Board & Organizers

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.

Miranda is a teacher in Sherwood Park. She is an avid reader and loves learning new things. She is excited to be part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board and has enjoyed starting her new journey of exploring poetry, with support and recommendations from the EPFB! She loves connecting with her students and finding ways to motivate them to become better writers.

Emma Elder (she/her) is a poet and full-time student at the University of Alberta. She is studying Honors Physiology with a goal of pursuing medicine, and intends on publishing her debut poetry collection soon! As treasurer of the EPF board, she looks forward to supporting the festival and is committed to sharing her love of poetry with the Edmonton community. Emma is a human body fanatic and science nerd, but has never lost sight of her artistic side.

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.

Marco Melfi (he/him) joined the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board in 2019. He has had poems published in the Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Funicular, FreeFall and he was the recipient of the Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest. His chapbook, In between trains, was published in 2014.