2014 Headliners

Pushpa Raj Acharya is a writer, who now lives in Edmonton, Canada. He is a member of the “Borderlines Writers Circle/ Writer-in-Exile Programme” for 2013-14. He writes poetry in English and Nepali; his poems are published in Canada, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal. He has published two poetry books: Dream Catcher (2012) and Chayakal (2006). Chayakal, or “the Phantom Time” is a long Nepali poem that explores human conditions, emotions, and relevance of myths during the Nepalese civil war. Dream Catcher comprises of poems on pervasiveness of nature, explorations of the inner self, human connection with place, and ways of interpreting the world. From 1999 onward, Pushpa was part of a project called “Conservation Poetry Movement,” in which poets travelled to villages across Nepal and wrote and read poems with the villagers. Pushpa, along with performance artists, has performed poems in the ancient streets of the Kathmandu valley. As a translator, he has translated several poems and plays. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta.

Douglas Barbour is Professor emeritus, Department of English & Film Studies, University of Alberta. His books include Visible Visions: The Selected Poems of Douglas Barbour (NeWest Press; winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award); Story for a Saskatchewan Night (rdc press);  Fragmenting Body etc (NeWest Press), Breath Takes (Wolsac & Wynn),  Continuations & Continuations 2 (University of Alberta Press); the critical texts, Michael Ondaatje (Twayne Publishers); Lyric / Anti-lyric: essays on contemporary poetry (NeWest Press). The University of Alberta Press has just published his latest book of poems, Listen. If in Spring 2017. He was inducted into the Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003. Eclectic Ruckus is his review blog: https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/.

Nuala: a fable is Kimmy Beach’s sixth book. Her second, Alarum Within: theatre poems (Turnstone Press, 2003), has been adapted twice as a stage play. The Last Temptation of Bond (UAP, 2013) was featured on CBC’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, and was chosen as one of the top five books of the year at Quill & Quire’s Readers’ Poll. Kimmy has served as a mentor, teacher, workshop facilitator, and writer-in-residence for over a dozen provincial and national writing organizations and schools. She is currently writing a novel about 1970s romance comics and the music of Tom Jones. Kimmy lives in a creaky old house in Red Deer, Alberta, with Stu, her husband of thirty years.

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 Alberta and the Canadian Authors Association.

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 II Platinum Jubilee Medal, two Writers’ Trust of Canada nominations, two Governor General’s Award nominations and a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his entire body of work.

Social Links for River Streets Writes (working with Tim’s Publisher)
IG: @river_street_writes | Facebook: @RiverStreetWriting | Twitter: @riverstwriting

Val was a copywriter for years before tiptoeing into the 1989 Edmonton Fringe with her first play, The Puff ‘n’ Blow Boys. Her plays have been performed in theatres and festivals across Canada. More recently, she has enjoyed expressing herself through musical collaborations: 2 operas with composer Allan Gilliland; choral pieces set by John Estacio; as well as art songs, jazz pieces, a cantata, and song cycle with various composers.

Voted “Best Burlesque Show” in Vue Weekly’s Best of Edmonton 2013, Capital City Burlesque is Edmonton’s premiere burlesque dance troupe. From Rockette-inspired kick lines to a trio of thrusting Santas, CCB elegantly straddles a fine line between classic burlesque and humourous modernist parody.

Harleen Cheema is the winner of Edmonton’s first Youth Slam, although being fairly new to the scene itself. She worked with spoken word throughout Victoria Composite’s Creative Writing program, and later winning the school’s Creative Writing award nearing graduation. Her work has been formally published in Victoria’s writing magazine and in a few collaborative Zines.

Recipient of the 2015 League of Canadian Poets’ lifetime member award and the 2013 Manitoba Writers’ Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, Dennis Cooley has been a key figure in Winnipeg’s literary community for over 30 years. He has written extensively on Canadian literature, published 20 books of poetry, and edited numerous others. For years a CanLit professor at the University of Manitoba, Dennis Cooley, now retired, lives and writes in Winnipeg.

Marita Dachsel is the author of Glossolalia and All Things Said & Done. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, the Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry, and the ReLit Award. Her play Initiation Trilogy was nominated for both a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Outstanding Original Script and the Critics’ Choice Innovation Award. She lives with her family on Lekwungen territory in Victoria, British Columbia.

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. Most recently, Learning Their Names: Letters from the Home Place (Collusion Books, 2022), a decade-long “slow art” collaboration with visual artist Sydney Lancaster, explores their connection with a beloved five-acre homestead near the historic Victoria Trail in northeastern Alberta. During a year of the pandemic, Sydney and Jannie exchanged poetic letters across the country (Jannie in Edmonton, Sydney in Nova Scotia) that deepened their thinking about history, stewardship, responsibility and the aliveness of every living thing.

Lainna Lane El Jabi has lived in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto where she completed a Master’s degree in Literature with a research focus on experimental feminist poetries and small presses. She has published poetry in a scattering of journals and is a long standing editorial board member of the Olive Reading Series in Edmonton where she organized and participated in numerous literary events. Lainna Lane works at the University of Alberta where she writes on riverbanks and under sunbeams.

Rita Espeschit is a Brazilian-Canadian writer widely published in Brazil, with works ranging from poetry collections to children’s books. Two of her children’s books were translated into Spanish and published in Venezuela. In Canada, she is a contributor to Sprouts! An Anthology of Plays (Playwrights Canada Press, 2010) and The Story that Brought Me Here (Brindle & Glass, 2008). She also has poems included in Other Voices Journal, WestWord Magazine, The Poetry Route, and Short Edition. If you go to facebook.com/rita.espeschit, you may find a few (and far between) posts on what else she’s been up to. Recently, after nearly two decades of being sworn enemies, the English language and Rita started discussing a tentative peace treaty. Negotiations are still ongoing.

Christine Sokaymoh Frederick is the co-founder/co-director of Alberta Aboriginal Arts, and is the Aboriginal Leadership Academy Coordinator for the Centre for Race & Culture. She is a Métis, Edmonton-based artist with many years experience as an actor, writer, singer/musician, dancer, community developer, facilitator and producer, and she has an arts & cultural administration background with many connections to the local and traditional community in and around Alberta.

She has consulted for the Edmonton’s cultural plan The Art of Living (Edmonton Arts Council) and on the 2005 draft of Alberta’s Cultural Policy for the Ministry of Alberta’s Community Development. Christine is the recipient of the 2007 Esquao Award in Arts & Entertainment. Her children’s book, Minosis Gathers Hope is in development including adaptations to the stage for Full Circle Performance’s Talking Stick Festival in Vancouver and Edmonton’s Concrete Theatre’s Sprouts Festival. Christine dedicates herself to promoting and supporting the tender network of Aboriginal artists across Turtle Island.

Gary Garrison is an Okie from Muskogee who let his hair grow long, came to Canada, and raised three children instead of killing people in Vietnam. He has been the Editor of Alberta Hansard, coordinator of volunteer prison visitors at “the Max”, and an active member of Edmonton’s writing community. For fun, Gary writes poems with and for patients and visitors at the U of A hospital. He writes and performs songs and plays the guitar, harmonica, flute, and didgeridoo. His third nonfiction book, Human on the Inside: Unlocking the Truth of Canada’s Prisons, was published this February by the University of Regina Press.

As the daughter of an artist and a journalist, Kasia is drawn to the symbiotic relationship between words and images, and enjoys mixing poetry with visual art, collage, and photographs. Her work is confessional in nature and draws on her experiences of sex, love, heartbreak, loss, grief, anger, and human relationships.

Kasia’s poetry practice dates back to her high school years. She discovered an interest in creative writing performance during her time as a student at the University of Alberta, where she majored in English Lit. She was a contributor to Fait Accomplit, the Comparative Literature Students Association magazine, and was also active in their poetry slam nights. After graduating from U of A, Kasia pursued a career in marketing communications and website development. Kasia renewed her interest in Edmonton’s creative writing scene when she and Jason Lee Norman founded the Words with Friends (aka yegwords) creative writing collective in the summer of 2011. She released her self-published retrospective poetry collection, the mourning after, in October of the same year.

At the 2012 Vancouver International Poetry Festival, Chris won the Nerd Slam and the Erotica Slam. He is also a two-time member of the Vancouver Poetry Slam Team (2008 & 2009), the champion of Vancouver’s 2008 Haiku Death Match, finalist in the 2010 Write Bloody Press manuscript competition, winner of the Vancouver’s 2009 CBC Poetry Face-off, and the 2011 Vancouver Individual Poetry Slam Champion.

In the summer of 2006, he toured the Canadian Fringe circuit with his play 87% True: The Lies That Bind, co-created with Rosemary Rowe. His literary work has been published in Geist, PRISM international, CV2, Poetry is Dead, Vancouver Review, The Canadian Review of Literature in Performance, and many others. He performs as part of the interactive multimedia clown rock supergroup Awesome Face.

Writer, Student, Research Assistant, Artist, Impresario, Agnostic Christian Anarchist Marxist Humanist, Edmontonian, Somnambulist, Life-Amateur, hopefully one of the good guys.

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She just published her memoir, Crazy Brave, detailing her journey to becoming a poet.

Her seven books of poetry, which includes such well-known titles as How We Became Human – New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses have garnered many awards. These include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2009 For A Girl Becoming was published.

She has released four award-winning CD’s of original music and in 2009 won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year for Winding Through the Milky Way. Her most recent CD release is a traditional flute album: Red Dreams, a Trail Beyond Tears. She performs nationally and internationally with her band, the Arrow Dynamics.

Steven Heighton’s most recent books are the Trillium Award finalist The Dead Are More Visible (stories), Workbook (a collection of memos and fragmentary essays), and the poetry collection Perfect Frame. His other poetry titles include The Address Book and Stalin’s Carnival. His 2006 novel, Afterlands, appeared in six countries, was a New York Times Book Review editors’ choice, and was a best of year choice in ten publications in Canada, the USA, and the UK. His short fiction and poetry have received four gold National Magazine Awards and have appeared in London Review of Books, Poetry, Best English Stories, Best American Poetry, Zoetrope: All-Story, Tin House, Brick, TLR, The Walrus, and five editions of Best Canadian Stories. Heighton has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award, and he is a fiction reviewer for the New York Times Book Review.

Jim Hepler spent the better part of two decades playing blues, country music and rock ‘n roll in the honkytonks of our nation. Now focusing on original songs, he has turned that musical and life experience into his own special blend of North Americana music.

Skye Hyndman has written poems and plays. She is the Resident Playwright for Moplip Theatre and a member of the Edmonton Youth Poetry Slam Team. She attends classes diligently at the University of Alberta, where she is majoring in mathematics. She likes a sustainable panic. She resides in Edmonton where she agonizes over the next minimus opus.

Megan Keirstead’s powerful voice and story-like lyrics take you on a new journey with every song. Megan first turned to songwriting to help overcome the loss of her grandma. Megan caught the songwriting bug with a vengeance, and has written and performed many of her own songs. Her sets also include covers from many artists who influence her writing, from Stevie Wonder to Amy Winehouse and everything in between.

Megan has learned a lot about writing and performing with March Music and the School of Song. With the help of Rhea March and many mentors involved in the Edmonton music scene, she has branched out to perform all over the city. You’ll find her in cafés, at festivals, Alberta Culture Days, and wherever else she can share her love of music.

Her first EP, recorded with Peter Stone at The Bird-Shop, is titled Spanish Banks and is due to be released on May 25, 2014.

Award-winning Poet Laureate Ahmed Ali, better known as Knowmadic, is a multi disciplinary artist, community organizer, public speaker and youth worker who has dedicated his time to enabling and empowering diverse communities around the world. Knowmadic is co-founder and current artistic director of Edmonton’s only spoken word collective: Breath In Poetry. He is passionate about the arts, education and emphasizes the importance of equitable representation on all levels of government.

Hive is Randy Kohan’s third collection of lyric poetry with Ekstasis Editions. His previous works are Rain of Naughts (2015) and Hammers & Bells (2013). Two of his poems, Trains and Northern Monks, can be viewed as poetry videos on YouTube. He lives in Edmonton with his wife and their two sons.

Author photograph by Hans Olson.

Deborah Lawson is an Edmonton-based freelance editor and writer. She’s been writing poetry for many years, and in 2003 she began to take part in Edmonton’s vibrant poetry community and work with some of this city’s many noted poets. She began with observation and listening, then moved on to honing her work through workshopping and public performance. In 2013, Frontenac House published her début collection, Reckless Toward Blossoming. Several literary magazines and anthologies have also published her work, including Other Voices magazine, which awarded Deborah its 20th anniversary Poetry Grand Prize for her poem Dead Nun’s Underwear.

When not working or writing poetry, she sings with the Richard Eaton Singers, volunteers for writing-related organizations and works in her garden.

Deborah is the mother of three adult children—a daughter and two sons—and is “Moogie” to an amazing grandson whose birth she was honoured to attend in 2013.

Her idea of perfection is a poet in a canoe. Her idea of profound has yet to be adequately defined. But through poetry, she’s beginning to discern how the profound encompasses both the mundane and the glorious.

Shawna Lemay is the author of the recently released novel, Rumi and the Red Handbag which has made Harper’s Bazaar’s #THELIST (must-reads for Fall 2015), the “Most Anticipated” list on the popular Canadian book website, 49th Shelf, and has been selected for Maria Shriver’s fall reading club. Nathalie Atkinson has chosen Rumi and the Red Handbag for Fall’s Must-Read Fashion Books in the Globe and Mail.

She has also written six books of poetry, a book of essays, and an experimental novel titled, Hive, which is about the possibility of the existence of a woman art forger. All the God-Sized Fruit, her first book, won the Stephan G. Stephansson Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Calm Things: Essays was shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction. She has an M.A. in English from the University of Alberta. Her blog is titled Calm Things. Some of her photographs are available via Getty Images.

A seasoned bilingual actress, director, and coach as well as a Spoken Word Poet and past Edmonton Slam Champion, this season Giselle initiated Poetry Strip Tease…Poets Go Paperless, a Workshop Series on memorization and performance. Through this effort, Giselle hopes to see more and more passionate paperless poetry performances springing up throughout the city for all kinds of events.

Erika Luckert is an Edmonton writer, photographer, and student of the arts. Erika’s work has been featured in numerous local publications such as DailyHaiga, Glass Buffalo, Notebook Magazine, and 40 Below: Edmonton’s Winter Anthology. Currently, Erika is completing a BA Honours in English and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. She also works as the Writer/Researcher in Residence for the Westglen History Project (www.westglenhistoryproject.ca).

Jeanette Lynes is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Archive of the Undressed (Wolsak and Wynn, 2012) which was short-listed for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her first novel, The Factory Voice (Coteau, 2009) was long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a ReLit Award. Jeanette was the inaugural Writer in Residence at the Kingston Writers’ Festival in 2013. She is Coordinator of the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan.

Sad songs need lungs; empty pages do not fill themselves with black ink. Heather Macklem went to the U of A and now she works.

Kath MacLean is a multi media artist and educator living in Edmonton. She writes poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, critical reviews, performance poetry, drama & film and has performed her work throughout Canada and the United States. The most unusual and challenging location, however, remains an old WWII bomb shelter on a mountainside in Slovakia she visited as a guest of the Katherine Mansfield Society in the spring of 2012.

Her most recent work is Kat Among the Tigers (2011), poetry based on the journals & correspondence of Katherine Mansfield, & its accompanying poetryvideo, Doo-Da-Doo-Da, which won her the “Best of Fest” at its first national & international screening. Inspired by the writing of Robert Kroetsch, MacLean’s poetry was short-listed for the Robert Kroetsch Innovative Poetry Award in 2012, the same year she received the inaugural Anne Green Award for her excellence & innovation in film, poetry, & performance. Last winter she was WIR at the Mackie House for Kalamalka Press, and this year she has been awarded a writer in residency at the Al Purdy House in Ontario.

This summer MacLean debuted her new videopoem, The Language of Desire, from her earlier CD of performance poetry, Seed Bone and Hammer (2009) at Visible Verse in Vancouver. In the fall, she shared excerpts from her new manuscript in progress, When Night Comes Riding, a book of creative nonfiction, about the arrival of Spanish flu in Edmonton and Toronto in 1918. A who done it, MacLean explores the myth of Edmonton’s urban legend, Miss Felicia Graham, Westmount Junior High’s infamous ghost. Was Felicia murdered by Bluebeard, a serial killer living close by, or did she take her own life and jump from the bridge? You’ll want to know, but you’ll have to wait.

MacLean’s latest work in progress takes her again back in time to both New England and to Europe during WWI and WWI as Modernist poet, H.D. recalls her memories of Imagism, her relationship with Pound, and her fears about the wars during her new and experimental psychoanalytical sessions with Freud in Vienna during the early 1930s.

Plagued in recent months by ill health, MacLean has had to learned to walk and to breathe again and hopes now the worst of it is over and she can turn her energies again to writing. Keep your fingers crossed. Kathmaclean.com.

Hollow-bodied electric guitar in hand, Ariane Mahrÿke delivers her songs with humour, candor, vulnerability and strength. She flirts with folk, jazz, blues, and electroacoustics while effortlessly moving from French to English. Lemire perfectly reflects the diversity of Canadian culture. She offers dynamic performances and takes her listeners through expansive musical journeys sewn together by witty banter. Through her participation in remarkable experiences like the Festival en chanson de Petite Vallée in Gaspésie, the Coup de coeur francophone in Montreal, the Rencontres d’Astaffort in France and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, she has become a seasoned musician. Her first album, Double Entendre, was crowned Outstanding Francophone Recording at the 2008 WCMAs, her second was nominated in the same category in 2010, and her third album, Wrecked Tangles and Love Knots, was released in the fall of 2012.

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.

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.

Clint McElwaine is a ten year member of the Edmonton Stroll of Poets. His CD Gold featuring twenty-two of his ballads was published by Magpie Productions and is in its second run. He plans to release a second CD After the Harvest in September. Clint is a prairie boy with a heart full of songs.

Hugh McMillan is a poet from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. He has been published and anthologised widely. His selected and collected poems Thin Slice of Moon came out in 2013 and a new collection All the Creatures in the Wood is due in March 2014. His Postcards from the Hedge won the Callum Macdonald Memorial Prize in 2009 and After the Storm was a winner in the Smith/Doorstep Poetry Prize in 2004. Devorgilla Bridge was shortlisted in 2010 for the Michael Marks award. Individual poems have been prizewinners in the Scottish National Open Poetry Competition and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He is currently working on a book commissioned by the Wigtown Book Festival on themes and stories in contemporary Dumfries and Galloway.

Egyptian poet Iman Mersal is the author of five books of poetry in Arabic, published between 1990-2013. She has served as an editor of the cultural and literary reviews Bint al-Ard and Adab wa Naqd in Egypt, for several years, before leaving to North America. Mersal moved to Boston in 1998, and then to Edmonton, Canada, where she is currently an associate professor of Arabic literature at the University of Alberta. She was an EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, 2012-13.

Translations into English of her poems appeared in Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review and Michigan Quarterly Review. A selection from Mersal’s poetry, These Are Not Oranges, My Love, translated by the poet Khaled Mattawa, was published in 2008 (Sheep Meadow). Her poems have been translated into numerous languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew and Hindi. Forthcoming in 2014 from Dar al- Tanweer (Cairo & Beirut) is Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature (in Arabic), based on her 2009 dissertation from Cairo University

Montreal poet Erín Moure has published seventeen books of poetry in English and Galician/English, and thirteen volumes of poetry translated from French, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese into English, by poets such as Andrés Ajens, Nicole Brossard, Rosalía de Castro, Louise Dupré, and Fernando Pessoa. Her work has received the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the A.M. Klein Prize, and has been a three-time finalist for the Griffin Prize. Moure is currently revising the bilingual French/English impossible play Kapusta, a sequel to The Unmemntioable, and is translating Chus Pato’s Carne de Leviatán into English as Flesh of Leviathan. She is also working on a new book of poems called The Elements, and on a translation of Wilson Bueno’s Mar Paraguayo. Her latest book is titled Secession by Chus Pato with Insecession by Erin Moure. Follow her on Twitter: @erinmoure.

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

Michael Penny was born in Australia, but moved to Canada as a teenager. McGill-Queen’s University Press has just published his fifth book, Outside, Inside. He divides his time between Edmonton and Bowen Island.

Sandy Pool is a writer, editor and Creative Writing instructor. Sandy holds a degree in Theatre Performance and English from the University of Toronto, as well as a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University Guelph. Currently, she is a holder of the prestigious Killam scholarship in poetics at the University of Calgary, where she is completing her Phd. Sandy has been published in various literary journals and was most recently anthologized in The Best Canadian Poems in 2011, published by Tightrope Books.

Her first book Exploding Into Night, published by Guernica Editions, was short-listed for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for poetry. Undark: An Oratorio was published this fall with Nightwood Editions and was recently short-listed for an Alberta Book Award for Poetry and the Trillium Book Award for Poetry.

Deborah Ramkhelawan majors in English and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. She has studied poetry under professor emeritus Bert Almon as well as Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and has received multiple departmental awards. Deborah grew up in rural Strathcona County, feeding chickens with her grandmother and chasing down sheep. She now feeds herself chicken and chases the 6 o’clock train.

Julie C. Robinson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia but spent her childhood in rural Ontario. In 1999 Robinson joined the writing community in Edmonton where she served on the board of the Edmonton Stroll of Poets from 2005 to 2008, and the board of the Edmonton Poetry Festival from 2008 to 2013. In 2008, she received an Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant to pursue research on the life of Elizabeth Fry in England. This grant, and a residency at The Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, largely enabled the work of Jail Fire, her first book. She is currently a sessional instructor at The King’s University College. She lives in the city with her husband and son.

Stephen Scobie was born in Carnoustie, Scotland in 1943 and has lived in Canada since 1965, teaching at the Universities of Alberta and Victoria. A widely published poet, he won the Governor General’s Award in 1980 for McAlmon’s Chinese Opera – a book about Paris. His most recent work is RLS: At the World’s End, a poetic biography of Robert Louis Stevenson. He has also published extensively in the criticism of Canadian literature, especially on bpNichol, Leonard Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, Sheila Watson, and Phyllis Webb. Outside Canada, he has published books on Bob Dylan and Jacques Derrida, as well as a study on the relations between Cubist painting and literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Stephen Scobie lives in Victoria.

Shirley A. Serviss was a founding board member of the Edmonton Poetry Festival and is a long-time member of the Stroll of Poets. She has published three collections of poetry and works part-time as the staff literary Artist on the Wards for the Friends of University Hospitals. Her poetry, articles and personal essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.

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 latest novel, Urbane, is a finalist for the City of Edmonton Book Prize. A member of Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, also of Anishinaabe and Polish heritage, she lives in Edmonton and works globally.

For more info check out their website:
prairiepomes.com.

Hendrik Slegtenhorst is Canadian author, local government executive, and business owner. He lives in Edmonton, and has worked throughout Canada, and in the United States, Europe, and Africa. He is a citizen of both Canada and the European Union.

As a writer, he has published Caravaggio’s Dagger (Iguana, 2013) and over 100 works in established literary publications and as a newspaper columnist on local government. He is a professional member of the Canadian Authors’ Association. His cultural website is at www.culturalrites.com.

For most of the last seven years, he has served as the chief administrative officer to municipalities in New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Alberta.

He is the co-founder of the partnership Falstaff Enterprises, which, since 1991, has promoted his writing, editing, delivery of workshops and seminars, his teaching of international trade, and his consultative work in local government and heritage preservation. He has held the professional CITP (Certified International Trade Professional) designation since 2003.

He is a former executive director of the Museum of Vancouver; and has held many senior appointments in post-secondary adult education, including that of director of administration and planning at York University’s Atkinson College, registrar of The Banff Centre, and registrar of Alberta’s Athabasca University.

Sheri Somerville has spent the past three decades dividing her time between a career in live theatre, comedy and music. She began her career in the Toronto music scene before relocating back to Edmonton in 1991.

Since her return, Sheri has been a featured performer with The Citadel Theatre, Workshop West, Catalyst Theatre, Teatro La Quindicina and is a company member of the award winning improvisational comedy troupe Die Nasty!

Sheri has toured internationally with the critically acclaimed The Blue Orphan, with performances in Scotland, Australia, the Maritimes, Ontario, Montreal and the United States and has also appeared with Edmonton Opera in 2005 for the world premier of Weill in Weimar 1929. She has appeared many times as a guest vocalist with the Edmonton Symphony and collaborated on an original dance /music piece Nine Points To Navigate with the Brian Webb Dance Company.

Sheri has enjoyed playing with such jazz luminaries as Tommy Banks, P.J. Perry, Sandro Dominelli, Kent Sangster, Bobby Cairns and Mike Lent and been featured at The Edmonton Jazz Festival. It was a career highlight for Ms. Somerville to be invited to sing for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth during her Royal visit to Edmonton for Alberta’s centennial celebrations.

Sheri is the recipient of an AMPIA award for hosting the nationally televised Edmonton Comedy Festival. She has produced two CDs: In My Arms and Crazy Love.

A long time wine enthusiast, Sheri opened her restaurant Somerville Wine Room & Bistro in her Westmount neighbourhood in 2010 where she can be found when not performing.

Ian Stephen was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis and lives there still. A former Coastguard, Ian has worked full-time as a writer, artist and sailor since winning the inaugural Robert Louis Stevenson Award in 1995. He received a major Creative Scotland Award to navigate the settings of traditional stories. This remains his working practice.

Ian was the first artist in residence at StAnza poetry festival in 2004. He appeared at Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2013. In 2014 he will be representing Scotland in Canada, a Commonwealth Poets United event arranged by The Scottish Poetry Library. His sequence of lyrics, celebrating the archipelago of St Kilda, along with the music of David P Graham, was published by Inventio-Musikverlag, Berlin, in 2013. A new sequence of maritime poems, including a group composed during the Cape Farewell Scottish Islands voyages was selected for the 2013 Oxford Poets international anthology. One of these was selected for the Scottish Poetry Library’s ’20 best Scottish poems of 2013’.

His re-telling of Western Isles Folk Tales will be published by The History Press this year and his first novel, A Merry Book of Death and Fish has been accepted by Saraband, Glasgow. Ian has contributed poetry, short fiction and images to many periodicals in the UK and abroad, including Edinburgh Review, Stand, The London Magazine, Poetry Australia. Poetry Canada Review, Waves (Ontario), event and West Coast Lines (BC).

www.ianstephen.co.uk

Aliya Tariq is an honour student at Jasper Place High School where she earned Citizenship with Merit. She is involved in several clubs including the Global Cafe’s Slam Club. Aliya was in a play in elementary school and participated in a talent show. When not writing poetry or being a busy student, Aliya donates her time by tutoring fellow students.

Josée est autrice, metteuse en scène et comédienne. Basée à Edmonton depuis 25 ans, elle écrit pour le théâtre, le cinéma, la télé, la radio et les podcasts, et pour le collectif d’humour Le RiRe. Depuis quelques années, elle développe de nouvelles voix narratives grâce à ses nombreux alter ego (La petite Lulu, Old Lu, Djozy, Ann Jo) avec lesquels elle livre sur scène de la poésie spoken word, des monologues et des chansons. Josée vient tout juste de présenter son nouveau spectacle solo, La fille du facteur, sur la scène de l’UniThéâtre. Dans un univers où l’humour est poétique et la prose polémique, Josée tire la langue aux conventions en faisant exploser sa langue maternelle. Elle a le courage de donner sa langue au chat, mais, jamais, elle n’a la langue dans sa poche.

Josée writes, performs and directs. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, she writes for theatre, film, tv, radio and podcasts, as well as for the comedy troupe Le RiRe. In the last decade, she has developed new narrative voices with her many alter egos (La petite Lulu, Old Lu, Djozy, Ann Jo) creating and performing spoken word poetry, monologues and songs. Her new show, La fille du facteur, was presented at L’UniThéâtre in March 2019. Just like La petite Lulu tire la langue, Josée always sticks her tongue out, creating a tongue-in-cheek world where the French language plays tongue twisting games with l’anglais.

Rhea Tregebov’s seventh collection of poetry, All Souls, was released in 2012. Quill & Quire notes of All Souls that “Tregebov has always been a poet’s poet, but never more than here.” Her poetry has received the Pat Lowther Award, the Malahat Review Long Poem prize, Honorable Mention for the National Magazine Awards and the Readers’ Choice Award for Poetry from Prairie Schooner.

Tregebov is also the author of a historical novel, The Knife-Sharpener’s Bell. In addition to her poetry and fiction, Tregebov has also published five children’s picture books and edited numerous anthologies. She is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Program at UBC.

Jocelyne Verret is a long-time member of the Stroll of Poets and a past President. She is a published poet, novelist, dramaturge, and essayist. The Works Art and Design Festival of 2017 featured twelve of her poems (French and English) with accompanying artwork by visual artist Father Douglas.

Jocelyne Verret est un membre de longue date de la Stroll of Poets d’Edmonton et une ancienne présidente. Plusieurs oeuvres de cette poétesse, romancière, dramaturge et essayiste ont été publiées. The Works Art and Design Festival de 2017 a présenté douze de ses poèmes (en français et en anglais) avec les toiles accompagnatrices réalisées par le peintre Father Douglas.

Elizabeth Withey is a writer, journalist and artist based in Edmonton. She is a 2014 finalist for the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts Awards in the “emerging artist” category. Elizabeth has been on staff at the Edmonton Journal for a decade and has earned a National Newspaper Award citation of merit for arts & entertainment writing, among other prizes. She is the creator of One Hundred Widows (onehundredwidows.tumblr.com), a project about single earrings and solitude, which she transformed into an art installation at Latitude 53 gallery in the fall of 2013. Elizabeth is presently working to publish a memoir about her father, who died in a plane crash when she was a teenager, a project she began under the mentorship of Charlotte Gill at the Banff Centre. She is also the author of Life After Birth: True Stories from the First Year of Parenthood, an 2012 e-book of essays that originally appeared in the Edmonton Journal.

Paul Zits received his MA in English from the University of Calgary in 2010, completing his creative thesis, Massacre Street (UAP 2013) under the supervision of experimental Canadian poet Christian Bök. Since, he has served two terms as Writer-in-the-Schools at Queen Elizabeth High School in Calgary, teaching Creative Writing to students in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program, and taught at the WGA’s WordsWorth Camp at Kamp Kiwanis. Zits is the editor and publisher of the Calgary-based small-press 100 têtes Press and the Managing Editor of Filling Station.