CATHERINE BABAULT is a nature photographer based on Vancouver Island. She is the author of Vancouver Island Wildlife: A Photo Journey (Why Not Publishing, 2020), winner of a Nautilus Book Award. Her next photo book is about the endangered Vancouver Island marmot and will be published in Spring 2023. Visit catherinebabault.com.
BRANDI BIRD is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer and editor from Treaty 1 territory. They currently live and learn on Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam land. Their work has been published in Catapult, The Puritan, Poetry Is Dead, Room and others. They are a fourth-year BFA student at UBC and live with their three cats, Babydoll, Burt and Etta.
YVONNE BLOMER (she/her) lives in Victoria on Lekwungen territory. The Last Show on Earth, her fifth book of poetry, was published with Caitlin Press in 2022. She was Victoria’s fourth poet laureate. www.yvonneblomer.com.
JOSHUA CHRIS BOUCHARD is the author of Let This Be the End of Me (Bad Books, 2018), short-listed for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and coauthor with Fawn Parker of ABRACADABRA (Collusion Books, 2022). His poetry has appeared in CV2, CAROUSEL, Poetry Is Dead, PRISM international, carte blanche, Arc, The Puritan and elsewhere.
JOHN CREARY’s debut collection of poetry, Escape from Wreck City, was published in 2017 (Anvil Press) and shortlisted for the Fifth Annual Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry (2018). His poems have been published in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, Arc, EVENT, CV2, Grain, The Fiddlehead, Vallum, subTerrain and more.
LINDA CROSFIELD’s work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, The Minnesota Review, FreeFall, on public transit, and in several anthologies, including Worth More Standing and Dancing on Mountains, both from Caitlin Press in 2022. She lives in Ootischenia, BC, at the confluence of the Columbia and Kootenay rivers.
RAE CROSSMAN lives on the Haldimand Tract in Kitchener, ON, and writes poetry for the page and for oral performance. He has published poems in literary magazines and dramatized them on theatre stages, in classrooms, and around campfires on canoe trips. Recently, his work was included in the tree-poem anthology Worth More Standing by Caitlin Press, 2022.
CLAY EVEREST is a poet from Halifax, currently living in St. John’s. His poetry has appeared in such publications as untethered and Riddle Fence, and in 2020 his poetry manuscript No Subject for the Inexperienced was awarded the NCLU Fresh Fish Award.
SADIE GRAHAM is a writer of essays and fiction based in the rainy PNW. Her work has been published in Canadian Notes & Queries, Electric Literature, The Drift, Xtra, Vice and Bitch Media. For more gay nonsense, follow her on Twitter @westcoastnoir.
A poet, editor and reviewer, GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL has five poetry books, most recently Uninterrupted (Ekstasis Editions, 2020) and In Another Air (Radiant, 2018), both short-listed for Saskatchewan Poetry Awards. She also has six chapbooks; the latest is Megrim (The Alfred Gustav Press, 2021). She received a PhD from the University of Saskatchewan, completing her dissertation on postmodern poetry.
SYDNEY HEGELE is the author of The Pump (Invisible Publishing, 2021) and The Last Thing I Will See Before I Die (845 Press 2022). They won the 2022 ReLit Award for Short Fiction and were a finalist for the 2022 Trillium Book Award. Their novel, Bird Suit, and essay collection, Bad Kids, are forthcoming in 2024 and 2025. They live with their husband and French Bulldog on Treaty 13 land (Toronto).
MAUREEN HYNES, a Toronto poet, has published five books of poetry. Her first collection won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award, and her most recent collection, Sotto Voce (Brick Books, 2019), was a finalist for the League’s Pat Lowther Award and the Golden Crown Literary Award (US). www.maureenhynes.ca.
MICHAEL LAKE is a writer in Nova Scotia.
JOY LI is freelance illustrator based in the Greater Toronto Area. She believes good art can create a better world. Visit her at www.joydesign.online.
BEN LOF’s stories have appeared in literary magazines and The Journey Prize Stories. He is the recipient of the Howard O’Hagan Award and The Malahat Review’s 2021 Far Horizons Award, and he was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award. Ben lives with his family on Treaty 6 Territory in Edmonton.
KIRSTEEN MACLEOD writes and teaches yoga in Katarokwi (Kingston), ON. She is working on her first poetry collection, was a finalist for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize and Arc Poetry’s 2020 Poem of the Year, and is the author of two books, including the award-winning In Praise of Retreat (ECW Press, 2021).
MURRAY MANN has published in Island Writer, Sweetwater (ed. Blomer, 2020), The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling (ed. Martindale, 2020), and has work forthcoming in Worth More Standing (ed. Lowther). Murray grew up on the traditional territories of Nadleh Whut’en in the central interior of BC. He now lives on Cowichan territory and works at Warmland’s shelter in Duncan.
ROB MCLENNAN lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His most recent titles include the poetry collection the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) and essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). robmclennan.blogspot.com.
MARCO MELFI is a graduate of SFU’s The Writer’s Studio. He received The Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Prize and his poems have appeared in The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, the Arc Award of Awesomeness, Funicular and FreeFall. He lives in Edmonton on Treaty 6 Territory.
Ottawa’s COLIN MORTON has twice received the Archibald Lampman Award. In addition to a dozen books of poetry, he has published stories and reviews, a novel, an award-winning animated film, and video poems accessible at www.colinmorton.net.
CAROL JUNE OGDEN, of Vancouver, studied at UBC, completed teacher training at SFU, and later received an MA in English at UBC. She studied creative writing and composition at Langara College, UBC and SFU. Her published work includes the poems ‘Her Golden Braid’ in Room 26.1 (2003) and ‘No Walls Between Us’ in Mensa Canada online in 2018.
BARBARA PELMAN is a retired high school English teacher in Victoria. She is a frequent participant and assistant at Planet Earth Poetry. She has three published books of poetry: One Stone (Ekstasis Editions, 2005), Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press, 2008), Narrow Bridge (Ronsdale Press, 2017), and a chapbook, Aubade Amalfi (Rubicon Press, 2016).
KIT ROFFEY (they/them) is a student at Huron College, Western University, finishing a major in English and Cultural Studies and a minor in Psychology. Their work has appeared in Prairie Fire and The Stratford Quarterly. You can find them on Twitter @KitRoffey.
M.C. SCHMIDT’s fiction has appeared in X-R-A-Y, Spectrum, BULL, New World Writing, and elsewhere. His novel, The Decadents, was released May 26, 2022 from Library Tales Publishing.
BREN SIMMERS is the author of four books, including the wilderness memoir Pivot Point (Gaspereau Press, 2019) and Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the Vancouver Book Award. Her most recent collection of poetry is If, When (Gaspereau Press, 2021).
ADRIAN SOUTHIN lives on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. An MFA recipient from UBC, Adrian’s writing explores gender, mental health and intergenerational trauma. His work has appeared in several magazines, including EVENT 47/1, and is forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2022.
TANNAZ TAGHIZADEH was born in Tehran, Iran, and for many years has lived happily in Toronto, her favourite city. She comes from a literary family: her father is a well-known author and translator of English to Farsi, and she writes and translates poetry and short stories and prose for publication in both languages. Her English work has been published in several literary Canadian magazines.
KURT TRZCINSKI is an ecologist who has studied many ecosystems around the world. He thrives at the edge of poetry and science and hopes that together they can create new visions of how we relate to the world. His debut chapbook Sacred Greens (2021) is published by Alfred Gustav Press.
ANGELA WALDIE teaches at Mount Royal University in Calgary. She is currently writing her first poetry collection, A Single Syllable of Wild, which explores wildlife conservation practices in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks. She has published poetry in The Antigonish Review, FreeFall, The Goose, New Forum, Prairie Fire, and various anthologies.
AIMEE WALL is the author of We, Jane (Bookhug, 2021), which was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She is also the translator of several Quebec novels from the French and her translation of Sadie X by Clara Dupuis-Morency is forthcoming from Book*hug in 2023.
MYNA WALLIN, Toronto poet and prose writer, has published in The Antigonish Review, Vallum, The Quarantine Review, NoD Magazine, Sledgehammer and The Miramichi Reader, among others. Myna has a master’s degree in English from the University of Toronto. Her latest collection, Anatomy of An Injury, was published by Inanna Publications in 2018.
RYLEE WOODS is a poet and an undergraduate student of literature from Vancouver Island. When not reading or writing, they are planting trees or lying in the sun. Their work has been published in the Louden Singletree by the University of the Fraser Valley.
LISELLE YORKE is a Trinidadian-Canadian artist who uses poetry to rid herself of assumptions and to dig into people, society and herself. With an untethered curiosity that does not seek neat conclusions, her writing strives to create windows that display a community that celebrates, protects, and respects life and individuality.
