about

Hi! My name’s Daniel Sarah Karasik. Typically I go by Daniel Sarah or D.S., though Daniel is okay too if you’re feeling old-school. I’m a writer, editor, strategist, facilitator, speaker, and coach.

Since the beginning of 2023, I’ve been lead strategist at Evenings & Weekends Consulting (E&W), a consultancy that works with non-profits, charities, unions, and other organizations to advance good social change. I’ve done a lot of different kinds of work with E&W, but my main area of specialization has been strategic planning. I also serve as managing editor of Midnight Sun, a magazine of left, labour, and social movement strategy, launched in 2021.

Highlights of my social movement and other political work include co-founding and coordinating the Toronto-based political network Artists for Climate & Migrant Justice and Indigenous Sovereignty, rallying the public for wage equity through the dynamic Fight For $15 and Fairness campaign, facilitating a restorative justice-based rehabilitation program for former prisoners, helping to guide writing workshops among prisoners in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, co-organizing mass mobilizations against transphobia in Toronto, and spearheading the Suppress The Virus Now Coalition in Ontario to demand a just, equitable public health strategy during the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I’m the author of seven published books: most recently, my debut novel Disobedience (Book*hug Press); the poetry collections Plenitude (Book*hug Press) and Hungry (Cormorant Books); the play collection The Crossing Guard & In Full Light (Playwrights Canada Press); the individually published plays The Remarkable Flight of Marnie McPhee (Playwrights Canada Press) and Little Death (Book*hug Press); and the short story collection Faithful and Other Stories (Guernica Editions).

My plays have been produced across Canada, in the US, and in translation in Germany. They’ve been commissioned by the Stratford Festival and nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Award. I’m a graduate of the Young Writers Programme at the Royal Court Theatre in London, UK, and a former playwright-in-residence at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. My literary work has been recognized with the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award, the CBC Fiction Prize, and the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Award, among other honours. It’s appeared in The Malahat Review, The North American Review, Air Canada’s EnRoute Magazine, and Briarpatch Magazine, among other publications.

I live in Toronto, by the sea (of Ontario), but can sometimes be found near other seas, too. Please feel free to reach out via the contact page above if you’d like to work together or otherwise connect.