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 is a Montréal poet and translator curious about what’s active in the poetry of others. Moure’s most recent books are Kapusta and Insecession, a biotranspoetics published in one volume with her translation from Galician of Chus Pato’s biopoetics, Secession. Other recent translations include White Piano by Nicole Brossard, translated with Robert Majzels from the French, and Galician Songs by Rosalía de Castro, translated from the Galician.

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.

Tim Lilburn has published twelve books of poetry, including Kill-site, Assiniboia, The Names, and Harmonia Mundi. His poetry has received the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award. Lilburn has produced three previous books of essays, each concerned with poetics, eros, philosophy and politics, especially environmentalism: Living in the World as if It Were Home (Saskatchewan Non-Fiction Book of the Year), Going Home, and The Larger Conversation. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2014. He lives in Victoria, BC, on the homelands of the W̱SÁNEĆ, Songhees, and Esquimalt Nations.

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. Another Way is his third book of poetry with Ekstasis Editions.

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.

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 has published eleven books of poetry and a prize-winning collection of essays, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science. Recent awards include the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award and an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. She served as Edmonton’s first poet laureate, a city where she continues to live.

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.

Tim Bowling has published numerous poetry collections, including Low Water Slack; Dying Scarlet (winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry); Darkness and Silence (winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry); The Witness Ghost and The Memory Orchard (both nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award); and his Selected Poems (winner of the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize). Bowling's work in poetry and prose has been honoured with two Canadian Authors Association Awards; two Writers' Trust of Canada nominations; a Guggenheim Fellowship; five Alberta Book Awards; the Acorn-Plantos People's Poetry Award; and a Roderick Haig-Brown Award nomination. Bowling served as the 2015 Canadian judge for the Griffin International Poetry Prize.

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 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.

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 was born in Toronto in 1947, was immediately ‘re-settled’ to a farm south of Edmonton, and studied at the University of Alberta. In 1969 he moved to the UK, and has lived there since then (London, Liverpool, London). He is married to Ann Thompson, with whom he wrote Shakespeare, Meaning and Metaphor (1987). His teaching field was film and media studies; now, as an independent scholar, he is enjoying getting back more to working with words. His published poetry prior to the catches assembled here consists of Three [1/3 of] (1973), Echo and Montana (1980), and, also with Ekstasis, The Gates of Even (2002).

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 published two previous books with Ekstasis Editions, The Women Who Surround Me (poetry) and the novel The Knife Behind the Gills. 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 was born in Medicine Hat and grew up in a small town nearby He has previously published six books of poetry, and has given readings across Canada, in Australia, and in the United States. He lives in Toronto, where he pursues research in particle physics and teaches mathematics at York University.

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.

Historian and poet, Walter Hildebrant was born in Brooks, Alberta and now lives in Calgary. He has worked as an historian for Parks Canada and as a consultant to the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Banff Bow Valley Task Force. He is co-author of The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 and The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People, and author of Views From Battleford: Constructed Visions of an Anglo-Canadian West. His long poem Sightings was nominated for the 1992 McNally-Robinson Book of the Year for Manitoba. He is presently the Director of the University of Calgary Press.

ryan fitzpatrick is the author of four previous books of poetry, including Sunny Ways (Invisible, 2023) and Coast Mountain Foot (Talonbooks, 2021). Their creative nonfiction book Ace Theory, an essay-in-fragments about asexuality, will be published by Book*Hug in 2026. They are a former editor at filling Station magazine and helped organize the Flywheel reading series. They were the 2024–2025 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta. You can find them at ryanfitzpatrick.ca.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

Pauline Johnson (1861–1913) was Canada’s first native author. Her most famous collection of verse, Flint and Feather went into many printings and was successfully followed by two volumes of short stories, The Moccasin Maker and Legends of Vancouver.

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.

Jan Zwicky is a philosopher and poet. She has won the Governor General’s Award for poetry, the Dorothy Livesay Award, and has been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize for Poetry. In 2004, Wisdom & Metaphor was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for English-language non-fiction.

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