Board & Organizers

Alice Major founded the Edmonton Poetry Festival in 2006 while she was serving as Edmonton’s first poet laureate. (She warns all future laureates to be careful what they start!). Alice has published 12 award-winning collections of poetry, including The Office Tower Tales (which won the Pat Lowther award) and Memory’s Daughter (which received the Stephan G. Stephansson Prize). Her recent book Welcome to the Anthropocene was nominated for three major awards. Her 12th collection is Knife on Snow, released by Turnstone Press in Spring 2023. Other awards include the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. Her website is here.

Raised in a mining town in the mountainous back-country of southeastern British Columbia, Paul now lives in Edmonton where he lives and writes with his wife and two children. He has worked as an arts administrator in the non-profit sector and spent nearly two decades with the Government of Alberta and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts before making the jump to Municipal government administration in 2018.

Paul Pearson has been heavily involved in the literary arts community in Alberta for more than 20 years. He is the co-founding editor and chapbook designer for the Olive Reading Series and a current board member of the Edmonton Poetry Festival. His poems have appeared in Descant and Event, and the anthology Writing the Land: Alberta Through Its Poets from House of Blue Skies. His debut collection, Lunatic Engine, was published by Turnstone Press in the fall of 2020.

Kim Mannix is a poet, dark fiction writer, and journalist who lived in six Canadian cities before deciding to call Sherwood Park home. As a lover and supporter of local arts, she’s delighted to be part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival board. She works as an entertainment and lifestyle writer for MSN, and has had her creative efforts published in several Canadian and international journals and anthologies. She is a co-editor of Watch Your Head, a climate crisis anthology, and is deeply grateful to the earth that sustains us all.

Marco Melfi (he/him) joined the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board in 2019. He received The Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Prize and has had poems published in Arc Poetry Magazine, EVENT, The Literary Review of Canada, PRISM, The New Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. His debut poetry collection, Routine Maintenance, is forthcoming with Gaspereau Press. He lives in Edmonton on Treaty 6 Territory.

Emma Elder (she/her) has been serving as Treasurer of EPFS since 2022. She recently graduated with her BSc (Hons) in Physiology, and is enthusiastic about bridging the gap between science and poetry. Emma is also the Board Chair for Open Arms Patient Advocacy Society, and spends some of her free time supporting Albertans who are struggling with healthcare matters. Through EPF, she uses her advocacy knowledge to improve opportunities within the poetry community, and is committed to sharing her love and passion for this art form with Edmontonians.

Jill M. Armstrong is a multimedia visual artist and poet, who recently relocated to Edmonton from Calgary. Her work is an ongoing search for significant form and leaps of imagination, in all mediums, including the written word. Her poems have been published in several periodicals, including filling Station, dANDelion, and the online poetry anthology This Might Help. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript. Besides her creative practices, she has also spent much of her adult life as a cultural worker in not-for-profit arts organizations, currently serving as a longtime board member and past president of Calgary’s Elephant Artist Relief Society.

Sheelagh Caygill is a journalist, copywriter, poet, and part-time student at Northeastern University, London, studying for an MA in Contemporary Creative Writing. She’s working on two nonfiction books, loves reading, enjoys a wide range of podcast shows, the outdoors, and photography, and finds it hard to say where she’s from because she’s moved so many times!

Harmeet Kaur was born and raised in India. She moved to Edmonton in 1999. She did her accounting degree through NAIT and works full time with the federal government. She is a certified Yoga and Group Fitness instructor. She is a poet at heart and writes in English & Hindi. She has a YouTube channel ‘You Me and Chai’ to showcase her poetry. She enjoys dancing, reading, writing and connecting with people.

Abbigail Ketsa, she/they, is a settler poet and writer from Amiskwaciwâskahikan, currently living on Treaty 6 territory (St. Albert). She is a 2024 graduate from the University of Alberta with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, Creative Writing and Classics. Abbigail was the 2023 recipient of the CLC Poetry Prize; you can read their poetry in the 5th issue of Crab Apple Literary and on the Nowhere Girl Collective website.

Megan Stobbe (she/her) joined the Edmonton Poetry Board in 2024 and is excited to support the festival. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming with Funicular Magazine, Capital City Press, the League of Canadian Poets and elsewhere. She participated in the Writer’s Guild of Alberta’s 2024 Mentorship Program. Megan works in government communications and lives with her partner and three children in a post-war bungalow.

Steve Pirot (aka Unkl Stiv) has been a partner in Edmonton’s ecology of Arts Festivals for over 30 years including 16 years as Festival Director for The Nextfest Arts Company. Coming from a background in theatre, he has been active in Edmonton’s poetry scene for 15 years. His spoken-word show Unkl Stiv’s Looping Machine premiered at Clarkeland’s Patio in Whitehorse in 2023 followed by a run at the 2023 & 2024 Edmonton Fringe.