As a teenager, Hadiya Roderique wanted to take creative writing so badly that she took math at night school an hour away to free up space in her schedule. She took a number of career detours – camp counselor, law student, lawyer, Ph.D. student, podcast host – but writing was always there, calling, in the back of her mind. She burst upon the scene with her debut piece, “Dating While Black”, written for The Walrus. Nominated for 3 National Magazine Awards with her first piece of published writing, including Best New Magazine Writer, she followed this up with her viral essay, “Black on Bay Street”, a searing and poignant recounting of her experience as a young, black female lawyer in the Bay Street world. The piece brought Hadiya instant national acclaim, and it went on to win the Digital Publishing Award Gold Medal for Best Personal Essay. Hadiya’s writing has been published by The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Flare, Elle, Chatelaine, Vice, and Maclean’s, amongst others. In 2017, she was a Literary Journalism Fellow at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Hadiya is currently working on a dystopian novel that weaves science and afro-futurism together to deftly explore issues of race, gender, inequality and climate change. She is also at work on a TV pilot about her experiences as a black lawyer looking to break free of corporate expectations.
