Carlyn Zwarenstein is a Toronto writer whose writing has been has been described variously as compelling, sensuous, measured, rage-inducing, radical, and gorgeous. Her second book. On Opium: Pain, Pleasure, and Other Matters of Substance (Goose Lane Editions), was published in September 2021 after appearing on CBC Books and others' most-anticipated fall books lists. An audiobook version will be available from ECW Press in 2022. Carlyn's first book, Opium Eater: The New Confessions, was published in 2016 by Nonvella, a small B.C. press (and appears in an updated version as the first part of On Opium). Opium Eater is a short memoir and meditation on pain, Romanticism, mental health and addiction, patient experience, creativity, escape, the consolations of literature, the writer Thomas De Quincey and the artist Frida Kahlo... and of course, drugs derived from and inspired by opium. This first book has been taught on English literature courses (literatures of addiction) alongside writers like Oscar Wilde, Thomas De Quincey and Charles Baudelaire, and on social work and addiction studies courses as well. Instructors who wish to teach On Opium, which explores an even wider range of issues, can purchase section and chapter excerpts here.  Excerpts from Opium Eater have also appeared around the world on Vice.com's Canadian, American, Swedish, UK, Australia/New Zealand, Mexican and Colombian local sites (the latter two in Spanish translation) and on thetyee.ca. Carlyn has freelanced on a wide range of topics (very wide: police brutality, plague literature, citizen science, tenant rights...) for many years and contributed essays, features, op-eds and news stories to publications such as the Washington Post, the Walrus, Canadian Geographic, the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, Filter Magazine, NOW weekly, eye weekly, the Guardian, Our Times, High Times, Spacing, and many others.  She has also mentored youth writers and newcomer (immigrant) journalists and published poetry in The Malahat Review. Carlyn is a contributing editor at The Breach. She has also worked as a plain language and medical writer and editor for a wide range of non-profit and private clients. Most of Carlyn's current writing fits into categories like social justice, literature, evidence in medicine, and states of mind. She is working on her first novel. Carlyn is available to speak on themes like drug policy, pain, harm reduction and substance use, or on books, literature and creativity. She is represented by Marilyn Biderman at The Transatlantic Agency.