Board & Organizers

Shima Aisha Robinson is an amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton – Treaty 6) born poet and spoken word artist who embodies, with every poem and pursuit, the ancient meaning of her chosen pen name. Dwennimmen is the name of an ancient African Adinkra symbol, which means strength, humility, learning and wisdom. She brings a wealth of experience in program development and community work to the Edmonton Poetry Festival. For Dwennimmen, poetry has long been a compass, a salve, an anchor and guiding light. She looks forward to reconnecting, fostering community, and celebrating poetry together in ways that are fun, innovative, and accessible.

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 eleven 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 latest book is Welcome to the Anthropocene, which was nominated for three major awards. In 2019, she received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Alberta. Her website is here.

Don Perkins has served on the Board of the Edmonton Poetry Festival since 2013. He is currently the Treasurer, and has also served as Chair of the Governance and Policy Committee. Before retiring in 2017, for many years he taught Canadian Literature, Canadian Drama, Aboriginal Literature, Popular Culture, and Creative Non-Fiction Writing for the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. While at the U of A, he also taught for the Drama Department and the Faculty of Native Studies. His poetry has appeared in The Trumpeter, 40 Below, on The Poetry Route (now Poetry Moves on Transit), and in the Stroll of Poets Anthology since 2017.

Beth Dart is an Edmonton-based director, producer, lighting designer, and theatre collaborator. She is the co-artistic producer of award-winning indie theatre company Catch the Keys Productions, best known for Dead Centre of Town, an annual site-specific theatre experience inspired by the true crime and ghost stories of Edmonton’s past. She is the co-artistic producer of Common Ground Arts Society and co-festival director of Found Festival, Edmonton’s multidisciplinary found space and site-specific arts festival.

Beth is dedicated to collaborative creation, and has directed over 20 new works. Select directing credits include Tracks by Mac Brock & Ensemble (Vena Amoris Projects), Jezebel at the Still Point by Ainsley Hillyard, OCD, Functional, and the premiere of Gemini by Louise Casemore (Defiance Theatre), 900 Seconds by Christine Lesiak (Small Matters Productions), Fossegrim & Nøkk by Megan Dart, Leif Ingebrigtsen & Sierra Noble (Alberta Opera), and Snout (Catch the Keys/Azimuth) and Ursa Major (Catch the Keys/Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre) by Megan Dart. Currently, Beth is developing a new immersive musical with playwright Megan Dart and singer-songwriter Lindsey Walker titled VAULT, which will premiere in 2021.

Katherine Gibson received her MLIS from McGill University in Montreal before working at the Richmond Public Library in British Columbia, Canada. After a year and half there she took up teaching English in Japan and finally settled down at the Edmonton Public Library in 2010. Katherine leads Capital City Press, EPL’s initiative to support local writers.

Bill Howe has been basking in the sounds and rhythms of the Edmonton poetry scene for over 20 years. As a high school English teacher, he is eager to see his students encounter poetry both in and out of the classroom — not because the curriculum says he needs to, but because as much as poetry, in both play and intensity, connects to what it means to live fully, it cannot be ignored. And if it is ignored, or dismissed, or trivialized, our entire community suffers because of it. Though not a ‘published poet,’ Bill readily writes poetry for and with students and enthusiastically supports and applauds the words that speak the heart and mind of the soul’s urgency.

Marco Melfi joined the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board in 2019. Previously, he has volunteered with the Stroll of Poets (2013-2020). He is an Edmonton poet originally from Hamilton. He has had poems published in The Prairie Journal, FreeFall, Funicular Magazine, 40 Below: Alberta’s Winter Anthology, the Stroll of Poets Anthology and as part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival’s Poetry Moves on Transit. His chapbook, In between trains, was published in 2014 and received the Sharon Drummond Chapbook award.

Bio coming soon …

Raised in a mining town in the mountainous back-country of southeastern British Columbia, Paul moved to Edmonton (longer ago than he cares to remember) where he lives and writes with his wife and two children. Paul is currently the Manager of Creative Industries and Cultural Development for the City of St. Albert. For the nearly two decades prior to that, Paul worked for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Arts Branch of the Government of Alberta.

Paul is one of the founding editors and current chapbook designer for the Olive Reading Series. 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 poetry collection, Lunatic Engine, is being published by Turnstone and is coming out this fall.

Matthew Stepanic is the editor of Glass Buffalo and the co-founder of Edmonton’s newest bookstore, Glass Bookshop. He is a co-author of the collaborative novel, Project Compass (Monto Books, 2017), and the author of Relying on that Body (Glass Buffalo Publishing, 2018), a poetry chapbook about RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Tomáš Andel is a Slovak-born media artist living in Edmonton. Primarily a writer and musician, Tomáš approaches creating through an intermedia framework, expanding currently into digital visual and interactive media. He holds a BA in English and Music from the University of Alberta. In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious Cécile E. Mactaggart Travel Award for Narrative Writing, which he used towards visiting Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Tomáš’ work is concerned with spirituality, compassion, masculinity, and the post-digital era. It has been described as honest, enlightened, absurd, and “an ongoing attempt to rehouse the corporeal in the spiritual plane.”

Randall is one of the founding fathers of the Raving Poets and has been involved in the spoken word scene for longer than he can remember. His photography has been published in the Globe and Mail, Edmonton Journal, See, Vue and Edmonton Life Magazine. He particularly enjoys making author bio photos. Randall likes to forge connections between the spoken word and the world of images, music and motion video. When he’s not making photographs, this is where you’ll find him.

Kasia is a freelance website developer and creative consultant, operating under the trade name CodeWord Media Design since 2011. Prior to launching her business, Kasia obtained a BA in English from the University of Alberta, and worked in marketing communications for companies in the tech and manufacturing sectors. Kasia co-founded the Words with Friends Edmonton Creative Writing Collective. She also sat on the Board of Directors for the Edmonton Poetry Festival from 2013 through 2016, serving stints as both Treasurer and Communications Committee Chair. Kasia released her self-published collection, the mourning after: poems 1996-2011, in October of 2011.