2023 Headliners

Joe Bishop is the author of the chapbook Dissociative Songs. His work has appeared in literary journals across Canada and abroad. He has a BA in English from Memorial University. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

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.

What happens when a Queen reclaims her inner kingdom by swaying her hips and flowing magic through her lips?! Poetry in motion! A sonic experience of style, sass and substance. A compelling exploration of the human experience, Charlee Queen’s performance leaves you feeling not only inspired, but activated and empowered straight from your soul to your crown.

Charlene Smith, a.k.a. Charlee Queen XO or Queen C, is a spoken word artist, singer/songwriter, dancer/choreographer, yoga teacher, and spiritual/mental health mentor. As a dedicated scholar of Spiritual Philosophy, English literature and Genders studies, she is a womxn determined to inspire self love through mind, body and spiritual understanding.

Charlene has been re-educating Western Canada about the Afro-Canadian experience as a Yoga teacher and Mental Health Educator since graduating from the University of Toronto with her Bachelor of Honours, and attaining her yoga certification in 2012. Using movement, music, poetry and ancestral philosophy to heal herself and her community for over a decade, Charlene’s authentic expression, both in art and in life, embodies the sacred message of the divine feminine: To thy own self be true.

Chasidy is a poet and new mother currently residing in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. Her writing consists of themes of Indigeneity, mother-hood, and experiencing love as an Indigenous person. She started writing as a teenager and has since been featured in two publications, with Red Rising Magazine in Winnipeg, MB and YEG Indigenous Poets Society Poetry Anthology via Moon Jelly House in Edmonton, AB.

Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet and editor from Edmonton, Alberta (Treaty 6), where she lives with her family and a judgmental tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, Crow Name, Capsule Stories, Full Mood Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, EcoTheo Review (forthcoming), and You are a Flower Growing off the Side of a Cliff. Her chapbook, unless you’re willing to evaporate, is available through Prairie Vixen Press. Twitter: @milkcratejess

Jennifer Bowering Delisle is the author of Deriving and The Bosun Chair. A collection of lyric essays, Micrographia, is forthcoming in Fall 2023. She is a board member of NeWest Press and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets Parenting Poets Community Committee. She is a settler in amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory.

Gavin Doyle is a settler, writer and wanderer from amiskwacîwâskahikan on Treaty 6 Territory. He is thrilled to have his work appear in Hungry. When he’s not reading or writing, you can find Gavin binging reality television.

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.

Meghan Eaker (they/them) is an amiskwaciywâskahikan-based poet, registered nurse, and beading artist of mixed european and nehiyaw ancestry and is a member of the Woodland Cree First Nation in treaty 8 territory. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Alberta studying storysharing as a practice towards miyo pimatisiwin (a good life).

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

Born in amiskwaciwáskahikan (Edmonton) Alberta so called canada. kihew Giroux has been writing from a fairly early age taking an interest in creative story writing in early elementary. Starting off with poorly written children stories as all stories usually start out. For kihew growing up in a rural province like Alberta as a trans feminine indigenous youth was a traumatic and isolating experience, one that would fuel years and years’ worth of creativity as well as drive to be recognized and seen as a person in many spaces where she was not initially welcomed into.

She dabbled in many forms of art from digital to physical to even visual but writing as a form of expression and way to voice one’s struggles and experience was always something they had returned to, excelling in those areas academically and also personally.

Stephanie Giroux (Sage) is an Indigenous Metis woman residing in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) Alberta on treaty 6 land. She has been featured in the Edmonton Poetry Festival, the Edmonton Indigenous Poets Society, The Polyglot, The Stroll of Poets Anthology, The Heart of the City, and Tipi Confessions. Sage tends to write about her life experiences as an Indigenous French Metis woman.

Sonja Ruth Greckol is the author of No Line in Time, Skein of Days, and Gravity Matters. She lives in Tkaronto/Toronto.

Yeon Soo Ha was born in Seoul and lives in amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton. She is an avid reader, a community gardener, and a proud scorpio.

Robin Hunter aims to make a positive impact within the Indigenous community. She is an artist who seeks to educate Indigenous and non-Indigenous crowds through various media. She is currently working towards a degree in Native Studies at the University of Alberta and she is from Saddle Lake Cree Nation.

Empowering youth with platforms for artistic and individual expression.

Ink Movement is a youth-led nonprofit organization dedicated to uplifting arts culture in Edmonton. Their projects include conferences, workshops, open mics and more! Their greatest accomplishments include our annual Youth Anthology which provides an accessible publication opportunity for creative youths.

For more info check out their Facebook, Instagram, website:
@inkmovementyeg | inkmovement.org

Natasha Ridell

Natasha Riddell is in her third year of a BA in Drama at the University of Alberta. Her passion is devising pieces for theatre– some of which start off as poems. She is thrilled to share some art with you all and hopes you enjoy.

Maya Nagorski

Maya Nagorski is a 20 year old Immunology and Infection major, and the current Co-President of Ink Movement Edmonton. She hopes to share her love of poetry and promote Ink Movement’s mission statement of youth arts advocacy.

Charlayne Augustin

Having been a professional reader for nearly two decades (read: since birth), Charlayne has accrued a healthy collection of scribbled-in notebooks and scrap papers full of sporadic writing. Drawing inspiration from the interplay of visual arts and written word, her writing stems from and comes back to the heart!

Samantha Jones (she/her) is an earth scientist, writer, and copy editor based in Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary), Treaty 7 territory. Her words appear in THIS, Grain, CV2, Room, GeoHumanities, and elsewhere. She is an alumna of the Banff Centre Spring Writers Retreat and is a PhD Candidate (Geography) at the University of Calgary.

Lydia LeBlanc(she/they) is a self taught artist specializing in card board and paper maché sculptures and masks. They have also ventured into poetry as a new medium to explore. Their work is inspired by aspects of nature, death, the human mind and the indescribable aspects of them all.

Kathryn Gwun-Yeen 君妍 Lennon (she/her/hers) was born and raised in Edmonton/Amiskwacîwâskahikan, with mixed Hong-Kong Cantonese and Irish ancestry. She is working on a bilingual book of poetry, thanks to support from the Edmonton Arts Council. She is the co-creator of Hungry Zine, a food-focused publication that centres voices missing in mainstream food media. She was a member of Edmonton’s 2012 Slam Poetry Team, and a member of the festival ensemble at the 2013 and 2015 Victoria Festival of Spoken Word. Her work has been published in Living Hyphen, The Globe and Mail, Ricepaper Magazine, The Ethnic Aisle, Spacing Magazine, and screened at the 2010 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and the 2018 Bozeman International Film Festival.

Bryn Lipinski is a poet, drummer, and songwriter who likes to lean towards the epic side when writing. A fan of long form poetry like Pearl and Sir Orfeo, Bryn models his works in a style that takes you back to the time of Camelot, or Scheherazade. Through telling stories, he hopes to further your imagination’s reach towards the beyond.

Insta: @lipinski_b

Carley Lizotte (she/her) is a Cree-Métis storyteller, poet, artist and educator. She was born and raised in Fort Vermilion, but is currently based in Amiskwacîwâskihikan. Her poetry is a reflection of who and where she comes from. She was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2019. She dreams of spaces where BIPOC can just be; and sees writing as a form of ceremony.

Mad John’s secret? 
They aren’t really angry.

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.

Kim Mannix is a poet, dark fiction writer, and journalist who lived in six Canadian cities before deciding to call Sherwood Park home. As a lover and supporter of local arts, she’s delighted to be part of the Edmonton Poetry Festival Board. She works as an entertainment and lifestyle writer for MSN, and has had her creative efforts published in several Canadian and international journals and anthologies. She is a co-editor of Watch Your Head, a climate crisis anthology, and is deeply grateful to the earth that sustains us all.

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.

​​Tololwa Mollel is an author of internationally published children’s books, a playwright, storyteller, and performer. His children’s books have won the Governor General’s Award and Alberta Literary Awards. He has also published adult nonfiction and short stories, and his work has been translated into various Asian, European, and African languages. Tololwa loves to share his passion for story, writing, performance, and creative work with all ages.

Jane Munro’s Blue Sonoma won the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize. Recent books include False Creek, Open Every Window, and Glass Float. Munro has taught creative writing at universities, led writing workshops, and given readings around the world. She lives on unceded ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Daniel Poitras is a half-breed poet from the Paul First Nation. Currently residing in Edmonton, he writes about the challenges that Indigenous and Metis people face today. He has been published in the Home and Away anthology (House of Blue Skies, 2009), The Malahat Review, Grain Magazine, The Polyglot and in the Edmonton Poetry Festival’s Poetry Moves on Transit program.

Omar Ramadan is a creative writing PhD student at the University of Calgary. His research and creative work focus on Arab diaspora literatures. He’s particularly interested in systems of power and surveillance, and the impacts of 9/11 on Arab & Muslim communities. He is the managing editor of fillingStation magazine.

Twitter: @Omarinthephd
Instagram: @pinchofpulbiber

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, she released her first full length poetry collection, The Big Melt which won the Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian first book award. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, among others. Emily Riddle is a dedicated Treaty 6 descendant and a semi-dedicated Edmonton Oilers fan.

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Lauren Seal is a writer, librarian, and St. Albert’s third Poet Laureate. She mentors the teen and young adult poets of SWYC, the Spoken Word Youth Choir, and performs in the adult incarnation of the group. When she isn’t busy reading and writing books, Lauren can be found composing poems in her head on long dog walks.

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.

Spirit Tongues is a freeflow artist both in verbal and visual art. Having a career based in the visual world, they slowly emerged into music and poetry last year. You can often expect off the dome freestyles in both English and melodic sounds they call intuitive language as well as sculpted poetry expressed in a way that often feels like a conversation.

Sublime Intervention Collective, also known as S.I.C., is an experimental and collaboration based group of young femme artists out of amiskwaciwáskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta). Starting as a passion project of young artists Lydia Leblanc and
MadJohn! Madden, S.I.C.’s goal has been to initiate connection between creatives within our community, and develop projects that bring together different mediums to explore the creative interaction that can take place across disciplines. S.I.C. has held multidisciplinary events independently as well as a part Next Fest and Edmonton Poetry Festival.

‘Sum’ started writing at the age of 16 & began to freestyle whilst living on the streets of Edmonton at age 17. His submersion into hip-hop culture supported the foundation of his ability to freestyle & eventually song write & experiment with lyricism. This enthusiastic devotion for ‘word smithing’ as an art form, has successfully cultivated an adept ability to express with purpose, passion & power for intentionally conscious, culture informed entertainment. His work covers decolonization, original people’s spirituality, the relationship between personal self & the world around us.

Bree Taylor (she/they) is a writer and poet living on Treaty Six Territory in Canada. She is currently pursuing her B.A. at the University of Alberta, where she has won the L. June Kelly Prize in Introductory Poetry. Her fiction has appeared in Liminal Space: A Debut Student Anthology, and her poetry has appeared in 3 Moon Magazine, C&P Quarterly, Funicular, the Celestial/Bodies anthology, and in a chapbook called How To Get A Thigh Gap that she co-authored with Nisha Patel. She was a finalist for the Dell Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2022 for her story Our Own Image, which is forthcoming in Quagmire Magazine.

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike is a Nigerian-born, Calgary-based poet, fiction writer, essayist, and literary journalist. He is the author of Double Wahala, Double Trouble; Wish Maker; and a co-editor of Wreaths for Wayfarers.

RC Weslowski is an award-winning spoken word poet and radio broadcaster. He has featured at such distinguished events as the Nuyorican Café Poetry Slam, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Toronto Poetry Slam, The Art Bar Reading Series, Planet Poetry, The Poets Corner, The Otoba Poetry Slam, Song and Bird Reading Series, the Verses Festival of Words and now the Edmonton Poetry Festival. RC has led poetry “wordshops” with Word Travels Australia, The Banff Centre for the Arts, The Tuscon Poetry Festival, The Victoria Spoken Word Festival and many more. RC’s first book of poetry, My Soft Response to the Wars is out on Write Bloody North Publishing.

Yusi is a multidisciplinary creative community builder who uses art as a way to connect and heal with others. Her passion has driven her to explore the meaning behind humanity and what that looks like.

This introverted Somali woman has spice and isn’t afraid to use it. As a hip hopper, she’s learning how to build a practice that brings knowledge of self into a Healthy movement, a Loving mindfulness, a trusting Awareness and Wealth within herself and those around her.

Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, and poetry curator, with over 250 published pieces and three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r, Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry series. Bänoo is the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta, Canada.

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