After a decade of organizing open mics in his hometown and the appearance of his first book of poems, the correct fury of your why is a mountain (Gordon Hill Press, 2021), Heslop (b. 1992) curated social documentary photographer Derek Boswell installations six feet | between us (McIntosh Gallery, 2022) and in medias res (Westland Gallery, 2023); founded an indie film company, Astoria Pictures; edited a tetra-lingual (ASL/LSQ/FR/EN) anthology, featuring work of Paola Ferrante, Brandon Wint, Shane Neilson, Arleen Paré, Catriona Wright, and eight more leading ‘Canadian’ poets; directed and produced that anthology’s internationally award-winning adaptation to the screen; wrote a handful of art criticism for Centred Magazine; and left Canada for successive artist residencies in Serbia, Finland, France, Brazil, Denmark, and Japan.​

           Along the way, he intersected with Karen Houle, John Nyman, Camille Intson, David Pisani, Ben Robinson, Arleen Paré, Marcelo Guimarães Lima, Tara McGowan-Ross, Nina Dunic, Sarah Burgoyne, Guta Galli, Simon Watson, Roxanna Bennett, Jeremy Luke Hill, Michelle Wilson, Khashayar Mohammadi, John Wall Barger, Tina Do, David White, Lily Wang, Terese Mason Pierre, Sam Wilde, and many more voices yet to be added to Craft, Consciousness: Dialogues about the Arts (Guernica Editions, 2027 vol i & 2028 vol. ii)​.

           Together with new collaborative work across disciplines forthcoming from The Fiddlehead, Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice, Baseline Press, Rose Garden Press, Parrot Art, The Alcuin Society, and The American Haiku Society, Heslop’s next book will be The Writing on the Wind’s Wall: Dialogues about ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’ (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2025). He is currently writing his first feature film from São Paulo, Brazil while in residence with Teatro Oficina.​​

          An active producer and connector in the film industry, Heslop works with a host of outstanding authors and publishers to support the adaptation of their work to the screen. He’s also an accomplished writer of production grants whose words have garnered six figures from industry expert-juried funding bodies. For information about these services, mentorship opportunities, or to collaborate, you can reach him at kevin@astoriapictures.ca.

           From abroad, Heslop continues to serve his community from the Board of Directors at Changing Ways, a vital, gender-based violence-disrupting non-profit you could donate to here.