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About

Writer, artist and musician Kayt (Lackie) Burgess was born in Manitouwadge, Ontario and grew up in Elliot Lake. They studied classical music at the University of Western Ontario, publishing at Humber College, and creative writing at the University of Auckland and Bath Spa University. Their first novel Heidegger Stairwell won the infamous 3 Day Novel Contest and was published by 3 Day Books and Arsenal Pulp Press in September 2012. It was shortlisted for the 2013 ReLit Award for Fiction. It was a adapted as a short film entitled We Forgot to Break Up, which premiered at TIFF in 2017. It is currently being adapted as a feature film. Kayt’s second novel Connection at Newcombe was published in May 2021 by Latitude 46 Publishing.

Burgess (as Kayt Lackie) is a recurring staff writer on the hit fitness app Zombies, Run!. They received their PhD in Digital Creative Writing from Bath Spa University where they taught creative writing.

Kayt was the Artistic Director of The VESSEL Transmedia Storytelling Lab in Northern Ontario. Their work on their flagship project The VESSEL Project earned the collective the 2018 Dot Award - New Media Writing Prize. In addition to writing, they run a private music studio where they teach voice, piano, speech arts and drama, as well as a variety of instruments. In January 2020, Kayt joined Digital Creator North as the Program Lead/Researcher in Elliot Lake.

Kayt splits their time between the UK and Canada.


Artist Statement

“In addition to writing novels, I create new media and post-digital works of storytelling that bring together multiple communication modes, including text, design, typography, illustration, music, sound, gesture and interactivity. While I write across boundaries of genre and form, I regularly explore themes of science and environment, gender and sexuality, family and community, and power and corruption. My storytelling is usually deeply embedded in first person or close third person points of view and many of my stories are polyphonic narratives involving multiple perspectives that clash and undermine one another. In both my pervasive storytelling and novels, I poke at the line between real life and fantasy, investigating the nature of fiction, of lying, probing why humans participate in un-reality and how we can use fiction to improve how we live with the real world. ”


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