LISA BAIRD is a settler on Attawandaron/Chonnonton/Mississaugas of the New Credit territory (Guelph, ON). Her poetry has been long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her first book, Winter’s Cold Girls (Caitlin Press, 2019), was short-listed for the ReLit Award for Poetry. Visit lisabaird.ca.

JANET BARTIER grew up in the Okanagan Valley and now lives in Campbell River, BC, where she teaches music and writes. She has a BA in Liberal Studies and an ATCL in piano. She has previously published poems in FreeFall, Existere and Prairie Fire.

ROBBIE CHESICK (she/her) lives in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. Her poetry has been published in Vallum, Poetry Pause and Brine, a collaborative chapbook published by the HC5 Collective (2022).

JEN CURRIN’s Hider/Seeker: Stories won a Canadian Independent Book Award, was a finalist for a ReLit Award, and was named a 2018 Globe and Mail Best Book. They have also published four collections of poetry, most recently School (Coach House, 2014) and The Inquisition Yours (Coach House, 2010). They live on unceded Qayqayt, Musqueam and Kwantlen Nation territories in New Westminster, BC, and teach creative writing and English at KPU.

VÉRONIQUE DARWIN lives in Toronto. She is an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at the University of Guelph, where she is writing a novel as her thesis. She has published fiction in PRISM international and humour pieces in Geist. This is her second review for EVENT.

TRICIA DOWER is the author of Silent Girl (Inanna, 2008), Stony River (Penguin Canada, 2013/Leapfrog, 2016) and Becoming Lin (Caitlin, 2016). Her work has appeared in The New Quarterly, Room, The Malahat Review, subTerrain, Hemispheres, Cicada, NEO and Big Muddy, among others. Visit triciadower.com

JOEL ROBERT FERGUSON is a poet of working-class settler origins who lives in Winnipeg. His work has recently appeared in The Columbia Review, The Metaworker, Queen’s Quarterly, Riddle Fence and Wells Street Journal. His debut collection, The Lost Cafeteria (Signature Editions, 2020), was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

JONATHAN FOCHT is a poet and amateur musician. His poems have most recently appeared in The Maine Review, Vallum, Carousel and Hash Journal. He lives in Montreal.

DOUGLAS HAMPTON is a 34-year-old photographer living in Vancouver with a focus and passion for film photography. Film for Douglas, in a digital age, is about slowing down, learning,  being selective and disciplined while shooting with intention. The camera’s viewfinder lets Douglas see the moment through finely made glass, not just another screen.

MARTIN HEAVISIDES has published in FRiGG, Mad Hatter Reviews and numerous other journals of discerning taste. His play Empty Bowl was published in The Linnet’s Wings and given a live, staged reading at Living Theatre, New York. CSI Grandma’s House was produced by Quarantine Players and is available on YouTube. He has published one full length novella-in-flash-and-verse, UNDERMIND (Crossing Chaos Press, 2009).

ANGELA HIBBS is the author of Control Suppress Delete (Palimpsest Press, 2017), Sin Eater (Arbeiter Ring Press, 2014), Wanton (Insomniac Press, 2009) and Passport (DC Books, 2006). She lives in Peterborough, ON, the traditional territory of the Mississauga First Nations.

JASON JOBIN completed an MFA in Writing at the University of Victoria. His non-fiction has been long-listed for the CBC Prize. His fiction has won a National Magazine Award and been featured in the 2018 and 2019 Journey Prize anthologies. He was a finalist for American Short Fiction’s Halifax Ranch Prize in 2019, and short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize in 2020. He’s won The Malahat Review’s Jack Hodgins Founders’ and Far Horizons awards for fiction. He lives and writes in Victoria. His debut memoir, The Wild Mandrake, will be out with Dundurn Press in Fall 2023.

NORA KELLY (she/her) is an oil painter and muralist based in Montreal. She spent 2017/2018 in Mexico City apprenticing with the muraling company Street Art Chilango, and has since painted murals for businesses and private residences across North America, always with a desire to keep her services affordable and accessible to all. More recently, she has turned to editorial illustration and has worked for The New York Times, The Tyee, Capital Daily, PRISM international, Vallum and others. She lives with a dog named Squid and plays in a country band.

SARAH LACHMANSINGH is a Guyanese-Canadian writer from Toronto. She is currently studying creative writing. In 2021 she was selected as a mentee for BIPOC Writers Connect. Her work has appeared in Homology Lit, filling Station, Augur Magazine and elsewhere.

MJ MALLECK is a first-generation university graduate who wrote a business blog before returning home to creative storytelling. She grew up on the Canadian side of the US border and still likes her weather report in Fahrenheit. Tweets @MJMalleck.

AMANDA MERRITT lives and teaches on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ Nations. Her debut collection, The Divining Pool, was nominated for the 2018 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Recently her work was selected for the 2020 CBC and Pacific Spirit Poetry Prizes, and was a finalist in Aesthetica’s 2021 Creative Writing Award. In another life Amanda was the founding editor of The Scores.

JEFF MILLER is the author of the creative non-fiction collection Ghost Pine: All Stories True (Invisible Publishing, 2010). He lives in rural Nova Scotia.

MICHAELA MORROW is a poet and recovering journalist from Calgary. She has been a digital marketing strategist, an editor of short fiction and novels, a cat mom, a vodka aunt, a Disney princess and a professional pizza baker. Her words can be found in past issues of many decrepit notebooks.

MARC PEREZ is the author of the poetry chapbook Borderlands (Anstruther Press, 2020). His fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry have appeared in decomp journal, CV2, PRISM international and Vallum, among others. Originally from Manila, he currently lives on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

SANDY POOL (she/they) is an essayist, poet and professor of creative writing. Her first collection of poetry, Exploding Into Night, was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Her second collection, Undark: An Oratorio, was nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Book Award for Poetry, an Alberta Book Award, and a Toronto Arts Award. Selections from her upcoming third book, If Body: Freedom, are published in The Walrus. She has been awarded fellowships to Yaddo, Berton House and the Dora Maar House.

MATT RADER’s most recent collection of poems is Ghosthawk (Nightwood Editions, 2021).

JAMES SCOLES is the author of The Trailer (Signature Editions, 2021). He holds degrees from Arizona State, North Dakota & Southern Illinois Universities, & has lived, travelled & worked in over 90 countries. He won the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize & his short stories are featured in Coming Attractions 13 (Oberon Press, 2013). He teaches creative writing & literature at the University of Winnipeg.

GORDON TAYLOR (he/him) is a queer poet who walks an ever-swaying wire of technology, health care and poetry. A recent Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, Grain, Plainsongs, Plenitude, Cathexis and Five South, and are forthcoming in The Wire’s Dream, The Main Street Rag and Banshee.

JOHN VAN RYS lives on a hobby farm outside Dunnville, ON, with his wife April, dogs, cats, horses, free-run egg-laying hens and his mother-in-law. When he’s not at home caring for animals, he’s teaching English at Redeemer University. He’s had poems published in The New Quarterly and Dappled Things; and short stories in The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Agnes and True, and Blank Spaces. His first book-length collection is the story cycle Moonshine Promises (Wipf and Stock, 2021).

GILLIAN WIGMORE lives and writes on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh in Prince George, BC. She is the author of three books of poems, most recently Orient (Brick Books, 2014), and three books of fiction, most recently Night Watch (Invisible Publishing, 2020).