home

Nisha’s 3rd poetry collection, For the Record, is out with Arsenal Pulp Press on October 20, 2026. You can pre-order the book here, at your local bookstore, come to a tour stop, or check out titles from the public library as they become available.

Advanced Praise for For the Record:

“Nisha Patel’s For the Record meets the enormity of the historical present with grace and erudition and emotional clarity. The book asks, What is poetry in the face of a pandemic, in the face of climate disaster, in the face of genocide? For the Record is a record of a long and complex moment that we are fortunate to have now and will be fortunate to have in the future.”
—Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of The Idea of an Entire Life

“Like a Formula 1 car ripping around the track at 350 km/hr, Nisha takes the reader on a poetic narrative journey that brings us back to the vestiges of 2020 COVID and into the present. This poem blurs together just like how the grandstands would look to an F1 driver to give the reader a sense of despair over government inadequacy but also show the way that we move forward individually and as a community through trying times.”
—Conor Kerr, author of Beaver Hills Forever

“This is not a time capsule, nor an archive, nor a memoir. While much of the world speaks of COVID-19 in the past tense, For the Record demands we reckon with the ongoing presence of the virus and the systemic injustices it lays bare. In this powerful work, Patel interweaves years’ worth of news headlines with the intimacies of the ill body, collapsing time and space in an urgent act of witnessing.”
—Jennifer Bowering Delisle, author of Stock

“From piercing indictments of organized abandonment to tender elegies for her masi as the poet becomes one herself, Nisha Patel unfurls a sense of presence to our unending pandemic times. Her attention to the world is a welcome balm to the gleaming surfaces of colonial racial capital forcing us to forget; despite the speed of tragedy, this poem demands that we slow down and pay attention to love.”
—Jane Shi, author of echolalia echolalia

“Nisha Patel’s For the Record examines part of the COVID-19 pandemic with a journalist’s eye and a poet’s heart. Her poems amplify the stories of the marginalized and their struggles and tell the larger story of COVID-19 while weaving in her own personal health issues. For the Record is an example of the personal and the political beautifully intertwined.”
—alexis kienlen, journalist, and novelist

About Nisha

Nisha Patel is an award-winning disabled queer spoken word author & artist. She was the City of Edmonton’s 8th Poet Laureate, and is a Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion. Her debut poetry collection, COCONUT (NeWest Press) was a finalist for the ABPA Regional Book of the Year. Her sophomore poetry collection a fate worse than death is out now Arsenal Pulp Press. Nisha has taught creative writing, arts leadership, and more. She currently works for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

Nisha is a full-time diabetic. She has delivered keynotes and lectures on the intersections between queerness and disability, and frequently teaches workshops on using creativity as a tool in understanding and celebrating mental health. Much of her day to day is spent with her partner, author and artist Matthew James Weigel (Whitemud Walking), as they navigate care. 

Nisha was awarded the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, and was a finalist of the Vallum Chapbook Award. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she has been published by filling station, GUTS magazine, THIS Magazine, Edify, New Trail, Glass Buffalo, The Polyglot, and more, and has works in anthologies with The City Series: Edmonton (Frog Hollow Press), COVID Collections, and Hush No More: Poetry and Art to End Rape Culture. Nisha holds a Masters of Arts in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University and is completing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta – Alberta School of Business.

Nisha works towards her goal of building a stronger artistic community through living in her truth. You can find her on social media @anothernisha

Bookings are limited. Please get in touch as early as possible before your requested event. 

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU

• Online Performance, In-Person Performances
• Remote and Virtual Workshops (writing, performance, storytelling) 
• Public Speaking (poetry, disability justice, mental health)
• Commissions, Grant-Writing, Proofing and Editing
• Mentorship & Coaching