Born in Jamésie in north-west Quebec, Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau is a multidisciplinary eeyou artist. For the past forty-four years, she has exhibited in Quebec, Canada, Europe and Mexico. Since 2007, she has published three novels, three collections of poetry, one storybook, one artist’s book and a collection of correspondence. In 2021, she was awarded a medal by Québec’s Assemblée nationale du Québec for her life’s work and in 2023 she was appointed as Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques. In 2024, the Université de Moncton granted her an honorary Doctor of Arts. Virginia still lives in Abitibi-Témiscamingue where she continues to paint, sculpt and, of course, write with the authenticity that characterizes all of her work.

SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning literary translator (French and Spanish to English) and fiction writer. She has been a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation on seven occasions, winning for her translation of Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras. She also translated Catherine Leroux's The Future, winner of 2024 CBC Canada Reads. Ouriou is also the author of two novels, Damselfish, and the critically acclaimed Nathan, and the editor of two anthologies, the trilingual Beyond Words: Translating the World and the bilingual Languages of Our Land: Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec. She lives in Calgary.