Zahida Rahemtulla

Zahida Rahemtulla is a playwright and short story writer currently based between Vancouver and Toronto. She has been a resident at the Banff Centre in Alberta, the Stratford Theatre Festival, and Millay Colony for the Arts in rural New York. Her first plays, The Wrong Bashir and the Frontliners, have been shortlisted for many awards, including the Playwrights Guild of Canada Surefire! Lists, the Ellen Ross Stuart Playwriting Award (Tarragon Theatre & Ontario Arts Foundation), the Voaden Literary Prize, and won the 2021 RBC Emerging Playwright Award and a national Silk Road Artist Award. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Alice Munro Award and longlisted for the CBC short story prize. Zahida has worked for several years in Vancouver’s immigrant and refugee nonprofit sector in the areas of housing, employment, and literacy, She is currently studying Adult Education at the University of Toronto. The Wrong Bashir will premiere as an audio play with the Arts Club Theatre Company in March 2022, and The Frontliners will premiere live with the Playwrights Theatre Centre’s New Play in Development Prize in September 2022.