50 words bio
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author. His novels, The Clothesline Swing and The Foghorn Echoes continue to receive accolades. His award-winning children’s series The Salma Books follows the adventures of a little Syrian girl immigrant to Canada. Ramadan has raised over $300,000 for LGBTQ+ refugees.
Press Photos
100 words bio
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and LGBTQ-refugees advocate. His novels, The Clothesline Swing (Nightwood - 2017) and The Foghorn Echoes (Penguin - 2022) continue to receive accolades. His award-winning children’s series The Salma Books is released by AnnickPress. It includes picture book Salma the Syrian Chef (2020), and early chapters books Salma Makes a Home and Salma Writes a Book (2023). He is expected to release his memoir Crooked Teeth in 2024. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications across North America and Europe. Since his arrival to Canada, Ramadan has raised over $300,000 for LGBTQ+ identifying refugees.
Full Bio
Danny Ramadan (He/Him) is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees.
As an author:
His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing (Nightwood Editions – 2017), was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads, and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.
Ramadan’s sophomore novel, The Foghorn Echoes (Penguin Random House – 2022) was released to critical praise by The Guardian, Vanity Fair and other media outlets across Canada, the UK and the US. It is shortlisted to for the Lambda Literary Award.
He won the Fiddlehead Short Fiction Contest 2018 with My Name is Bridge, and was a finalist for the Bridge Prize with The Miraculous Return of Khaled from the Dead.
His children book, Salma the Syrian Chef (AnnickPress – 2020), won the Nautilus Book Award, The Middle East Book Award, and named a Best Book by both Kirkus and School Library Journal. It was nominated to the Forest of Reading’s Blue Spruce award, Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize, and the BC/Yukon book prizes.
Salma’s spin-off series of early chapters books includes Salma Makes a Home (May 2023), Salma Writes a Book (October 2023) and Salma Joins the Team (April 2024).
Ramadan is currently working on Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Story (Penguin Random House - 2024.
As an educator and public speaker:
Ramadan was appointed the Writer in Residence at the Saskatoon Public Library (2020-2021), The Haig-Brown House in Campbell River, BC (2021-2022) and the University of Toronto – Scarborough (2022-2023). His talks focus on the intricate relationship between the craft tools of writing, and the intersectional identity of the author.
Ramadan is also known for his TEDTalk, The Refugee Tree, which was filmed in Vancouver in 2016. Ramadan presented in conferences and writers festivals across the globe both on his work as an author, as well as his activism.
In his advocacy work:
Ramadan runs the annual fundraiser An Evening in Damascus since 2015. The event aims at community building around LGBTQ+ Syrian refugees and offer them a safe and dignified passage to a new home in Canada. Since its conception, EiD had raised over $300,000 for Rainbow Refugee Society, which aided in the safe arrival of twenty-five refugees from across the MENA region.
Ramadan served on the Vancouver Pride Society Board (2016-2020). He served as The Writers Union of Canada’s BC/Yukon Representative between 2021-2023, and is currently the Union’s First Vice Chair, positioned to become the first queer man of colour to take on the president’s role in May 2023.
For his activism, Ramadan was named among the Top Immigrants to Canada 2017 as well as awarded the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Award for Excellency. He was also sainted by the Vancouver Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and given the title Saint Guiding Light to Sanctuary, New Home and Safety.
Ramadan has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and currently lives in Vancouver with his husband, Matthew, and his dog, Freddie. If he is not writing, he is probably playing a video game.