Tammy Armstrong is the youngest narrative poet ever to be shortlisted for the Governor-General's award. Raised in the border town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Armstrong has lived in Vancouver, Halifax, and Fredericton, and travelled extensively in Europe, Mexico and Central America. Armstrong's writing appears frequently in Canadian and international literary magazines. A version of Bogman's Music, her first poetry collection, won the Alfred Bailey poetry prize, and was later a finalist for the Governor General's Award for poetry. Armstrong has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and has worked as an ESL instructor and waitress. She lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
One of Canada's most respected poets, Margaret Avison was born in Galt, Ontario, lived in Western Canada in her childhood, and then in Toronto. In a productive career that stretched back to the 1940s, she produced seven books of poems, including her first collection, Winter Sun (1960), which she assembled in Chicago while she was there on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and which won the Governor General's Award. No Time (Lancelot Press), a work that focussed on her interest in spirit
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.
Tim Bowling is the author of twenty-two works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including two Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Awards, five Alberta Literary Awards, a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, two Writers’ Trust of Canada nominations, two Governor General’s Literary Award nominations and a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his entire body of work.
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 was born in Vancouver and raised mostly on the west coast, where he gill netted, loaded boxcars at BC Sugar Refinery, stocked shelves at Woodwards, worked as a fishing guide at Whytecliffe, taught on Texada Island, and drove a water-taxi. After doing graduate studies at Reading University in England and at the University of Toronto, he embarked on a varied career as a writer, teacher, editor, and publisher. Gary taught for twenty years at Concordia University in Montreal before returning to the west coast, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University (1998-2001) and served as writer-in-residence at Green College, and the Vancouver Public Library. He has written and edited more than thirty-five books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation and anthologies, including 20th Century Poetry & Poetics and 15 Canadian Poets x 3. His literary awards include the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize, the National Poetry Prize, the Americas Best Book Award in the 1985 Commonwealth Poetry Competition, National Magazine Gold Award, the Writers Choice Award, Archibald Lampman Prize, the Poetry Book Society Recommendation and the Gabriela Mistral Prize, which he shared with Nobel laureates Octavio Paz and Vaclav Havel and with Rafael Alberti, Ernesto Cardenal, and Mario Benedetti. Gary Geddes lives on Vancouver Island, where he divides his time between Victoria and French Beach.
Leslie Greentree is the author of the award-winning short story collection A Minor Planet for You. Her second book of poetry, go-go dancing for Elvis, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Leslie co-wrote the play Oral Fixations with her life partner Blaine Newton, which was produced in 2014 by Ignition Theatre. She has won CBC literary competitions for poetry and fiction, and has been shortlisted for Writer?s Guild of Alberta and Humber Creative Nonfiction awards.
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.
Laurence Hutchman teaches Canadian literature at the Université de Moncton, Edmundston. His most recent book is Beyond Borders.
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.
Alice Major, Edmonton’s first poet laureate, has published 11 books of poetry and essays, many of which explore her long-standing interest in the sciences. She is the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta 2017 Distinguished Artist Award. Her most recent publications with UAP are Standard candles and Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science. You can find her online at www.alicemajor.com
Barry McKinnon was born in Calgary in 1944. He publishes, designs and edits chapbooks for Gorse Press.
ERÍN MOURE is a poet and translator (primarily of Galician and French poetry into English) who welcomes texts that are unconventional or difficult because she loves and needs them. Among other honours, she is a two-time winner of Canada’s Governor General’s Award (in poetry and translation), a winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Nelson Ball Prize, a co-recipient of the QWF Spoken Word Prize, a three-time finalist for a Best Translated Book Award in poetry, and a three-time finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal.
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.
Born at Medicine Hat, Alberta, in 1959, Yvonne Trainer has become one of Canada's most distinctive young poets. A brilliant reader, she has presented her work to many appreciative audiences in the Prairies and Atlantic Canada, while her poems have appeared in a number of leading literary magazines in both Canada and the US. CBC Anthology broadcast a group of six poems in 1980, when she was still an undergraduate at the University of Lethbridge, editing Whetstone. She put out her chapbook, Manyberries, also in 1980, before moving on to the University of New Brunswick, where she received the MA degree in English and creative writing.
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
