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Kelley Jo Burke 

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 Writer, broadcaster, performer, mother, teacher and temporal juggler. 

Areas of research: client-centred dramaturgy, creative non-fiction theatre, playwriting,  voice practice, Saskatchewan playwriting community

Kelley Jo Burke is an award-winning playwright, creative nonfiction writer and documentarian, a professor of theatre and creative-writing, and was for many years host of CBC Radio’s SoundXchange.  (For complete employment history, see final section C.V.)

Her latest book is Wreck: A Very Anxious Memoir from Radiant Press.

She was the 2017 winner (with composer Jeffery Straker) of Playwright Guild of Canada’s national Best New Musical Award for Us, which premiered at the Globe Theatre Feb 28 of 2018 directed by Valerie Pearson.  Her other recent plays which have been been produced and published in Canada, and around the world, including "The Lucky Ones, " "Somewhere, Sask.," “Ducks on the Moon” (Hagios), "TheSelkie Wife" (Scirocco), "Jane's Thumb" (Signature), and "Charming and Rose: True Love (Blizzard).

Her new musical The Curst, whose world premiere was scuttled by COVID, will be coming to Dancing Sky Theatre April 28, 2023.

She is is also a director, dramaturge and editor. Her latest editing project, Glass Beads by the wonderful Dawn Dumont, won the 2018 Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction, and is nominated for the national Danuta Gleed Award for best new Canadian collection of short fiction. A recent favorite project was the audio version of the great Jean Okimasis' Cree: Language of the Plains. 

She has her MFA Special Case, Playwriting and Dramaturgy 2013, was SSHRC recipient,  the 2011 Doris and W.A. Riddell Fine Arts Graduate Scholarship recipient, and a 2011 recipient of a teaching fellowship with the U of R Theatre Department.

She has been a workshop leader in creative process, writing, performance, and creative non-fiction writing and production for more than twenty years.

She is a cultural citizen, serving on Saskatchewan Arts Board juries, judging awards and competitions, a sought-after speaker and panel member for many conferences and arts events, past president of the Saskatchewan Playwrights’ Centre, and past executive member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada.

She was 2009 winner of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Leadership in the Arts, the 2009 City of Regina Writing Award (her third time receiving that award), and the 2008 Saskatoon and Area Theatre Award for Playwriting.