Charlie Petch is a spoken word performer, musician, and playwright. They were Poet of Honour for the speakNORTH festival in 2017. In 2020, they won the Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award for lifetime achievement in spoken word from The League of Canadian Poets. Petch’s debut poetry collection, Why I Was Late, was named one of the best books of 2021 by The Walrus and won the ReLit Award the following year. Their film, Medusa’s Children, premiered with OperaQ in 2022. Petch lives in Tkaronto (Toronto).