Ryan Di Francesco is a loving partner who is completely devoted to his work. When he isn’t teaching, he’s either writing poetry, editing his novel, or wearing the editorial hat for Shadow and Sax, the small literary and arts press we launched together this past February. This summer, he poured himself into our inaugural issue, curating and designing alongside me to bring together nearly a hundred pages of poetry, art, and photography. Now, even with that behind him, he’s already busy finalizing the poems for our first-ever all-poetry print issue, set to release in late fall.
When he isn’t writing or editing, Ryan is almost always reading. But he can’t read before bed because it gets his mind going, so he usually watches a comedy series like Curb Your Enthusiasm or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. At times, he also watches classic wrestling—the old-school stuff from the 80s and 90s—which is nostalgic for him and, oddly, helps him calm down before bed.
Every night he takes our dog for a good walk, usually an hour or more, sometimes just the two of them wandering through town, sometimes with me tagging along. It’s one of his favourite rituals, a way to move through the day’s noise. That balance of relentless work and quiet, ordinary joy is at the heart of who he is.
-Written by Jessica Anne
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Which ’hood are you in?
After seventeen years living in downtown Toronto on John Street, and a two-year stopover on James Street in Hamilton, I’m now based in Niagara.
What do you do?
I am a writer, the Editor-in-Chief of Shadow and Sax, and a teacher.
What are you currently working on?
I recently finished a full-length poetry collection that I’m currently shopping around, along with a few chapbooks. I’m also promoting my two latest chapbooks: Skeleton Mine Disaster (Bottlecap Press) and The Paper Hound: A Collection of Antipoems (Alien Buddha Press). On the editorial side, I’m reading submissions for Shadow and Sax as we prepare our first fall all-poetry issue. When I have the rare quiet moment, I paint in my basement as a way to escape words and live in colours—but I’m usually somewhere between the twenty-six letters, arranging them, considering their meaning when placed together.
Where can we find your work?
Shadow and Sax | Skeleton Mine Disaster | The Paper Hound: A Collection of Antipoems — Alien Buddha Press (Sept. 2025)
My poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in The Pit Periodical, Shoegaze Literary, Bicoastal Review, Ink in Thirds, Juste Milieu Zine, Low Hanging Fruit, Bitter Melon Review, Rawhead Journal, SHINE Quarterly, Squid Magazine, Azarão, Emerge Literary Journal, The Orange Rose, The Amphibian, The Page Gallery, among others.
