Douglas Barbour is the author of several books of poetry and criticism, including Continuations and Continuations 2 (UAP). A long-time resident of Edmonton, he was inducted into the City’s Arts & Culture Hall of Fame in 2003.
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.
George Bowering is Canada's first poet laureate and an officer of the Order of Canada. He is the author of more than eighty books, the most recent of which include The Hockey Scribbler, Writing the Okanagan, and 10 Women. A native of British Columbia, he lives in Vancouver.
dennis cooley was born in Estevan, Saskatchewan. He later moved to Manitoba, where he helped to start the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and was a founding member of Turnstone Press. He taught Canadian literature, poetry, creative writing, and literary theory at the University of Manitoba. He has published widely, including well over a dozen volumes of poetry, notably Bloody Jack (2002), and the bentleys (2006). A recipient of the Manitoba Writers' Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, dennis cooley lives in Winnipeg.
Jason Dewinetz is a writer, editor, typographer, printer, publisher, and educator originally from, and now living back in, the Okanagan Valley. He is the author of Clench (Gaspereau Press), Moving to the Clear(NeWest Press), The Gift of a Good Knife (Outlaw Editions), and In Theory (above/ground press). He runs Greenboathouse Press. Jason is currently an instructor in English, Creative Writing and Publication Design at Okanagan College.
Gary Geddes has written and edited more than forty books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction and criticism and has received numerous literary awards, including the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence and Chile's Gabriela Mistral Prize. He is the author of two best-selling travel memoirs, The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things and Sailing Home. He lives on Thetis Island, British Columbia.
Leslie Greentree is the author of two books of poetry, guys named Bill (2002) and go-go dancing for Elvis (2003), shortlisted for the Griffin Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her short story, The Brilliant Save, was a winner of CBC Radio's annual Alberta Anthology competition. Leslie has read across much of Canada and at the Dublin Writers’ Festival. She lives in Red Deer, Alberta. This is her first book of short stories.
Michael Henry has researched plasters and plastered his way across Ontario for the past decade, plastering for Camel's Back Construction and Straworks. Michael he lives in Peterborough, Ontario.
Nancy Holmes is an award-winning poet and editor, and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC Okanagan. She also collaborates on eco art projects both locally and internationally.
E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913) was born on the Six Nations Reserve near Brandford, Ontario, the daughter of George Johnson, a Mohawk chief, and Emily Howells, an Englishwoman. Often billed as "the Mohawk Princess," she spent a number of years touring Canada, the United States and England, giving dramatic readings of her work. She retired to live in Vancouver in 1909 and published Legends of Vancouver a couple of years before her untimely death in 1913. Her ashes are buried in her beloved Stanley Park.
Pauline Johnson published numerous storeis and poems, as well as six books, two of them posthumously: The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), Legends of Vancouver (1911). Flint and Feather (1912), The Moccasin Maker (1913) and The Shagganappi (1913).
Born in Heisler, Alberta, Robert Kroetsch published his first novel, But We are Exiles in 1965, and his book The Studhorse Man (1969) won the Governor General's Award for Fiction. Throughout his career, he steadily elaborated his indelible mark on Canadian writing with his fiction, non-fiction, poetry, teaching, and scholarship.
With The Larger Conversation, Tim Lilburn completes a manifesto on poetics, eros, philosophy, and enviro-politics that began with the classic Living in the World As If It Were Home (Cormorant Books). A Governor General’s Award winner and the first Canadian to win the European Medal of Poetry and Art, he lives and teaches in Victoria, British Columbia.
Alice Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto before coming west to work as a weekly newspaper reporter. She served as the City of Edmonton’s first poet laureate from 2005–2007. A widely-published author, she has won many distinctions. Her most recent book, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, received the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for non-fiction as well as a National Magazine Award gold medal. Her website is www.alicemajor.com.
Erín Moure has published over fifty books: poetry, essays, memoir, as well as translations and co-translations of poetry from French, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, Portuñol and Ukrainian into English. Recent works are Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erín Moure (Wesleyan, 2017), Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots (New Star, 2017), Wilson Bueno’s Paraguayan Sea (Nightboat, 2017), Uxío Novoneyra’s The Uplands: Book of the Courel and other poems (Veliz Books, 2020), Juan Gelman’s Sleepless Nights Under Capitalism (Eulalia Books, 2020), Chantal Neveu’s This Radiant Life (Book*hug, 2020), and Chus Pato’s The Face of the Quartzes (Veliz Books, 2021). Moure holds two honorary doctorates from universities in Canada and Spain, was 2017 Creative Fellow at the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard, 2019 international translator in residence at Queen’s College, Oxford, 2020 Kelly Writers House Fellow at UPenn, and gave the 2021 Leslie Scalapino Memorial Lecture at Naropa University. In 2021, she was Jake MacDonald writer in residence at the University of Winnipeg. A new work of poetry and hybrid text, Theophylline, will appear in 2023 from Anansi. She lives in Montreal.
Born in England, but raised in Red Deer, Alberta, P.K. Page was a Canadian poet and author of over 30 published books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essays, children's books, and an autobiography. She was also a well-known visual artist, who exhibited her work as P.K. Irwin both in and outside of Canada. Her works are in permanent collections of National Gallery of Canada and Art Gallery of Ontario. P.K. Page spent the last years of her life in Victoria, British Columbia, where she died in January 2010.
Rajinderpal S. Pal was named "Best Local Author" by the readers of Calgary's Fast Forward magazine. He also won the Henry Kreisel Award for Best First Book for his critically-acclaimed poetry collection pappaji wrote poetry in a language i cannot read, which spent six weeks on the Calgary Herald bestseller list. He also has won the Calgary semi-finals of the CBC Radio Poetry-Face Of. Pulse has been nominated for both the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (an Albert Book Award) and the W.O. Mitchell Book Prize from the City of Calgary. He lives in Vancouver.
The former president of Calgary's Sage Theatre and former managing editor of filling Station magazine, he is presently on the Board of Directors of the Calgary Folk Fest and the Arts and Culture Committee of Calgary Foundation. He has participated in international arts festivals such as ArtWallah. Rajinderpal has published in literary magazines throughout North America, and is in translation in Brazil and Portugal.
Joseph J. Pivato is a professor of Literary Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University. He is the founding professor of the Master of Arts Integrated Studies program. His research has helped to establish the academic recognition of ethnic minority writing in Canada, particularly the Italian-Canadian literature.
Stephen Scobie was born in Scotland 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. He has also published extensively in the criticism of Canadian literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Stephen Scobie lives in Victoria.
Karen Solie is the author of three collections of poems, including Pigeon, which won the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Her poems have been published in North America, the U.K., and Europe. She lives in Toronto.
Aritha van Herk teaches Creative Writing, Canadian Literature and Contemporary Narrative at the University of Calgary. van Herk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and is active in Canada’s literary and cultural life, writing articles and reviews as well as creative work. Her novel, No Fixed Address, was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Fiction. She is well known in the broader community of the city, the province, and the country as a writer and a public intellectual.
Tom Wayman's prolific writing career includes more than twenty poetry collections, three collections of critical and cultural essays, three books of short fiction and a novel. He won the 2013 Acorn-Plantos Award for his book Dirty Snow and has been shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award. In 2021, Wayman was presented with the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to BC literature. Since 1989 he has been based in the Slocan Valley in southeastern BC.
The "Mama of Dada"
Poet, film-maker, educator, producer, and activist Sheri-D Wilson has 7 collections of poetry; her most recent, Autopsy of a Turvy World (2008, Frontenac House). Her last collection, Re:Zoom (2005, Frontenac House), won the 2006 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the CanLit award. She has 2 Spoken Word CDs (arranged by Russell Broom), and 4 award-winning VideoPoems: Airplane Paula (2001), Spinsters Hanging in Trees (2002), Surf Rave Girrly Girrl (2004), and The Panty Portal (2008), all produced for BravoFACT.
Awards Include:
CBC Arts Top Ten Poets in Canada (2009), ffwd Readers' Choice - Best Poet ( 2008, 2007), Global TV's Woman of Vision Award (2006), SpoCan Award (2005), Bumbershoot Heavyweight Title for Poetry USA (2003), Gold Award at the Houston Film Festival (2003), Three ACE awards (2003), AMPIA (2003, for best short or vignette), CBC Face-off (2002)
Reading Highlights:
Blue Met 2009 (Montreal), Voix d'Amériques 2008,'05 (Montreal), Bumbershoot 2003, '99, '92, '91, '89 (Seattle), Vancouver International Writers Festival 2002, '00, '95, '93, '90 (Vancouver), The World Poetry Bout 2002 (Taos, New Mexico), Poetry Africa 2001 (South Africa), WordFest 2008, 2000, '95 (Calgary, Banff), Harbourfront Reading Series 1993 (Toronto), Small Press Festival 1990 (NYC).
Other Highlights:
Women and Words, 2003-2007 (instructor), First
Rita Wong is a writer, teacher, and waterkeeper. She is the author of three books of poetry and the co-author of several collaborative works, most recently, beholden: a poem as long as the river (2018), with the poet Fred Wah. With Dorothy Christian (Secwepemc and Syilx Nations), Wong edited downstream: reimagining water (WLU Press, 2017). She is an associate professor of Critical + Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she teaches classes in the humanities and creative writing.
