CHRIS BAILEY is a commercial fisherman from Prince Edward Island. His work has appeared in Brick, The Fiddlehead and Best Canadian Stories. Chris is the author of two poetry collections: What Your Hands Have Done (Nightwood Editions) and Forecast: Pretty Bleak (McClelland & Stewart).

GARRICK BASSEY is a Vancouver-based photographer who focuses on the spontaneity of urban life. His work high-lights the small, evocative moments that emerge naturally within the city’s relaxed, yet engaging, environment.

ALAMGIR HASHMI is the author of numerous books of poetry and literary criticism. His work has also appeared widely in journals and anthologies and won him high honours. He has taught as a university professor in North America, Europe and Asia, and is founding president of The Literature Podium.

KEVIN IRIE won Grain’s 2024 Short Grain Contest for Poetry, second prize in The New Quarterly’s 2024 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest, and was long-listed for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. He is included in Best Canadian Poetry 2026 (Biblioasis, 2025) and his newest book is Evacuations (University of Alberta Press, 2026).

PW JARUNGPITERAH is working on her first poetry collection, exploring themes of memory, childhood and familial inheritance. She has been featured in publications including The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, carte blanche and Rattle.

JASON JOBIN completed an MFA in writing at the University of Victoria. His stories have won a National Magazine Award and were featured in the 2018 and 2019 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize anthologies. He lives and writes in Victoria. His debut memoir, The Wild Mandrake, came out with Dundurn Press in 2023.

CONOR KERR is a Métis/Ukrainian writer, Labrador-retriever wrestler and English professor from the Prairies who has lost every major literary award in Canada—some multiple times. He is the author of five books.

A.C. KOCH is a teacher, writer and musician who has been published in Analog, Gulf Coast, Split Lip, Cagibi, Five South and is forthcoming in Fantasy & Science Fiction. He resides in Denver, CO, working with language learners and writing film reviews for Spectrum Culture. He recently completed the Regis Mile High MFA program and is querying a novel-in-stories, Ask the Moon.

S.A. LEGER is a writer and ornithologist based in St. John’s (Ktaqmkuk). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, The Hopkins Review, The Los Angeles Review, Third Coast and wildness. Her best days are spent at a cabin in the woods with her wife and dachshund.

JADE Y. LIU is a Chinese-Canadian poet from the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. A recipient of the George McWhirter Prize in Poetry, she has been short-listed for Arc’s Poem of the Year and has twice won Reader’s Choice in CV2’s 2-Day Poem Contest. Other work appears in Chestnut Review, HAD and elsewhere.

SUMAIYA MATIN is a writer, social worker, educator and public policy professional who holds a Master of Social Work and is earning a MFA in Creative Writing at UBC. Her literary memoir is The Shaytan Bride: A Bangladeshi Canadian Memoir of Desire and Faith (Dundurn Press, 2021). She lives in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). IG: @sumaiya.matin; sumaiyamatin.com.

ROB McLENNAN lives in Ottawa, where he is the current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival. His most recent titles are edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026) and the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2025).

SUSAN MERSEREAU’s short stories have appeared in Meridian, The Massachusetts Review, december, PRISM international, Riddle Fence, filling Station and other journals. An earlier story, ‘The Valley,’ which also features Ötzi the Iceman, won the Short Grain fiction contest. She is currently at work on a novel.

THOMAS MIXON is a fiction reader for Short Story, Long. He has poems and prose in Pithead Chapel, Rattle, Eye to the Telescope and elsewhere. He’s trying to write a few books.

ELISABETH MURAWSKI is the author of Zorba’s Daughter (Utah State University Press, 2010), Heiress (Texas Review Press, 2018) and Still Life with Timex (Texas Review Press, 2021). Alias Irene will be published in late 2025 (Fernwood Press) and Voyage to the End will be published in 2026 (SurVision Books). Born in Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, VA.

GEORGE MURRAY is the author of 10 books, most recently, Problematica: New and Selected Poems, 1995–2020 (ECW, 2021). He lives in St. John’s.

CAROLYN NAKAGAWA is a fourth-generation Anglo-Japanese Canadian poet and playwright who makes her home in the territory colonized as Vancouver. Her poems appear in various magazines and in The Gate of Memory anthology (Haymarket Books, 2025). She is seeking a publisher for her full-length poetry manuscript. Learn more about her work at cynakagawa.com.

AVERY QURASHI lives in so-called Vancouver with her friends and a cat named Rat. She holds an MA in English from UBC and a B. Arts Sc. from McMaster University.

RORY SAY is a Canadian fiction writer from Victoria. Stories of his have recently appeared in The New Quarterly, Air/Light, Metastellar and Grain. A chapbook collection, The Marksman, was published by Red Bird Chapbooks in 2024, while a full-length collection, Nothing Has Happened to You, is forthcoming via Lethe Press. Read more by visiting his website: rorysay.com.

BREN SIMMERS is the recipient of the 2026 Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize. Her latest poetry collection, The Work (Gaspereau Press, 2024), won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and was a finalist for the Gov-ernor General’s Literary Awards. She lives on Epekwitk/PEI.

PABLO STRAUSS is a translator of fiction from Quebec and non-fiction from wherever. He was born in Williams Lake, grew up in Victoria, and has lived in Quebec City for two decades.

E.S. TAILLON is a queer, neurodivergent writer based in Tkaronto. Their French-to-English translation of Scenes from the Underground (House of Anansi, 2022) was short-listed for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers. Their most recent translation is The Seated Woman (House of Anansi, 2025).

ERIN VOSTERS (they/them) is a midwife and emerging writer from Winnipeg, Treaty 1 territory, currently living in Shanghai, China. They are a student in UBC’s Creative Writing MFA program. They have previously published in Juice, Poetry Lab Shanghai and chouette. They have work forthcoming in Maisonneuve and subTerrain.

JACK WANG is the author of The Riveter (Anansi & HarperVia, 2025) and We Two Alone (Anansi, 2020; HarperVia 2021), long-listed for Canada Reads and winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award from the Writers’ Union of Canada for best debut collection in English. He teaches writing at Ithaca College.

TINTIN YANG is a member of the Mainlander editorial collective. She is a recent MA graduate from Simon Fraser University in the Department of Geography and presently works at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

TERENCE YOUNG lives in Victoria. His most recent book is a collection of short fiction, Give Us This Day (Signature Editions, 2025).