The 2026 Festival  Authors & Artists

Rayanne Haines is an award-winning hybrid author and pushcart nominated poet, producer and podcaster. She is the author of Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac House), winner of the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson, Alberta Literary Award for Poetry and shortlisted for both the BPAA Robert Kroetsch Award, and the ReLit Award. She’s also the author of the poetry collections The Stories in My Skin (2013), Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2017), and now, What Kind of Daughter? (Frontenac House, 2024) a poetry and essay memoir exploring grief, identity, and gendered trauma. Rayanne served as the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Edmonton Region Federation of Libraries, is the recipient of an Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award, host of the Crow Reads Podcast, President of the League of Canadian Poets, and an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University. She has been published in various anthologies and journals including the Globe and Mail, Minola Review, Fiddlehead, Grain, FreeFall, Prairie Fire and others.

Haitian-born spoken word artist and patient advocate, Medgine is a person for whom the love of language and the alchemy of words is second nature. Her multi-lingual upbringing (French, Creole, English) not only prompted her to begin experimenting with the potential and magic of language but naturally compelled her into a deep love of poetry. Over the years, Medgine became a Lupus, CIDP, Polymyositis, and Raynaud’s warrior, all of which fuels her desire to merge storytelling and her power of language into patient advocacy especially for those living with chronic illness. Medgine currently serves as a Patient Advisor and is working on her first collection of poetry.