Festival 2024  Authors & Headliners

Kat Cameron

Kat Cameron

Kat Cameron (she/her) is an award-winning poet and fiction writer. Her second poetry collection, Ghosts Still Linger, won the High Plains Book Award for poetry in 2021 and was a finalist for the Stephan ... Read More 

Michelle Lobkowicz

Michelle Lobkowicz

Michelle Lobkowicz (she/her) is Acquisitions Editor for humanities and literature at University of Alberta Press. Read More 

University of Alberta Press

University of Alberta Press is a contemporary, award-winning publisher of scholarly and creative books distinguished by their editorial care, exceptional design, and global reach. Follow on IG: @ualbertapress For more info check out their ... Read More 

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Funicular Magazine

Funicular Magazine publishes short fiction, flash fiction, and poetry from emerging and established writers, as well as work from writers around the world, edited by Jason Lee Norman. Follow on IG: @funfunfunicular For more info ... Read More 

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Bolo Tie Collective

The Bolo Tie Collective is a SAMU student club whose mission is twofold: to bridge the gap between the students of the English and Communication Studies departments of MacEwan University and to foster a ... Read More 

Katie Bickell

Katie Bickell

Katie Bickell is author of Always Brave, Sometimes Kind, a novel told in short stories. She is the recipient of the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, the Alberta Indie Project Award, the Howard O’Hagan ... Read More 

Rita Bouvier

Rita Bouvier

Rita Bouvier is a Métis writer, editor and retired educator. Her fourth book of poetry, a beautiful rebellion released April 2023 by Thistledown Press, was inspired by the Idle No More movement. It honours ... Read More 

Sue Sinclair

Sue Sinclair

Sue Sinclair is the author of six collections of poetry, all of which have won or have been nominated for national or regional awards. Her most recent book is Almost Beauty: New and Selected ... Read More 

Kyla Jamieson

Kyla Jamieson

Kyla Jamieson is a poet and educator whose advocacy and passion for accessibility is rooted in her experience of a brain injury and dynamic, invisible disability. Her first book, Body Count, was a CBC ... Read More 

Olivia Spring

Olivia Spring

Olivia Spring is the founder and editor of SICK, a thoughtful magazine exploring illness and disability. She writes about illness and trauma from her home in Maine, where she lives with her dog, Black ... Read More 

Horizons Writers Circle

Horizon Writers Circle

The Horizons Writers Circle is a Writers’ Guild of Alberta program that provides support and mentorship for writers within the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community, ESL, and underrepresented writers who live ... Read More 

Sharon Thesen

Sharon Thesen

Sharon Thesen was born left-handed in 1946 to the son of a Norwegian whale- hunter and the daughter of an Irish mystic. She has written, published, edited, and taught poetry and poetics for a ... Read More 

Patrick Grace

Patrick Grace

Patrick Grace is an author and teacher who divides his time between Vancouver and Victoria, BC. His poems have been published widely in Canadian literary magazines, including Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, Columba, ... Read More 

Dawn Macdonald

Dawn MacDonald

Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she grew up in a cabin down a dirt road without electricity or running water. She studied applied mathematics and physics at university, and went to her ... Read More 

Damn Magpies (a free-improvisation sextet)

First off, damn magpies like magpies. And like magpies, they happily devote themselves (in groups of two to six) to making the most extraordinary sounds while hopping about looking for more sounds to make ... Read More 

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The Stroll of Poets Society

For more info check out their website: https://www.strollofpoets.com/ Follow us on X (Twitter): @strollofpoets   Read More 

Spoken Word Youth Choir logo

Spoken Word Youth Choir (SWYC)

Spoken Word Youth Choir (SWYC) is a professional spoken word troupe: part Greek chorus, part improvisers, part poets and hip hop artists. We are unique to Canada. SWYC Junior, Senior and Alumni are under ... Read More 

E.D Blodgett (1935 - 2018), PhD. poet who published close to 30 books of poetry.

E.D. Blodgett

E.D. Blodgett (1935 – 2018), PhD, was a poet who published close to 30 books of poetry, for which he received two Governor General’s Awards as well as awards from the Writers’ Guild of ... Read More 

Thea Bowering

Thea Bowering

Thea Bowering’s collection of short stories is called Love at Last Sight (NeWest Press, 2013). In 2022, she and Jody Shenkarek were artists-in-residence at Yorath House, Edmonton, where they wrote about living alongside the ... Read More 

Tim Bowling

Tim Bowling

Tim Bowling is the author of twenty-four works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including two Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Awards, five Alberta Book Awards, a Queen Elizabeth ... Read More 

Leilei Chen

Leilei Chen

Leilei Chen 莫譯 (she/her) (pronounced as muo-yee meaning “no translation”) lectures in the Department of English and Film Studies of the University of Alberta. She authored Re-orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-cultural Understanding, the ... Read More 

Margaret Christakos

Margaret Christakos

Margaret Christakos’ recent poetry titles include charger and Dear Birch. Previous books include Excessive Love Prostheses, Sooner, Welling, Multitudes, the novel Charisma, and a multimodal memoir, Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies. Space ... Read More 

Marilyn Dumont

Marilyn Dumont

Marilyn Dumont teaches for the faculties of Arts and Native Studies at the University of Alberta and is proud of Metis family lines from her Mother’s – Vaness / Dufresne families and her father’s ... Read More 

Shima A. Robinson (Dwennimmen)

Dwennimmen (Shima Robinson)

Shima Aisha Robinson is an amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton) born student, community builder, poet and spoken word artist who embodies, with every literary and scholarly effort, the ancient meaning of her chosen pen name. Dwennimmen is ... Read More 

Trisia Eddy Woods

Trisia Eddy

Trisia Eddy Woods (she/her) grew up exploring Alberta and Manitoba on horseback. Her artwork has been exhibited both close to home and internationally, and is held in the special collection of the Herron Art ... Read More 

Jannie Edwards

Jannie Edwards

Jannie Edwards writes from her chosen city of Edmonton amiskwacîwâskahikan (ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ). An Emeritus of MacEwan University, she has published three collections of poetry and has collaborated on many multidisciplinary artistic projects and literary mentorships. ... Read More 

Headshot of Emma Elder, treasure of Edmonton Poetry Festival. She is a white woman with long dark hair and brown eyes.

Emma Elder

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! ... Read More 

Manijeh Mannani

Dr. Manijeh Mannani is Professor of Literary Studies and Dean in Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences at Athabasca University. Her research interests include Persian literature, comparative literature, poetry, and life-writing. Dr. Mannani will ... Read More 

Susan McCaslin

Susan McCaslin (PhD) is the editor of E.D. Blodgett’s posthumous volume of poetry, Walking Into God. She is also the author of seventeen volumes of poetry including her most recent, Consider (Aeolus House, 2023). Susan will take ... Read More 

Rob Mclennan

rob mclennan

The author of more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, publisher and literary impresario rob mclennan’s most recent titles include World’s End, and essays in the face of uncertainties. He lives in ... Read More 

Peter Midgley

Peter Midgley

Peter Midgley is the author of several books of poetry, children’s literature, and plays. He lives in Edmonton. For more info check out their website: https://www.midgley.ca/   Read More 

Jason Lee Norman

Jason Lee Norman

Jason Lee Norman writes short fiction, edits Funicular Magazine, and published Monto Books. He lives in Edmonton. Read More 

Catherine Owen

Catherine Owen

Catherine Owen, from Vancouver, now lives in Edmonton and has published 16 books, including her latest, Moving to Delilah (Freehand 2024). Follow on IG: mslyricspoetryoutlaws     Read More 

Pierrette Requier

Pierrette Requier

When I carve out time to write, I return to the vast spaciousness of my rural roots out of which my poems arise from some deep core of home in me, a rising up ... Read More 

Emily Riddle

Emily Riddle

Emily Riddle (Okimâw Pipikwan Iskwêw) is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw). She is a writer, textile artist, and policy iskwew based in Amisko Waciw Wâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada). In 2022, ... Read More 

Anna Marie Swell

Anna Marie Sewell

Anna Marie Sewell is a multi-genre author and former Poet Laureate, a founding member of the Stroll of Poets, and  involved with various collaborators in pursuit of beauty, meaningful exchange and reverent foolishness. Her ... Read More 

Matthew Stepanic

Matthew Stepanic

Matthew Stepanic is a queer writer who lives and works on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton. He is a co-author of Project Compass (Monto Books, 2017) and the author of Relying on that Body ... Read More 

Matthew James Weigel

Matthew James Weigel

Matthew James Weigel is an award winning Dene and Métis artist and author born and raised in Edmonton. His visual art often represents the many relationships we have with our surroundings, while his scholarly ... Read More 


To see the festival's author line-ups from previous years, visit our Headliners Archive.