Atefeh Khademolreza, an Iranian-Canadian writer and filmmaker, is the recipient of the 2025 PEN Canada Humber Writers-in-Exile Scholarship.
The scholarship is awarded annually to a member of the PEN Canada Writers in Exile community, a nationwide network of poets, journalists, novelists and writers. Established in 2017, the scholarship covers the full cost of attending the Humber School for Writers’ graduate certificate program in creative writing. The selected writer will work one-on-one with one of Humber’s faculty mentors on a book-length project, like a novel, volume of short stories, or poetry collection. During her year at Humber, Atefeh will work on her debut novel, A Grizzly Bear in Tehran.
As a writer, filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, Atefeh’s work bridges personal memory with collective experience, exploring themes such as women’s rights, queerness, and displacement through a poetic lens. Her recent animated short, Meteor, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and her previous residencies and festival work include the TIFF Micki Moore Residency, Netflix-BANFF Diversity of Voices program, Berlinale Talent Campus, Asian Film Academy, and Reelworld E20. Atefeh is a founding member of the Association of Iranian Film and Theatre Artists Abroad (AIFTAA) and holds an MFA from York University.
While at Humber, Atefeh will write under the guidance of Antanas Sileika, a Canadian-Lithuanian novelist and critic.
“The Humber mentorship program—known for fostering powerful, intimate storytelling—offers an ideal space for me to continue this work,” Atefeh says, hoping that through the mentorship, she can “ensure that the emotional and political complexity of this story resonates with readers both inside and outside Iran.”
Her new novel, A Grizzly Bear in Tehran, follows a young woman who dreams of becoming a journalist under a repressive regime. Set in Tehran, the woman’s journey is marked by quiet defiance and everyday acts of courage as she navigates a system that seeks to silence her.
Atefeh says the novel is a work of fiction drawn from lived experience, considering the novel “a personal act of resistance and a testament to what it means to create under pressure.”
“I conceived the idea nearly ten years ago,” says Atefeh, who emigrated to Canada in 2018. “The layers of this story reflect what I—and many Iranian women—have lived: the dual struggle to find space in a professional world that devalues us, and in a society bound by tradition, repression, religion, patriarchy, and fear.”
Growing up in Tehran, Atefeh has lived through censorship, war, and migration. Because she has been outspoken in her activism and art, returning to Iran would likely result in her arrest.
And yet, she persists. “Storytelling has been my means of survival — a way to resist, to remember, and to hope,” she tells PEN. “It has shaped my identity, my career, and my sense of purpose as an artist in exile.”
About Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning
Innovation. Opportunity. Partnership. Support. Humber College brings it all to more than 86,000 learners, in-person and online. As a global leader in polytechnic education, Humber provides in-depth theoretical learning, hands-on, work-integrated experiences and applied research opportunities to students at three main Toronto locations and beyond. Extensive industry connections, experienced faculty and a comprehensive range of credentials, including honours undergraduate degrees, Ontario graduate certificates, diplomas, apprenticeships, and certificates prepare career-ready global citizens for success in the future world of work. Visit humber.ca.
The Humber School for Writers is noted for its exceptional creative writing mentors including authors of world stature. Past mentors include Martin Amis, Peter Carey, Miriam Toews, David Mitchell, Esi Edugyan, Nino Ricci, Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Hill, Anne Michaels, Edward Albee, Ha Jin and Alistair MacLeod. Recent international authors have included Jenny Offill, Nell Freudenberger, and Ben Fountain.
About PEN Canada
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization that celebrates literature, defends freedom of expression, and assists writers in peril at home and abroad. The English-language Canadian centre was founded in 1983 and is proud to be one of over 130 centres of PEN International.
