NICOLE BOYCE’s work has appeared in The Awl, Big Truths, Joyland, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and elsewhere. Her work has won the Prairie Fire Creative Non-Fiction Contest and been short-listed for TNQ’s Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award and long-listed for CBC’s Nonfiction Prize. She received her MFA from UBC’s Creative Writing program.

CAYENNE BRADLEY won first place in Room’s 2020 Short Forms Contest, and is published in CV2, Plenitude, The Temz Review and elsewhere. They study creative writing at UBC. ‘Penance’ is an excerpt from a memoir.

J.G. CHAYKO is a Vancouver writer who has published poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. She is a contributing writer to three anthologies, and has several short works in emerge 19, Canadian Stories, Boston Literary Magazine and ¡hastings!. She is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio program at SFU and is working on her first novel.

JOEL FISHBANE is the author of The Thunder of Giants (St. Martin’s Press, 2015), among numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, plays and ephemera. For more info, fun facts, or his podcast on Shakespeare, visit joelfishbane.net.

KATE MARSHALL FLAHERTY ’s latest books are Stone Soup (Quattro Books, 2016), Reaching V (Guernica Editions, 2017) and Radiant (Inanna Publications, 2019). She writes spontaneous ‘Poems Of the Extraordinary Moment’ (P.O.E.M.s) for charity in person/online, and guides StillPoint Writing and Poetry Editing Circles online. See her performance poetry at katemarshallflaherty.ca.

HOLLAY GHADERY is a writer living on Anishinaabe land in rural Ontario. Her work has appeared in literary journals throughout Canada and the US, and her book, Fuse—a memoir in meditations on mixed-race identity and mental illness—was published by Guernica Editions’s MiroLand imprint in 2021.

MARK O. GOODWIN, born in England but best described as a Scottish island poet, lives in Sweden. A book project he has advised on is forthcoming in 2022: Donnez-nous un chant! De balades en ballades dans les Îles Hébrides d’Ecosse by Alix Quoniam (Les Éditions du Jongleur).

LAURIE D. GRAHAM grew up in Treaty 6 territory, and currently lives in Nogojiwanong, in the treaty and traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg, where she is a writer, editor and the publisher of Brick. Her newest book is Fast Commute (McClelland & Stewart, 2022).

JULIAN GUNN makes things that try to make a world and a body. He is a queer and trans writer, artist, educator and game designer of settler descent living on Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ territories. His poetry has appeared in PRISM international, Plenitude, and Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

ERIN KIRSH is a Vancouver writer. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Arc, PULP Literature, Short Edition, CV2, QWERTY and more. Visit her at erinkirsh.com or follow her @kirshwords.

ZOË LANDALE has published eight books, edited two books, and her work appears in around 50 anthologies. She’s fished commercially, taught creative writing at KPU, and had the pleasure of coming back to the water as a crew member for her local marine search and rescue unit on Pender Island, BC. Her upcoming books of poetry are Orchid Heart Elegies (McGill-Queens University Press, 2022) and Sigrene’s Bargain with Odin (Inanna Publications, 2023).

DAN MacISAAC’s poetry appeared in The Malahat Review, Stand, PRISM international and Canadian Literature. Brick Books published his poetry collection, Cries from the Ark. His poetry has received awards, including the Foley Prize from America Magazine. His work was short-listed for the Walrus Poetry Prize, The Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest and the CBC Short Story Prize.

ADRIAN MARKLE has more than a dozen short-fiction publications in Canada, the US, the UK and Europe, which have earned him several commendations, including nominations for the Pushcart Prize and The Best Small Fictions anthology. Originally from Canada, he now teaches at a university in Cornwall, UK, where this story is set.

MATSUKI MASUTANI is a poet and translator living on Denman Island, BC. He has translated Canadian works such as Roy Kiyooka’s Mothertalk and Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms, and from Japanese into English, Kishizo Kimura’s memoir, Witness to Loss. Masutani also edited the modern Japanese translation of The Shobogenzo, a medieval Buddhist text, for Kodansha Publishing. His poems have appeared a variety of magazines, and in the anthology Love of the Salish Sea Islands. His collection of poetry I Will Be More Myself in the Next World was published this year by Mother Tongue Publishing.

MARCIE McCAULEY is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Humber College’s Creative Writing program. She writes and reads in Toronto, living on the traditional territory of the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee and Wendat—land still inhabited by their descendants.

VINCENT McGILLIVRAY is a project manager living on Cape Breton Island, NS. His poetry has appeared in The Malahat Review and The Antigonish Review, among other publications.

VICKI McLEOD is the author of four non-fiction books exploring being fully human in a technical world. Her short memoir, ‘Georgie,’ was long-listed for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize, and ‘My People Came Down from the Mountains’ won the FBCW 2020 Flash Fiction prize. In 2021, her essay ‘Leave With What You Came With’ was long-listed for the FBCW Creative Non-Fiction prize. A graduate of the 2018 SFU Writers Studio, she is a West Coast wild swimmer living on Vancouver Island.

BRIAN MOORE lives in Toronto, where he worked as a project manager. He is previously published in Blank Spaces, Barren Magazine, gravel, Agnes and True, and Valparaiso Fiction Review.

MARK MUSHET is a Vancouver-born, free-ranging photographer, video producer and arts writer who’s also the creative director of Vancouver Review Media. He is not yet a poet or musician. Check out vancouverreviewmedia.com and markmushetphotography.com for more.

DAVID A. ROBERTSON is the 2021 recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award. He is the author of numerous books for young readers, including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award and the McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People Award (as did his acclaimed YA series, The Reckoner). His award-winning memoir, Black Water: Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory, was a Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire book of the year in 2020. He is also the writer and host of the podcast Kíwew. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and currently lives in Winnipeg.

RENÉE SAROJINI SAKLIKAR is the author of four books, including children of air india (Nightwood Editions, 2013) and Listening to the Bees (Nightwood, 2018). Her newest book is Bramah and the Beggar Boy, an epic fantasy in verse (Nightwood, 2021). She was the first poet laureate for the City of Surrey (2015–2018).

RUSSELL THORNTON’s The Hundred Lives (Quattro, 2014) was short-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize; his Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain (Harbour, 2013) was short-listed for a Governor General’s Award. His most recent books are The Broken Face (Harbour, 2018) and Answer to Blue (Harbour, 2021). He lives in North Vancouver, BC.

CHRISTINA TURNER earned her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2021. She is currently a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Manitoba, and lives in Toronto with her husband and son.