Liars of Orpheus

Hosted by SJ Valiquette, Liars of Orpheus revolves around writers attempting to lie their way through stories, poems and lectures.
Each of the five writers will produce work that are made entirely of lies with the exception of five pieces of truth each. They will win points from sneaking their truths past their opponents or having their lies mistaken for truths. The winner of this month’s competition receives a tiara and points towards our end of the season finally in April.

For our debut show, Death Rides a Unicorn is very proud to present Erin Kirsh, Sonya Littlejohn, Holly Flauto, Spillious the Ridiculous and a mystery storyteller.

Erin Kirsh is an award-winning writer, performer, and funnyman from Toronto. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Malahat Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, bBarren Magazine, Short Edition, CV2, ARC Poetry Magazine, QWERTY, Poetry is Dead, EVENT, PULP Literature, Geist and more.

Holly Flauto(she/they) is a poet, story-teller, learner and instructor living and writing on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwxwú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. ̱ Their debut poetry-memoir collection exploring immigration to Canada as a modern-day settler, Permission to Settle, will be published with Anvil Press in September 2024. Their fiction and creative memoir has previously been published in The Ex- Puritan, Joyland, and The Rusty Toque, and they perform as Stella Palermo on the local story and poetry slam stages. Holly is a Creative Writing and English instructor at Capilano University.
Sonya Littlejohn recently graduated from Simon Fraser University with a certificate in Community Capacity Building. She holds a bachelor of arts from UBC, a career in poetry performance and facilitation, and communication building. She is a community engagement facilitator, a cultural worker, community coordinator, mad artist and poet.

Spillious aka Trevana Spilchen is a Trans feminine settler parent, musician, spoken word artist and educator of Ukrainian and Irish decent. They are 2024 recipient of the Zacheus Jackson Memorial award won the 2017 Grand Slam Championship of the Vancouver Poetry slam and finished 6th at the 2018 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam.

They have toured as a featured poet all throughout Canada and the US. Spillious has released 3 chapbooks of poetry and the last, Tales of Trans-formation sold 200 copies. From Sept 2021-23 they shepherded the return of poetry slam in Vancouver as the Slam Coordinator for Vancouver Poetry House and the Tournament Director for the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championships. Most importantly, Spillious is a parent to 4 kids ranging in age from 5 yrs to 23 yrs old and 4 cats named Cola, Orange Crush, Dr. Pepper & Rootbeer!

There will be a short open mic prior to the competition reserved for liars and faux poets. Each one of the Open Mic pieces also has to adhere to being all lies, save 5 truths and under 5 minutes in length.