2019 Headliners

Nasra is a queer, Muslim, Oromo creator/curator living in Amiskwaciwȃskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. They were the Youth Poet Laureate of Edmonton from 2016 to 2017 and are currently the Director of Sister to Sister, an artistic showcase for/by femmes and women of colour. They are also the Festival Director of Black Arts Matter—Alberta’s interdisciplinary Black arts festival—and were the 2017 recipient of the Mayor’s Emerging Artist award. Nasra’s first poetry chapbook A God Dance in Human Cloth with Glass Buffalo Publishing celebrates the soft warrior in all of us; a call to step into our divinity and into ourselves, with fists unclenched.

Alex Allen’s work is informed by her lived experience with chronic illness. She is interested in narrative structures surrounding illness and disability––particularly those that depict the body as inhabiting a fixed and separate state. Her poetry dwells in the constant change of a relational world.

Maria Barbu has studied creative writing and spoken-word performance in classes and workshops facilitated by Marilyn Dumont, Denise Duhamel and Arthur Flowers. She is currently making sense of what it means to be in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan) on Treaty 6/Métis Territory, as a Romanian-born woman, and she is interested in the work that lives in this space. Overall, she is fascinated by the power of poetic verse to bring out the sacredness of the seemingly mundane, and she strives to create pieces that rumble yet calm, that awaken and inspire, that call us to connect to our inner flames and to each and one another.

Sarah-Jeanne a grandi au Québec. Elle a commencé à s’illustrer en poésie en 2015 en remportant le premier prix du concours de poésie du Centre de littérature canadienne. Depuis, trois de ses poèmes ont été publiés. Sarah-Jeanne est une touche-à-tout littéraire : elle s’adonne également à l’écriture théâtrale et affectionne particulièrement le roman. Elle en est à sa troisième participation au French Twist.

Québec-born Sarah-Jeanne got into poetry in 2015, when she won the first place of the CLC’s poetry contest (French). Three of her poems have since been published. Sarah-Jeanne does not shy away from literary genres: she is starting playwriting and is particularly fond of novels. This is her third time attending the French Twist event.

Astrid Blodgett’s short stories have appeared in The Journey Prize Anthology, Meltwater: Fiction and Poetry from the Banff Centre for the Arts, and several Canadian literary magazines. She was short-listed for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story, and her collection, You Haven’t Changed a Bit, was long-listed for a ReLit Award, a runner up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and a finalist for the High Plains Book Award for Short Stories. She writes an occasional poem every few years.

E.D. Blodgett (1935–2018) published numerous books of poetry as well as literary history and translations. He was Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta. His books won the Governor General’s Award twice, for poetry and translation. From 2007 to 2009 he was Edmonton’s Poet Laureate.

Mila Bongco-Philipzig was born in Manila, Philippines and arrived in Edmonton in 1984 with a grant for graduate studies at the University of Alberta. After completing her master’s, she moved to Germany on a scholarship towards a PhD. In Munich, she met her husband and they have one son. Mila and her family have lived in various places around the globe, preferring to be on the road experiencing various cultures and perspectives rather than being tied down with a mortgage. This changed in 2007 when they decided to call Edmonton home in order to provide a more predictable environment for their son, and to enable him to form long-term friendships. Mila works at Stantec and is active in the community. In 2016, she published two bilingual children’s books (Pilipino and English), both reflecting her interests in family, travel, multiculturalism, and diversity.

Jenna Butler is the author of three books of poetry and ten short collections with small presses. Butler teaches creative writing and eco-criticism at Red Deer College. In the summer, she and her husband live on a small organic farm near the historic Grizzly Trail in Alberta’s north country.

Paige Cardinal is a nêhiyaw-iskwêw and a member of Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 Territory. She has considered amiskwaciwâskahikan her home for the past 11 years. A mother, full-time artist, writer and business owner, her writing has been featured in Glass Buffalo magazine, Prairie Fire & CV2’s joint issue: ndn country!, among others.

Cikwes is a Nehiyaw soul singer and songwriter. Her musical background is rooted in Woodland Cree traditions, with creative influences ranging from experimental over tone singing, jazz, soul, r’ n’ b and reggae. Cikwes is a fluent Cree speaker and sings in her mother tongue and in English. Her recent album, ISKO was released on June 23, 2018. ISKO means woman in the Cree language. Her creativity is a wild reclamation of Indigenous feminine power as it celebrates her sexuality and reframes it in a powerful Indigenous light. Her style of over tone singing and chanting celebrates the Matriarch, with a raw powerful and sensual presence, which Cikwes refers to as Nehiyaw Soul. Her voice is pure and haunting and her ability to pull sounds from spirit leaves audiences mesmerized. Cikwes is a most unique artist whose work cannot be compared or found in today’s genre of music.

Liam Coady’s work is special for its ability to foreground the human possibilities of social unity, personal resilience, love and enduring hopefulness. A member of the 2011 National Slam Champion Team and a 2-time finalist for the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam, Liam has performed and toured cross Canada and internationally.

James Collier is a writer from Edmonton currently studying film and creative writing at the University of Alberta. Their work has appeared in Glass Buffalo and the Hart House Review. One of the few things they love more than writing a poem is reading it out loud.

Cobra Collins was was the captain and coach of Calgary’s 2016 Slam team, representing Calgary on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and was a member of Calgary’s Inkspot Spoken Word Collective, home of Calgary’s official poetry Slam. Cobra has participated in several Nationwide Spoken Word festivals, as well as collaborated with artists of different backgrounds for dance (Fluid Movements Arts Festival) and performance festivals (IKG 1 ! Live Performance Festival). Cobra was also honoured to be shortlisted as a nominee for Calgary’s 2016 & 2018 poet laureate. Cobra, above all things, truly believes that our words can change us.

Megan Dart: Poet. Playwright. Producer. Megan Dart minds her p’s (but not always her q’s). Alongside her sister Beth, Megan is the co-Artistic Producer of award-winning indie company Catch the Keys Productions, best known for its site-specific, immersive theatre creations. Megan is also the co-Artistic Producer of Common Ground Arts Society, the Communications Specialist with Fringe Theatre, a collective member of The Edmonton Poetry Brothel, and a past member of the Edmonton Slam Team. Megan was named one of the Top 100 Women in Business by the Wanderer Online, and is a University of Grant MacEwan Distinguished Alumni.

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.

Alyson Davies is an Alberta-based interdisciplinary visual artist who loves working collaboratively. She received a BFA from the University of Alberta in 2014. She’s a member and founder of the artist collective Tennis Club. She has shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the USA; most recently showing solo at SNAP Gallery in February, 2019 in Edmonton. Davies has participated in residencies in Alberta, Yukon Territory, New York and Colorado.

Cristian de la Luna est né dans la Colombie de Gabriel García Marquez. En arrivant au Saguenay, il commence à écrire des chansons et des poèmes inspirées parfois par la nostalgie de son dure exil de la Colombie et parfois par l’excitation de devenir un canadien de la «nouvelle vague» Ses paroles sont des invitations à la fête et des mots d’amitié. Ses rythmes sont ceux du coeur, du plaisir de la vie, sa voix sonne l’urgence de vivre dans le moment présent.

Cristian De La Luna was born in Colombia. When he landed in Canada, he started to write songs and poems inspirited sometimes by nostalgia sometimes by the excitement. The troublesome story of his exile from Colombia and the adoption of his new life, shaped this “new wave” Canadian. As a culturally diverse polyglot and human rights activist, Cristian seeks with the poetry within his music, promoting the unification of races and religions, crushing divisions, and dismantling the chronic neglect of those who stop dreaming.

Beaucoup ne le savent peut-être pas, mais le mot RAP signifie rythme et poésie, car le rap est avant tout l’expression de ses sentiments ou de ceux des autres. 2Moods est un artiste Franco Albertain du hip hop rap, qui a décidé de partager avec vous la profondeur de ses textes, pour appuyer l’idée que le rap met, et devrait mettre l’accent sur la force des mots.

Many may not know it, but the word RAP means rhythm and poetry, because rap is above all an expression of one’s feelings or those of others. 2Moods, who is a Franco Albertan hip hop rap artist, decided to share with you the depth of his lyrics, to support the idea that rap puts, and should emphasize the power of words.

Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). She has won prizes such as: The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize, The Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize, Water-stone Review’s Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, and The South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s Creative Writing Award for Poetry. Her work can be found in Redivider, New England Review, and The Southern Review, among others. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.

Selassie Drah is a recording hip-hop artist and lyricist, originally from Ghana and now based in Edmonton, Alberta. Their earnest lyrics draw listeners into their world, making them a very relatable and heart-felt artist. Selassie’s debut EP “Recluse” is gloomy-toned project that illustrates his personal battles as an up-and-coming artist. Selassie’s music embodies authentic sincerity and openness as they never shy away from sharing their most personal stories. It is their hope that their listeners find some sense of relatability and resonance through their projects!

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 the name of an ancient African Adinkra symbol, which means strength, humility, learning and wisdom. It is no surprise, then, that this veteran of the Alberta poetry community uses a searing intellect and dynamic precision-of-language to create poetry which ushers her readers and listeners toward greater understanding and poignant reflection.

For Shima Aisha Robinson aka Dwennimmen, poetry has long been a compass, a salve, an anchor and guiding light. She uses the potential and force of poetry to uncover the full range of her cerebral, linguistic and spiritual fortitude. This is why her every poem and performance testifies to an emerging power and wisdom, an authentic, deeply human potency which she hopes to pass on to listeners and poetry-lovers around the world.

She is the author of two books including HORN, 2016, Denseverse (self published), and Bellow, 2022, Glass House Press. She has worked, advocated, and represented our community as Artistic Producer for the Edmonton Poetry Festival Society from 2022-23 Festival Society, founder and curator of the WORD*LAB spoken word series, Learning and Outreach Manager for Fringe Theatre Adventures, and not least-of-all is also the The City Of Edmonton’s 10th Poet Laureate.

Luciana Erregue is a Canadian-Argentinian art historian, writer, and editor. Her poetry and creative non-fiction essays have appeared in the anthologies Looking Back, Moving Forward (Mawenzi House, 2018), Relatos Entrecruzados (Editorial Mapalé, 2020), and in blogs and literary magazines worldwide. Luciana guest edited The Polyglot magazine’s ekphrastic issue, “CanLit: Curating our Canons” (Spring 2018). In 2019, Luciana was the Edmonton Arts Council Artist in Residence, and was selected as part of the Literary Arts cohort at the Banff Centre. Luciana writes on her blog, SpectatorCurator, about her life as an art historian. This volume is her first endeavour as part of her activism, for diversity in Canadian publishing, Laberinto Press.

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.

Omar Farah is a 22 year old Somali-Canadian Poet, Engineer-in-training, community builder, and all around “homie”. Although he is relatively new to the spoken word scene, Omar has managed to make a name for himself locally and abroad as the former Edmonton Slam Champion, TedX Speaker, winner of the Saskatchewan Festival of Words, and finalist in the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. He has performed across Canada and the United states from small local cafe’s to theatres. His style of rhythmic, complex at times, yet relatable poetry analyzes the world at large from the perspective of African diaspora and aims to transforms the biggest of critiques.

Passionnée par les livres, les mots, les histoires et le théâtre, Adèle Fontaine a mené plusieurs carrières : travailleuse sociale, aide-bibliothécaire et enseignante. Aujourd’hui, à 79 ans, elle continue à enseigner. Elle dit que c’est sa carrière de vieille femme. En 2018, elle a publié son premier livre, My Sundays with Normand, témoignage d’une vie à deux remplie de plaisir et d’amour. Dans la langue du peuple, elle vous offre des histoires puisées dans les grands livres de contes et souvent récitées aux enfants et aux adultes dans les écoles et les bibliothèques en Alberta.

Passionate about books, words, stories and theater, Adèle Fontaine has had several careers: social worker, library assistant and teacher. Today, at 79, she continues to teach, She says it is her old lady career. In 2018, she published her first book, My Sundays with Normand, a testimony to a life of two filled with pleasure and love. In the language of the people, she offers stories drawn from the great storybooks and often recited to children and adults in Alberta schools and libraries.

Rayanne Haines is an award-winning hybrid author and the 2022 Regional Writer in Residence for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries. Her first full-length poetry collection Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2018) was a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Exporting Alberta Award. Tell the Birds Your Body is Not a Gun (Frontenac House, 2021) is a current finalist for the Alberta Literary Awards Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Her essay This is Normal was shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Awards Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award. Rayanne is the host of the literary podcast Crow Reads and is an Edmonton Artist Trust Fund recipient. Her poetry and essays have been featured in anthologies and journals in Canada, the UK and the USA.

Alexis Hillyard is a YouTube Creator, self-taught vegan chef, and entrepreneur. Born without her left hand, Alexis uses her stump as a kitchen tool – from spatula to juicer – while expanding the vocabulary of what’s possible in the kitchen each week on her show ‘Stump Kitchen.’ Stump Kitchen is a YouTube series that celebrates body diversity, gluten free vegan cooking, and the amazing, unique ways we move through the world. In 2016, Stump Kitchen won Best Food Blog in VUE Magazine’s Best of Edmonton. In 2017 Alexis was named the first Canadian Ambassador to the Lucky Fin Project, an organization dedicated to limb difference awareness, education, and celebration.

Doyali Islam’s second poetry book is heft (McClelland & Stewart, March 2019). In 2017, she was a guest on CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition, where she discussed with Michael Enright the impact of her father’s ‘listening game’ on her poetic practice. More recently, she conversed with Forrest Gander for The Adroit Journal and was interviewed by Anne Michaels for CV2 (Spring 2019). Doyali serves as the poetry editor of Arc Poetry Magazine.

Born and raised in Edmonton, Ellen lived in Calgary for four years while completing her BA. She also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. As an active writer and freelance editor throughout her career, Ellen worked with and for the Edmonton Poetry Festival for many years as a volunteer coordinator, event planner, founding member, and board member. Currently, she is the Communications and Partnerships Coordinator for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and the administrative assistant for the Stroll of Poets.

Claire Kelly’s first full-length collection, Maunder, is available from Palimpsest Press. Her poem “Mother, What Should We Do?” was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2017. She lives and writes in Edmonton. Her second book of poetry, One Thing – Then Another, is published with ECW.

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.

Lindsay Knox is an Edmonton-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice employs drawing, painting, textile and ceramics. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the The University of Victoria in 2006 and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta in drawing/intermedia. She is a recipient of the Edmonton Arts Council Trust Fund Award and has participated in several art exhibitions across Western Canada.

Lady Vanessa Cardona is a mestiza, Colombian, first generation immigrant artist, poet, theatre practitioner, community organizer, dance instructor and photographer. She started her spoken word career in Windhoek, Namibia and currently lives in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton), Treaty 6 Territory. Lady Vanessa is the 2018 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion. She graduated with a BFA and specialization in Theatre and Development from Concordia University. She has written and performed her own one woman show called “Three Ladies” at the Edmonton Found Festival of 2017. She is also a co-creator and performer of “Whiteface” produced with Mile Zero Dance, Hip-hop in the park, Winnipeg and Edmonton Fringe Festival. Lady is a mentor of a refugee youth leadership group called, “Newcomers are lit” officially known as the Canadian Council for Refugees Youth Network. She is the founder of “Fiesta y Resistancia” Alberta’s interdisciplinary Latinx art Festival. Lady has toured and competed around Canada and the United States promoting her art as an Edmonton local artist and proud member of the Breath in Poetry collective. She features in the chapbook Water, published by Glass Buffalo. Lady is currently working on her upcoming book La Sangre Llama. Lady believes in the healing powers art provides for our community. Healing is not polite; art allows us to be the frankest versions of ourselves so that we may strengthen our souls, minds and the community around us. Art is where we come together through unity of purpose.

Houssem Ben Lazreg is currently a PhD candidate, a freelance translator/interpreter, a teaching assistant for French/Arabic at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, and a French language instructor with the Canadian School of Public Service. He was a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant of Arabic at Michigan State University from 2010–2011. He holds a master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). His research interests include politics and translation, Middle Eastern graphic novels, and Islamist militant movements. His translations have appeared in journals such as Transcultural, Transference, and Multilingual Discourses, while his commentaries on international politics are published with the The Conversation and Sasapost.

Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor, teacher and critic with an MFA from the University of Guelph. Frequently anthologized, her work has been translated into Spanish and Italian. She is the author of the awards-nominated poetry collection Voodoo Hypothesis (Buckrider Books, 2017). Her debut poetry chapbook augur (Gap Riot Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 bpNichol Chapbook Award. She contributed fiction in The Unpublished City: Volume I, finalist for the 2018 Toronto Book Award. In addition to her tenure as Poetry editor for the Humber Literary Review and advisor to Open Book, Lubrin is co-artistic director and co-host of Pivot Readings, writing mentor with Flying Books and consulting editor with Buckrider Books/Wolsak & Wynn. She teaches English at Humber College and Creative Writing at Sheridan College and the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.

Randy Lundy is a member of the Barren Lands (Cree) First Nation. Blackbird Song is his third poetry collection, following his previous works Under the Night Sun and Gift of the Hawk. His work has been widely anthologized. He lives in Pense, Saskatchewan.

Michael B. MacDonald is an award-winning filmmaker, ciné-ethnomusicologist, and associate professor of music in the MacEwan University Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His research areas include screen production research, ethnographic film theory, and ciné-ethnomusicology. Michael is the founder and programme chair of the MusCan Film Series, held annually at the Canadian University Music Society annual conference, and is an active member of the International Council of Traditional Music Study Group on Audiovisual Ethnomusicology, an NGO that reports to UNESCO. He has published seven films and three books and is currently working on two ethnomusicological films set in Portugal, and a book-length project called “Cinéma Musicalité: a Deleuzian encounter with the music films of Les Blank”.

MelAfrique is a band formed in 2016. The name is a condensed form of the term “Melanin from Africa”. They play variety of genres: Jazz, R&B, Neo-soul, and they refer to their sound as Afro-fusion. They hope to inspire people with GOOD music, in every sense of the word. Through music, they express their identities as Africans, as musicians and all the other identities that they each come with. Its members include Leshan Masikonte, Riwo Egor, Adanna Onuekwusi, Enoch Attey, Aristotle Jorge Canga and Steven Atkins.

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/

Lisa Mulrooney is Poet Laureate for the Town of Stony Plain (2019-2021). She is the co-founder and President of Parkland Poets’ Society and serves on the boards of both Edmonton’s Stroll of Poets Society and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. Earlier this year, she was a finalist for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award for Poetry. Her poetry will be featured in the Spring 2019 Issue of The Maynard.

Hilary Mussel is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Edmonton, Alberta. She grew up on an acreage in rural Alberta and spent most of her youth outdoors and in her imagination. Her work is influenced by folklore and storytelling traditions, and explores the diversity of nature using textile and fibre-based sculptures, drawings and paintings. She is interested in the patterns and textures found in real organisms, but it is also equally about exploring the materials she uses to create the work. While she deals with representing the beauty, ugliness and the stories found in nature, she also cannot avoid the humour, which tends to sneak into her work, and gives her
great joy.

Adriana Oniță is a Romanian-Canadian poet, founder of The Polyglot, a multilingual magazine of poetry and art. She writes poetry in English, Spanish, Romanian, French, and Italian. Her passion for languages has led her to pursue a PhD in second language education. She is the author of the ekphrastic chapbook Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). She is a recipient of a Killam Scholarship and is a PhD candidate in Educational Policy with the University of Alberta.

Barra Ó Scannláin comes from Dún na nGall (Donegal) in the Northwest of Ireland, and has recently arrived in Edmonton to teach Irish language and culture courses at the University of Alberta. A graduate of Dublin City University, where he studied Irish and French, Barra has spent time living in France studying and teaching, and of course in Ireland, where he spends his summers teaching the Irish language to adult learners from all over the world. He is interested in art in all its forms, languages, literature, travel, folklore, and music (especially traditional Irish sean-nós singing). He hopes to bring the Irish language and culture to the wider University of Alberta community and strengthen Irish cultural links in Edmonton while he is here. Check out his Twitter for tweets (mostly in Irish) and updates on how the Irish language is being promoted on campus: @barryscanlon.

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

Arleen Paré is a Victoria writer. She has 5 collections of poetry, two of which are cross-genre. She has been short-listed for the BC Dorothy Livesay BC Award for Poetry, and has won the Victoria Butler Book Prize, the CBC Bookie Award, the Governor Generals’ Award for Poetry, and the American Golden Crown Award for Poetry.

Nisha Patel is an award-winning queer and disabled spoken word artist. She was the City of Edmonton’s 8th Poet Laureate, and is a Canadian Individual Slam Champion. Her debut collection COCONUT is available at Glass Bookshop. You can find her at nishapatel.ca.

Rebecca Pickard is a self taught multi-media artist and educator from treaty six territory. She has taught over 5 years of visual art to students at Victoria school of the Arts, and has participated in several group and solo shows and installations around Edmonton. In addition to her own art practice, she currently facilitates arts based education workshops for the First Nations, Métis and Inuit unit with Edmonton Public schools. Lately she draws her inspiration from abstract interpretations of the cosmos, as well as cycles and patterns inherent in the natural world.

Zach Polis is the City of St. Albert’s poet laureate, acting as a literary and cultural ambassador for the Greater Edmonton Area. He has performed in New York City, as well as on CBC Radio. His poems have been recognized on Vogue Italia’s PhotoVogue, and Teen Vogue has described his style as brilliant. He recently completed a spoken word residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Jason Purcell is a writer and musician living on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, Alberta, where they are co-owner of Glass Bookshop. They hold a MA in English from the University of Alberta. Swollening is their first book.

Virginie est une artiste francophone multidisciplinaire née à Ste-Aurélie, dans la région de la Beauce, au Québec. Elle a étudié le design de présentation et la création multimédia à Ste-Foy et Lévis. Comme artiste multidisciplinaire, elle a travaillé dans différents domaines des arts appliqués comme le design et la réalisation de décors thématiques, création et réalisation de murales, design et réalisation de décors résidentiels, commerciaux et artistiques. Issue d’une large famille de « patenteux », elle acquiert rapidement des compétences manuelles à plusieurs niveaux. Elle a été artiste-formatrice pour plusieurs compagnies et organisations communautaires. Déménagée en Alberta avec sa petite famille il y a 5 ans, elle a créé des installations atistiques temporaires pour plusieurs événements tels que Zoominescence et le Festival du Canoë Volant. Elle offre des ateliers d’arts et d’artisanat en français dans les écoles et les organismes et travaille à temps partiel comme intervenante scolaire communautaire pour le CSCN.

Ce qu’elle aime par-dessus tout c’est présenter au public sa passion pour les couleurs, les textures, la lumière et pour la première fois ce soir, ses mots.

Virginie is a francophone multidisciplinary artist born in the province of Quebec. She has studied in Presentation Design and Multimedia Creation. As a multidisciplinary artist, she worked in various fields of applied arts such as, the design and realization of thematic decors, desing and realization of murals, design and realization of residential, commercial and artistic developments. She’s been acting as trainer-artist for companies and community organizations. Living in Edmonton for the past five years, she creates art installations for many events such as Zoominescence and the Flying Canoe fest. She offers french workshops in visual arts and crafts for schools and community organizations and works part-time as community and school coordinator at Ecole Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc.

She loves to share and show her passion about textures, colors, lights and for the first time, her words.

Pierrette Requier is a multi-faceted bilingual writer and translator. She is the recipient of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal 2022. Her recent triple publication—a translation / adaptation of details from the edge of the village, into French, entitled Petites nouvelles du Last Best West is available in book form, as an e-book, and audiobook. A collaboration between two western Canada publishing houses, Les Éditions de la nouvelle plume, Regina Saskatchewan and Frontenac House, Okotoks, Alberta.

Galen Scorer is currently a Video Art Director at Electronic Arts. With over 18 years of experience in digital entertainment, technology, marketing, video games and film, Galen has worked with some of the world’s greatest digital storytelling companies in the world such as BioWare, EA, National Film Board of Canada, Canadian Film Centre and the Toronto International Film Festival. His award winning film, Invisible World, won a Webby and Rosie award for interactive film in 2018.

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.

Kelly Shepherd’s second poetry collection, Insomnia Bird (Thistledown Press, 2018) won the 2019 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Kelly has written seven chapbooks, and he is a poetry editor for the environmental philosophy journal The Trumpeter. He has a Creative Writing MFA from UBC Okanagan (with a thesis on the intersections of ecopoetry and work poetry), and an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Alberta (with a thesis on sacred geography). Originally from Smithers BC, Kelly currently lives in Edmonton, and teaches at NAIT.

Titilope Sonuga is a poet who renders, both in verse and performance, a quality of rootedness and unflinching womanhood that extends beyond the bounds of a single poem or poetic performance. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Down to Earth (2011), Abscess (2014), and This Is How We Disappear (2019) and has composed two spoken word albums, Mother Tongue (2011) and Swim (2019). Her work is expansive, reaching into the realm of theatre, television and advertising campaigns for global brands. She is the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton.

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 (Glass Buffalo, 2018). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Queer Little Nightmares (Arsenal Pulp, 2022), Plenitude, FreeFall, and others. He hosts VERS/E, a queer poetry open mic the first Wednesday of every month at Felice Cafe.

Follow on IG: @mlstepanic

For more info check out their website:
http://matthewstepanic.com/

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.

Karen Unland is president of the Alberta Podcast Network, an initiative powered by ATB to build audiences for Alberta-made podcasts and connect their listeners to Alberta-based businesses and organizations. She also co-hosts That’s a Thing?!, a podcast in which her daughter teensplains her media to her. You may know her from such other independent media adventures as Taproot Edmonton, a curiosity-driven source of local information that she co-founded with Mack Male.

Gianmarco Visconti is an Ismaili poet from Edmonton. He was awarded the Glass Buffalo English Poetry Prize in 2016 and his poetry has appeared on buses and trains around Edmonton. In 2015, he received the Canadian Library Association’s Student Article Award for his research examining the role of public libraries in creating inclusive spaces for LGBTQ Muslim youth. He is also a longtime producer of Adamant Eve, Edmonton’s only feminist news radio show on CJSR FM.

Buddy Wakefield is a three-time world champion spoken word artist featured on the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, ABC Radio National and has been signed to both Sage Francis’ Strange Famous Records as well as Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then went on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in over 2000 venues internationally from The Great Lawn of Central Park, Zimbabwe’s Shoko Festival and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and The Basement in Sydney, Australia.

Wakefield, who is not concerned with what poetry is or is not, delivers raw, rounded, disarming performances of humor and heart.

Natalie Wee is a queer Peranakan community-builder and the author of Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents, she is currently a settler in Tkaronto (Toronto).

Brandon Wint is an Ontario born poet and spoken word artist who uses poetry to attend to the joy and devastation and inequity associated with this era of human and ecological history. Increasingly, his work on the page and in performance casts a tender but robust attention toward the movements and impacts of colonial, capitalist logic, and how they might be undone. In this way, Brandon Wint is devoted to a poetics of world making, world altering and world breaking.

For Brandon, the written and spoken word is a tool for examining and enacting his sense of justice, and imagining less violence futures for himself and the world he has inherited. For more than a decade, Brandon has been a sought-after, touring performer, and has presented his work in the United States, Australia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Jamaica. His poems and essays have been published in national anthologies, including The Great Black North: Contemporary African-Canadian Poetry (Frontenac House, 2013) and Black Writers Matter (University of Regina Press, 2019). Divine Animal is his debut book of poetry.

Nermeen Youssef is a multilingual poet documenting life through the lens of an expatriate scientist. Based in Edmonton, Nermeen’s work speaks to the multitudes of spaces and identities that she embodies every day, giving voice to the power and breadth of her work as an artist.