Renato Gandia

Renato Gandia is a Filipino-Canadian writer based in Calgary whose poetry manuscript Psalmody for the Estranged won the 2026 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His poetry has also won the 2025 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and been a finalist for awards from The Malahat Review and The Fiddlehead. His work explores diaspora, faith, and queer identity, drawing on thirteen years in Catholic seminary formation — where he studied philosophy and theology — before he chose not to be ordained. His work has appeared in The Funicular, Milk Bag Magazine, ginger & smoke, The Polyglot, and the Magdaragat anthology, with new stories forthcoming in This Magazine and Beyond the Concert Hall (Laberinto Press). His memoir Unpriesting is forthcoming.