More About Nadia L. Hohn (She/Her)

Toronto-born of Jamaican parents, Nadia L. Hohn is an award-winning author, educator, and "artivist" who advocates for diversity in children's literature. Nadia L. Hohn is the author of Malaika’s Costume (2016) which was the 2021 TD Grade One Book Giveaway, a program which distributes over 550, 000 copies to Canadian first graders. Her other books in the series are Malaika’s Winter Carnival (2017), Blue Spruce Award-nominated Malaika’s Surprise (2021), and Malaika, Carnival Queen (2023), published by Groundwood Books. Nadia has also written Getting Us to Grandma’s (Groundwood Books, Oct. 2024), Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighter (Harper Collins, 2018), Music (Grade 5) and Media (Grade 6) in the Sankofa Black Heritage Collection series (Rubicon Publishing Inc, 2015), and A Likkle Miss Lou: How Jamaican Poet Louise Bennett Coverley Found Her Voice (Owlkids Books, 2019). Nadia is the editor and contributor of The Antiracist Kitchen: 21 Stories (and Recipes) (Orca). Her latest book Patty Dreams (Owlkids, 2025) was nominated for a 2026 Blue Spruce Award (Forest of Reading/Ontario Library Association). She continues to write plays and songs, as well as picture books and novels (in progress) for young people.

Her writing has been featured in anthologies and publications, like Psychology Today, Quill & Quire, Owl, Chickadee, Book News, ByBlacks, ArcPoetry, and Write. Nadia is a playwright who has staged shorter plays in elementary and high schools. In 2025, her debut play Wheel & Turn debuted at the Windsor Fringe Festival in which she also co-directed, produced, and acted.

Nadia L. Hohn completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Honours Psychology (B.A. Hon.) at the University of Waterloo. She completed her Bachelor (BEd) and Master of Education in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education (MEd) degrees at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). She completed a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. Nadia has completed courses and workshops in playwriting, screenwriting, and filmmaking at the Liason of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), Women in Film & Television (WIFT), George Brown College, and the University of Guelph.

Nadia has delivered hundreds of presentations at schools, libraries, book stores, and literary festivals in Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Trinidad, Jamaica, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates.

Elle peut lire, écrire et parler en français. She has intermediate levels of communication in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.

Nadia has taught creative writing courses in post-secondary institutions but currently is a librarian and music teacher at an elementary school in Toronto, where she also lives. When she’s not lost in a story or concocting a tasty vegetarian dish, she is likely spending time in music and the arts or daydreaming about her next adventure.

You can find Nadia online at:

www.nadialhohn.com

Instagram I Twitter/X I Bluesky

Facebook I LinkedIn I Substack

Nadia’s strengths include…

• Sensitivity reads

• Line edits

• Big picture edits

• Her experience as a teacher and librarian means she reads hundreds of books, including her own, to children and for her own enjoyment. This has given Nadia an advantage at knowing where your book may fit, stages of development, and school-based realities. She is a visual thinker, so has strong sense of illustration-styles and author-illustrator matches in picture books, as well as what works for read alouds given her experience of having delivered hundreds of author visits and presentations in different countries.

What Nadia is looking for…

Nadia is looking for a mentee who wishes to take her manuscript to the next level. She is particularly interested in mentees who give back to the children's publishing community, as well as those who are teachers who wish to write. She is looking for someone who has already worked on their manuscripts and hopes to be open to advice and can take direct feedback. Nadia loves deep, multilayered picture books. She is looking for beautiful language. Stories that make you reflect, warm your heart, and even laugh. She is not looking for toilet humour and gross out facts. Although

Nadia will consider all submissions, she particularly enjoys soulful, musical, nostalgic, and poetic books with Black characters, cultures, and histories.

A Note from Nadia:

“I will help you to make your story sing.”

Nadia’s Picture Books

Note that Nadia writes in additional markets. Visit her website for her full body of work.

If Nadia created a Visual Wish List, it would be made up of…

*Unless otherwise stated, the below serves as a wish list only. Each mentor is excited about the opportunity to find a manuscript they can’t stop thinking about. Please apply if you think you’d be a good fit.

Vibes like:

Nadia is a good fit for:

• Nonfiction

• Biographies

• Immigrant stories

• Multilingual stories

• Cultural (by people of that culture)

• Neurodivergence

• Characters with special talents, abilities, and interests

• Visual thinkers

• Multiplatform and multidisciplinary artists (e.g., writers who are also musicians, filmmakers, etc.)

Nadia is not a good fit for:

• Stories dealing with war/conflict

• Toilet or gross out humour

• 🚫 Please do not send manuscripts including violence, gore, or occult

Who can apply to Nadia?
Unagented Text-Only Authors who identify as BIPOC.

Click to view all 2026 Mentors.