ABOUT US

Darren Alexander was born in North Toronto to a Jamaican-Jewish father and a sabra Israeli mother. He grew up in a home alive with Jamaican patois and Yiddish, the chatter of a pet monkey, and a shortwave radio crackling with Hebrew news. Darren attended Associated Hebrew School in North York, studied creative writing as an undergrad at York University, and later completed his M.Ed. at the University of Victoria.

For 25 years, Darren taught composition, communications, and critical literacy at a range of post-secondary institutions in Ontario and BC. His primary academic interest is media theory grounded in the work of Marshall McLuhan. Darren's creative work has taken many forms— writing and directing plays, exhibiting street-protest photography, directing short documentaries, cartooning, and training youth in digital storytelling. For the past six years, Darren has worked in online education and curriculum development.

Suzanne Alexander grew up in a small town in Washington State, where her parents owned a used bookstore. She spent much of her childhood reading her way through its shelves—from old sci-fi to baseball history—and first discovered Jewish literature at age eleven through Laurie R. King's wonderful mystery novel, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. As a teen, Suzanne fell in love with Mary Antin's Promised Land, Henry Roth's Call It Sleep, and Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories.

Suzanne pursued an independent path of study in college, examining and comparing the epistemological foundations of three humanities disciplines using the structure of their undergraduate curricula as primary texts; she holds a BA in American Studies from Oberlin College, and an Early Childhood Education diploma from Ryerson University. Suzanne studied Jewish literature for a year at the University of Toronto as a visiting student.

For 18 years, Suzanne taught in and directed preschool and alternative school programs, in Northern Ireland, Toronto, and British Columbia. As a mother of young children, Suzanne became fascinated with the silly world of Chelm, whose stories and characters filled the Alexander home for several years. In 2020, she began leading writing workshops for K–12 homeschool students, both in person and online.

Suzanne and Darren have two children and a tabby cat. They live in a century-old house in central Edmonton, Alberta, where they attend Temple Beth Ora.