CHRIS BANKS is an award-winning, Pushcart Prize-nominated Canadian poet and author of seven collections of poems, most recently Alternator with Nightwood Editions (Fall 2023). His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors Association in 2004.

Born and raised in New Westminster, BC, HANNAH BLOCK holds an MA from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, a diploma in public relations from the University of Victoria and a BA in Communication from SFU. Hannah’s experience includes agency, in-house, non-profit, government/public sector, and First Nations communications, marketing and public relations.

J.L. CHEN is a Chinese-Canadian poet/ writer based in Vancouver. Her work appears in Arc, PRISM international, Literary Review of Canada, Queens Quarterly, Grain, Tupelo Quarterly and elsewhere, and was long-listed for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. Chen holds an MFA from the University of King’s College.

An Officer of the Order of Canada and the recipient of many literary awards, LORNA CROZIER has published two memoirs and 23 books of poetry, most recently recently After That (McClelland & Stewart, 2023). She lives on Vancouver Island with three other mammals, two red-eared sliders and a lot of fish.

g.d. currie can be said to have a catlike grace, provided your value for ‘cat’ is constrained to that old stray you saw sun doze on the hood of your ’98 Camry, then fart, startle and roll off the far side, never to be heard from again. His poems have it, too.

SUSIE DeCOSTE’s poems have appeared in several journals across Canada and in Ireland. In 2025, she won the Rita Joe Poetry Prize from the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

DANIELA ELZA was long-listed for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize with poems from her sixth poetry collection SCAR/CITY (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025). Is This an Illness or an Accident? (Caitlin Press, 2025) is her debut essay collection. Daniela is the recipient of the 2024 Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry.

ELAINE LEE lives and writes in Toronto. She is currently completing an MA in English in the field of Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. Her work has been awarded the E. J. Pratt Award in Poetry and the Norma Epstein Foundation Award in Creative Writing.

WINSHEN LIU learned how to play mahjong late in life compared to her cousins. Her chapbook, Paper Money, was published with Driftwood Press in 2025. In addition to writing, she loves long-distance train travel, baking and bakeries, and stickers. You can follow her work at winshenliu.com.

JENNIFER MANUEL’s debut novel, The Heaviness of Things That Float (Doug-las & McIntyre, 2016), won the 2017 Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction. She has also published YA and children’s books, including a Red Cedar Award nominee. In 2025, she was short-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize. She lives on Vancouver Island and teaches literature at Shawnigan Lake School.

CASSIDY MENARD (she/her) was born and raised in Yellowknife. She has a bachelor’s degree in writing from the University of Victoria and served on the editorial board of The Malahat Review. Her work has appeared in Grain, The Fiddlehead, SAND Journal, and was long-listed for the 2024 Room Magazine Fiction Contest.

SELENA MERCURI is a Toronto-based writer and publishing professional. Her work appears in The Fiddlehead, Room, Herizons and other journals. She received the 2023 Norma Epstein Foundation Award for Creative Writing and is now an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. She is represented by K2 Literary. Find out more at selenamercuri.com.

SUE MURTAGH’s debut collection, We’re Not Rich (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press, 2024), won the 2025 Atlantic Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award. Sue’s work has appeared in The Walrus, The New Quarterly, Grain, carte blanche, The Humber Literary Review, Yolk Literary and The Nashwaak Review.

VINH NGUYEN is a writer and educator. He is the author of the speculative memoir The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse (HarperCollins, 2025), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction, the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, and the Toronto Book Award. He’s a nonfiction editor at The New Quarterly.

JAMES OWENS’s poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Poetry Ireland Review, Channel, Arc, CV2 and The Dalhousie Review. He lives in a small town in northern Ontario.

REBECCA PENG writes fiction and criticism. Every so often, she makes a rug. She is currently completing her master’s in English in the field of Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.

K. A. POLZIN’s stories have appeared in Subtropics, swamp pink, Gulf Coast, Wigleaf and elsewhere, and have been anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2023, the Fractured Lit Anthology 3 (2024), and chosen for the 2025 Wigleaf Top 50. Polzin was shortlisted for the PRISM international Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction.

MEREDITH QUARTERMAIN is the author of Lullabies in the Real World (NeWest, 2020), Things Musing (above/ground, 2025) and several other books including poetry, short prose and novels. Her debut collection Vancouver Walking (NeWest, 2005) won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.

DEVON RAE is a queer writer from Montreal who now lives in Vancouver. Her work has appeared in Arc, The New Quarterly, Canthius, PRISM international, Room, Plenitude and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Thirteen Conversations with My Body (Anstruther Press, 2024).

HANNAH AMARIS ROH is a writer and cultural critic. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Bitch Media, where she was a Sacred Writes Fellow. Raised in South Korea and the United States, she lives on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver) with her family.

JAY RUZESKY writes poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. He is a member of the editorial board of The Malahat Review and teaches writing and film at Vancouver Island University.

VIVEK SHARMA is a graduate of UBC’s MFA program. His poems have appeared in Arc, Best Canadian Poetry 2026, The Capilano Review, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire and The Walrus. His chapbook Between two valleys, a lake (Anstruther Press, 2025) is an exploration of displacement and return. He lives on the unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people.

Respected poet, artist, and Vancouver and Pender Island community member SANDY SHREVE died on February 8, 2026. In addition to founding Vancouver’s Poetry in Transit program, Sandy wrote, edited and co-edited five poetry collections, three anthologies (including two editions of the groundbreaking In Fine Form) and several chapbooks. For more on her life and work: RIP Sandy Shreve (1950-2026)

ROB TAYLOR is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Weather. His short stories have appeared in PRISM international, Grain and The Dalhousie Review, among others. He teaches creative writing at the University of the Fraser Valley and lives with his family in Port Moody, BC.

SARAH WOLFSON is the author of A Common Name for Everything (Green Writers Press, 2019), which won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Originally from Vermont, she is a longtime resident of Montreal, where she teaches at McGill University