Prairie Gothic

George Webber's previous books include In this Place, Last Call (RMB, 2010), A World Within: An Intimate Portrait of the Little Bow Hutterite Colony and People of the Blood: A Decade-long Photographic Journey on a Canadian Reserve. He is the recipient of numerous National Magazine Awards (Canada), two Awards of Excellence from the Society of News Design (USA) and the International Documentary Photography Award (Korea). His photographs have been featured in American Photo, Canadian Geographic, Lenswork Quarterly, Photolife, The New York Times and Swerve. In 1999 he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in recognition of his contributions to the visual arts in Canada. George lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Aritha van Herk teaches Creative Writing, Canadian Literature and Contemporary Narrative. Her novels include Judith, The Tent Peg, No Fixed Address (nominated for the Governor General's Award for fiction), Places Far From Ellesmere (a geografictione) and Restlessness. Her critical works, A Frozen Tongue (ficto-criticism) and In Visible Ink (crypto-frictions) stretch the boundaries of the essay and interrogate questions of reading and writing as aspects of narrative subversion. With Mavericks: an Incorrigible History of Alberta (winner of the Grant MacEwan Author's Award) van Herk ventured into new territory, transforming history into a narratological spectacle. That book frames the new permanent exhibition that opened at the Glenbow Museum in 2007. van Herk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and is active in Canada's literary and cultural life, writing articles and reviews as well as creative work. She has served on many juries, including the Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. She is well known in the broader community of the city, the province, and the country as a writer and a public intellectual.