Meet KPU: Niloo Daliri

Niloo Daliri is a Douglas College alumni, a creative writing student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and the managing editor for pulp MAG, a student-run magazine that has been publishing poetry, prose, and visual art from the KPU student community since 2011.

The magazine is released every semester, with the most recent issue from this fall. Daliri was previously the senior poetry editor before stepping into her current role. 

When did you join the KPU community, and why? 

It was near the end of 2019, like right around when the pandemic started, and I decided to do it because I really love poetry and I kind of wanted to be more involved in that field. But I also wanted to contribute something to KPU’s art community, mostly because I had done my degree at Douglas College, and I regretted not being more involved there.

It’s been a blast. I have learned a lot about how to manage a website, how to contact the printers, and how to work with my peers on a project. And getting things done by a certain date, that was really important and learning more skills for time management. 

What is your favourite story of your time at KPU? 

My favourite moment at KPU was when I took a class with a professor named Kegan Doyle about the rhetoric of humor. It was a blast, and I think that it was because of the class environment, the people there, the teacher — it was just like the energy in that room. That was probably my favourite memory. It was one of the best classes I think I’ve ever had, if not the best class I’ve ever had. That was my first or second semester, so somewhere around 2019.

What is something you’d like to say to people new to the community? 

Get involved in some kind of club, I think, especially now. If you can’t find a club, you know, start a club. There’s nothing wrong with making something new, something fresh. 

I feel like, especially now that we don’t have as many physical interactions with people it’s really important to try and at least harbour some kind of digital community so you know that you’re not alone. 

I think people should try to get to know each other, and the thing with the club is if you don’t like it, you can always quit the club. 

What are you working on right now? 

I’m currently the managing editor for pulp, which has been a really enjoyable experience. I’m very fortunate to have a team of fantastic individuals. So that definitely made my job a lot easier. 

But outside of just looking over submissions, and, you know, making sure things are kind of moving along, I can’t really take that much credit because I feel like so much of it needs to go to the rest of the team.

I’m also in two creative writing classes this semester at the 4000 level. It’s one of my last semesters and it’s really interesting when you get to this level in creative writing composition, because when I read peoples’ stories, the way I think about literature has changed. It’s been a blast. 

I haven’t had a whole lot of time because of that to work on anything else. I mean, besides another two history classes, so four classes total. It’s also obviously been extremely difficult with COVID to have any kind of physical involvement. 

We haven’t really been able to have face-to-face meetings where we put the magazine together and physically have a composition laid out where we can swap photos and stuff inside. And we also weren’t able to have any launch events that were in-person where we would have people call in and read from it if they were from KPU, and have the coffees out, have some snacks, or drinks and stuff. But hopefully, that’ll shift pretty soon, I think it’ll be after I’m gone. 

I really hope that the team that takes over in the upcoming year or two, they get a chance to do some of that stuff in-person because I really think it’s a much better experience, and you really get to know the people around you. I was actually doing some promotional work for pulp, so I went to a class, and I was in front of the class where there were people from the magazine that I worked with. 

I knew them by their Discord name, but I had no idea what they looked like. One of them raised their hand and were like, ‘I’m in pulp,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, no way. It’s you? I know your voice, I know your handle on this app, but that’s what you look like?’

So it was weird, it was just so shocking, and even then, we were both wearing masks. So I only saw what their face looked like mid-nose up. Like, I’m still not completely sure who you are, but I feel like we’re closer, and I appreciate that.

What is something you would like people to know about you? 

I don’t think I’m a very secretive person. I feel like everyone knows everything about me. I guess that I really hope to be more positive, bring a positive energy into the world. Even when talking about tough topics, I think that I try my best to hold a level ground. I really try to have as much of a modern opinion when hearing people as much as possible. 

So if you have a hard time talking about a certain topic, or whatever, reach out to me because regardless of what the topic is, I’d love to hear what people have to say and engage in dialogue. I guess to sum that up: I’m always down for a conversation, so don’t be afraid to say ‘hello.’