and preservation projects. We also envision partnerships and creative campuses in different parts of the country, built with the people and organizations already doing this work in their communities.

BlackLit Durham and the Canadian Black Literary Festival will remain important parts of what we do. They bring people together to experience literature. The Institute will build on that foundation to give Black Canadian literary culture a stronger place in our national life, now and for the future.

Our Logo

Abstract black and white stylized letter B design with bold curved shapes.

The visual identity of the Canadian Black Literature Institute centres on a symbol called “The Living Line.” The mark takes inspiration from historical printers’ devices as one uninterrupted line folded into a compact form, suggesting:

  • lines of writing and accumulated knowledge;

  • ideas moving through an enduring structure;

  • circulation between artistic creation, scholarship, and public life; and

  • continuity without stillness.

The Living Line reads simultaneously as printer’s ribbon, continuous movement and a stylized B, and in its own way captures the essence of the four pillars of our work: preserve, create, amplify, activate.