Waiting (by Rona Altrows & Julie Sedivy)

Weyman Chan
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Weyman Chan has published poems and short stories in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies.

He won the 2002 National Magazine Awards silver prize for his poem “At work,? and the 2003 Alberta Book Awards for his first book of poetry, Before a Blue Sky Moon. His second book, Noise From the Laundry (Talonbooks), was nominated for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

A laboratory technician by trade, Chan distills a unique inner voice in the spiraling, non-sequential and non-temporal syntax of poetry.

Susan Olding was named one of The New Quarterly's "Most Loved Living Writers" alongside authors including Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies across Canada and the United States. She has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award, two Western Magazine Awards, and a CBC Literary Award; she is also a two-time winner of the Event Creative Non-fiction Contest and a winner of the Prairie Fire Non-fiction Contest. Susan earned a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Education from Queen's University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She has been a frequent contributor to several discussion groups, workshops, and web resources for adoptive parents. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies. Susan Olding currently lives with her family in Kingston, Ontario.

Margaret Macpherson holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and has worked as a teacher and journalist in Halifax, Bermuda, and Vancouver. She currently lives in Edmonton with her husband and four children.

Aritha van Herk is a professor at the University of Calgary, where she teaches Creative Writing, Canadian Literature and Contemporary Narrative.

Sharon Butala is an award-winning and bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her classic book The Perfection of the Morning was a #1 bestseller and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Fever, a short story collection, won the 1992 Authors’ Award for Paperback Fiction and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book (Canada and Caribbean region). Her latest novel, Wild Rose, was published in 2015 and has been shortlisted for the W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Butala is a recipient of the Marian Engel Award, the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and the 2012 Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence. In 2002 she became an Officer of the Order of Canada. A brilliant speaker who is much in demand, she lives in Calgary, Alberta. Visit her at SharonButala.com.

Alice Major, Edmonton’s first poet laureate, has published 11 books of poetry and essays, many of which explore her long-standing interest in the sciences. She is the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta 2017 Distinguished Artist Award. Her most recent publications with UAP are Standard candles and Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science. You can find her online at www.alicemajor.com

Wendy McGrath's poetry has been published in CV2, Prism international, NeWest Review, Tessera, Room of One's Own, Orbis, and Grain. Her verse has been broadcast on CBC Radio and her work has appeared in several anthologies. Previously she published Go Van Gogh, a chapbook of her poetry. In 1998 she received the James Patrick Folinsbee Prize from the University of Alberta's Department of English. She lives in Edmonton, AB.

Lee Kvern is the award-winning author of short stories and novels. Novels: Afterall and The Matter of Sylvie were nominated for the Alberta Book Awards, Sylvie was long-listed for the Relit Award. Her short stories are also well celebrated: "White" was the national winner of the CBC Literary Awards, "I May Have Known You" was nominated for the Howard 'O'Hagan Award, and "Detachment" was a finalist in the Malahat Open Season. Her work has been produced for CBC Radio, and published in Event, Descant, and enRoute, and on Joyland.ca (New York) and Foundpress.com.