Writing the Terrain (by )

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.

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.

Cyril Dabydeen has published more than a dozen books of prose and poetry in the United Kingdom and Canada, including the novel Dark Swirl and the story collections My Brahmin Days, Black Jesus and Other Stories, and Jogging in Havana. The City of Ottawa appointed him Poet Laureate in the mid-1980s and granted him the first Award of Excellence for Writing and Publishing. He lives in Ottawa, ON.

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.

Jon Whyte was the curator of Banff Heritage Homes, a foundation agency of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta. Poet, columnist, writer and filmmaker, Jon wrote several books and contributed to many anthologies, magazines and other media. Jon died in 1992.

Joan Crate was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and was brought up with pride in her Indigenous heritage. She taught literature and creative writing at Red Deer College, Alberta, for over 20 years. Her first book of poetry, Pale as Real Ladies: Poems for Pauline Johnson, has become a classic. Her first novel, Breathing Water, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Award (Canada) and the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1989. She is a recipient of the Bliss Carman Award for Poetry and her last book of poetry, SubUrban Legends, was awarded Book of the Year by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. She lives with her family in Calgary.

Ken Rivard was born and raised in Montreal where he obtained a Master’s degree from McGill University. Ken is the author of ten published books of poetry, fiction, and children’s literature. His writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, in many regional and national publications, and on the CBC. Ken’s books have been finalists for the Writers Guild of Alberta Book Awards and the City Of Calgary, W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. In 2005, he was nominated for the inaugural Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards. Ken has presented many successful readings and writing workshops across Canada and has helped in the editing of other writers’ manuscripts. He has worked as a juror for both the Alberta and Saskatchewan book awards and has been the Writer-in-Residence for The Calgary Public Library and the Writers Guild of Alberta. He lives in Calgary.

Allan Serafino was born in Sudbury, Ontario. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he is an executive with Scouts Canada. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and Canada. He has been a poetry editor and is now President of the Dandelion Magazine Society.

Barry McKinnon was born in 1944 in Calgary, Alberta where he grew up. In 1965, after two years of college, he went to Sir George Williams University in Montreal and took poetry courses with Irving Layton. He graduated in 1967 with a B.A. and in 1969 with an M.A. from U.B.C.(Vancouver), and was hired that same year to teach English at The College of New Caledonia in Prince George where he has lived ever since. McKinnon writes primarily in the form of the long poem/serial sequence, a form that gives him the necessary range in which to “articulate the poem’s central truth from various & variable angles & perspectives.” In his own words, he sees the long poem as “a way to log my experience & to record what I value most in a context of forces, subtle or not, that threaten those values.” As D.H. Lawrence writes: “We’ve got to live no matter how many skies have fallen.” McKinnon has been an active editor/publisher/designer since the late sixties. McKinnon’s recent work includes The Centre (Talonbooks, 2004) and In the Millenium (New Star, 2009), a thirteen-part collection of his poetry drawn from a ten-year period.

Gerald Hill lives amid the leafy confines of downtown Regina. His forty-year teaching career took him across western Canada and to Papua New Guinea as a CUSO volunteer, finally to Luther College at the University of Regina, where Hill taught English and Creative Writing until 2018. Meanwhile, he maintained an active literary life as writer published in over 35 journals, literary festival presenter, event organizer, editor, leader, conference speaker, grant recipient, and mentor. Among the highlights: Instructor, Writing With Style, The Banff Centre, 2011; Writer-in-Residence, Convento São Francisco de Mértola, Portugal, February, 2010; Fellow, Hawthornden Retreat for Writers, Lasswade, Scotland, April, 2010; Resident, Leighton Studios, The Banff Centre, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013; Resident, Wallace Stegner House, Eastend, Sask., 2007, 2009; Poetry Editor, Grain, 2003-2008. A two-time winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry, Hill was Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan in 2016. Crooked at the Far End is his 7th poetry collection. Gerald Hill lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Sally Ito was born in Taber, Alberta and grew up in Edmonton and the Northwest Territories. She studied at the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta, and travelled on scholarship to Japan, where she translated Japanese poetry. Her first book of poems, Frogs in the Rain Barrel (Nightwood, 1995) was runner-up for the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award. Her second book, Floating Shore (Mercury Press), won the Writers Guild of Alberta Book Award for short fiction, and was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Prize and the City of Edmonton Book Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals such as Grain, Matrix and the Capilano Review and in the anthologies Breathing Fire: Canada's New Poets and Poets 88. Ito lives in Edmonton with her husband and son.

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.

Born in London, England, Anne Swannell moved to Canada as a child, eventually settling in Victoria, BC. She is the author of two previous books of poetry, Mall and Drawing Circles on the Water, and a children’s book The Lost Kitten of Toledo, which she also illustrated. She has published in numerous literary periodicals and has taken part in solo and group exhibits. Poems from Shifting were featured as part of art/poetry performance at the inaugural Pacific Festival of the Book, Victoria, BC, 2007.

Anne Campbell is an author of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and was a co-editor of Regina's Secret Spaces.

Sheri-D Wilson, aka Mama of Dada, is the award-winning author and creator of 13 books, 4 short films, and 4 albums that combine music and poetry.

Known as the High Priestess of Spoken Word in Canada, Sheri-D is an international artist celebrated for her electric performance style, making her a favorite at festivals around the world.

In 2019, Sheri-D was appointed one of the country’s highest civilian honors, the Order of Canada, for her contributions as a Spoken Word Poet and her leadership in the community. In 2017, she received her Doctor of Letters—Honoris Causa from Kwantlen University.

Awards include: The City of Calgary Arts Award, the prestigious Stephan G. Stephanson Award for Poetry, the Women of Vision Award, and the USA Heavyweight Champion Title.

Sheri-D Wilson, aka Mama of Dada, is the award-winning author and creator of 13 books, 4 short films, and 4 albums that combine music and poetry.

Known as the High Priestess of Spoken Word in Canada, Sheri-D is an international artist celebrated for her electric performance style, making her a favorite at festivals around the world.

In 2019, Sheri-D was appointed one of the country’s highest civilian honors, the Order of Canada, for her contributions as a Spoken Word Poet and her leadership in the community. In 2017, she received her Doctor of Letters—Honoris Causa from Kwantlen University.

Awards include: The City of Calgary Arts Award, the prestigious Stephan G. Stephanson Award for Poetry, the Women of Vision Award, and the USA Heavyweight Champion Title.

Tom Wayman’s prolific literary career includes writing more than twenty poetry collections, three collections of critical and cultural essays, three books of short fiction and a novel, as well as editing six poetry anthologies. He received British Columbia’s 2022 George Woodcock Award for Lifetime Achievement in the literary arts. In 2015, he was named a Vancouver Literary Landmark, with a plaque on the city’s Commercial Drive commemorating his championing of people writing for themselves about their daily employment. He won the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards prize for fiction in 2016 (for the short story collection, The Shadows We Mistake for Love) and for poetry in 2023 (for Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back: Poems for a Dark Time). His memoir, The Road to Appledore (or How I Went Back to The Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place), was published in 2024. Wayman lives in Winlaw, BC, and his website is www.tomwayman.com.

As a small boy, Tim Bowling liked to dream about one day publishing a collection of short stories. Fifty-five years later, his dream has come true! The author of twenty-four other works of poetry and prose, and a recipient of many honours (including five Alberta Book Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship), Bowling grew up at the mouth of the Fraser River and now lives close to the banks of the North Saskatchewan River.

Carol Ann Sokoloff is a poet and singer-songwriter who conducts poetry workshops in schools. She is the author of the poetry book Eternal Lake O'Hara and the picture book Colours Everywhere You Go, also illustrated by Tineke Visser.

Peter Stevens (1928-2009) was a professor emeritus of English at the University of Windsor.

dennis cooley is a founding member and three times president of the Manitoba Writer’s Guild, founding editor with Turnstone Press and professor at St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba. He has lived his creative life on the prairies, where he has been a poet, publisher, teacher, critic, theorist, anthologist, reviewer, organizer, mentor.

Rita Wong is a poet and scholar whose writing attends to ecological justice and decolonial love. She has written several books of poetry including monkeypuzzle; sybil unrest (with Larissa Lai); undercurrent; perpetual (with Cindy Mochizuki); beholden (with Fred Wah); current, climate; and forage, which won the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and was the 2011 Canada Reads Poetry champion. Wong is the recipient of the 2024 Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize and also won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. She is an associate professor in critical and cultural studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She lives on unceded Coast Salish territories, also known as Vancouver.

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.

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.

Roberta Rees lives in Calgary where she has taught high school and university English courses and now teaches Creative Writing for Women.

John O. Thompson (who needs his O. because of all the other John Thompsons in the world) was born in Toronto in 1947 and grew up just outside Millet, Alberta. Since 1969 he has lived in the UK, mainly Liverpool and London, where he has lectured on film and media studies. He is co-author, with Ann Thompson, of Shakespeare, Meaning and Metaphor, and he co-edited, with the late Antony Easthope, Contemporary Poetry Meets Modern Theory. He is the author of Three [1/3 of, with Jon Whyte and Charles Noble], and Echo and Montana.

Doug Beardsley is the author of seven books of poetry, the most recent a volume of selected poems, Wrestling with Angels. He has been shortlisted for the BC Book Prize for poetry and the George Woodcock poetry prize. He collaborated with Al Purdy on No One Else is Lawrence! and The Man Who Outlived Himself.

D.C. Reid was born in 1952 in Calgary. He has written nonfiction books on fishing, most notably How To Catch Salmon published by Orca Books. Reid’s previous book of poems, Love And Other Things That Hurt, was short listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 1999. He lives in Victoria, B.C.

KIM MALTMAN is a poet, theoretical particle physicist, and occasional translator who has published five books of solo poetry, over two hundred papers in the scientific literature, and three books of collaborative poetry, most recently Box Kite, published in 2016. In addition to recent solo work which has appeared under a variety of heteronyms, he is involved, in collaboration with Roo Borson, in ongoing translations of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai and Song Dynasty poet Su Shi. Past honours include the CBC Literary Prize, and, with collaborators Roo Borson and Andy Patton, the Malahat Poetry Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and two National Magazine Award finalist appearances. Perhaps his most unusual literary credit is having served as consulting dog poetry editor for André Alexis’s novel Fifteen Dogs. He lives in Toronto with poet and collaborator Roo Borson. Baziju are currently at work on a new manuscript project called Short Moral Tales.

Laurence Hutchman teaches Canadian literature at the Université de Moncton, Edmundston. His most recent book is Beyond Borders.

Monty Reid is a Canadian poet living in Ottawa. His most recent collection is The Luskville Reductions (Brick, 2008). Recent chapbooks include Site Conditions (Apt 9), Contributors' Notes (Gaspereau) and Moan Coach (above/ground) along with Garden units from a variety of small presses. Much of Garden appeared as Facebook posts in 2012 and his current long work, Intelligence, appeared on Twitter throughout 2013. Other online work can be found at Dusie, elimae, Drain, ottawater, Truck, experiment-o and elsewhere. Recent print work can be seen in the Peter F Yacht Club, the Malahat Review, Grain, Prairie Fire and other magazines.He plays guitar and mandolin with the band Call Me Katie.

Walter Hildebrandt is known as both a poet and historian. A consultant on Aboriginal treaties, he is author of Views From Battleford: Constructed Visions of an Anglo-Canadian West and co-author of The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People and The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, which won the Gustavus Myers Award for outstanding work on intolerance in North America in 1997. Winnipeg from the Fringes, his eighth book of poetry, was published in 2011. An earlier volume, Where the Land Gets Broken, received the 2005 Stephen G. Stephensson Award for Poetry.

Phyllis Webb was born on April 8, 1927 in Victoria, BC. She was educated at the University of British Columbia and McGill University. The first major publication of her poetry was in Trio, which also included poetry by Eli Mandel and Gael Turnbull. For many years she worked as a writer and broadcaster for the CBC, where she created the radio program Ideas in 1965 and was its executive producer from 1967 to 1969. Webb served as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta from 1980 to 1981 and taught at the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria, and the Banff Centre. She died on Salt Spring Island in November, 2021. Her 1980 work Wilson’s Bowl was hailed by Northrop Frye as “a landmark in Canadian poetry.” When the book was passed over for a Governor General’s Award nomination, a group of fellow poets—led by Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, bpNichol, and P.K. Page—collected $2,300 and sent it to Webb, stating that “this gesture is a response to your whole body of work as well as to your presence as a touchstone of true good writing in Canada, which we all know is beyond awards and prizes” (John F. Hulcoop). As Stephen Scobie once wrote, the work of Phyllis Webb “has always been distinguished by the profundity of her insights, the depth of her emotional feeling, the delicacy and accuracy of her rhythms, the beauty and mysterious resonance of her images – and by her luminous intelligence.” Phyllis Webb received the BC Gas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, the Order of Canada in 1992, and the 1982 Governor General’s Award for Selected Poems: The Vision Tree.

Weyman Chan was born in Calgary in 1963, to immigrant parents from China. He has published poems and short stories in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies. He won the 2002 National Magazine Awards silver prize for his poem “At Work,” and the 2003 Alberta Book Award for his first book of poetry, Before a Blue Sky Moon. His second book, Noise from the Laundry, was a finalist for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry and the 2009 Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry.

KAREN SOLIE grew up in southwest Saskatchewan. Her five previous collections of poetry–Short Haul Engine, Modern and Normal, Pigeon, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out, and The Caiplie Caves–have won the Dorothy Livesay Award, Pat Lowther Award, Trillium Poetry Prize, and the Griffin Prize, and been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize. A 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches half-time for the University of St Andrews in Scotland and lives the rest of the year in Canada.

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.

Tammy Armstrong is the author of two novels and five collections of poetry. Her first book was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Canadian Geographic, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry, Prairie Fire, and the New England Review, among others. Pearly Everlasting is her US debut novel. A former Fulbright Scholar, Armstrong holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in literature and critical animal studies from the University of New Brunswick. She lives in a lobster fishing village on the south shore of Nova Scotia.

Robert Kroetsch was a Canadian novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer who was born in Heisler, Alberta, in 1927. He taught for many years at the University of Manitoba, and was also active in the Vancouver literary scene. In his novel The Words of My Roaring (1966) he began to use the tall tale rhetoric of prairie taverns. Both The Studhorse Man (1969), which won the Governor General’s Award, and Gone Indian (1973) call the conventions of realistic fiction hilariously into question. In 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2011 he received the Writers Guild of Alberta Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Eva Tihanyi has published five poetry collections, the most recent of which is Wresting the Grace of the World (2005). Truth and Other Fictions is her first collection of stories. She is the literary editor of In Retro magazine, and for many years was a freelance fiction reviewer for the National Post and Toronto Star. She was also the first novels columnist for Books in Canada from 1995 to 1999.

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.

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

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. 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).

Aislinn Hunter is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of six books, including the novel The World Before Us, which won the Ethel Wilson Prize. She lives in British Columbia.

Robert Hilles won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for Cantos from A Small Room. His second novel, A Gradual Ruin, was published by Doubleday Canada. He has published seventeen books of poetry, three works of fiction, and two nonfiction books. His latest poetry collection is Shimmer.

Originally from Limerick City, Ireland, Tom Henihan has lived in Canada for over twenty years. He currently resides in St John's, Newfoundland.

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