Bertrand Laverdure is an award-winning poet, novelist, literary performer, and blogger. His poetry publications include Rires (2004) and Sept et demi (2007). He has written four well-received novels, Gomme de xanthane (2006), Lectodôme (2008), J'invente la piscine (2010), Bureau universel des copyrights (2011). Lettres crues, a book of literary correspondence with Quebecois author Pierre Samson, was published in the fall of 2012. Most recently, he published a YA poetry collection, Cascadeuse (2013). Awards include the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts (1999), and the Rina-Lasnier Award for Poetry for Les forêts (2003). Les forêts was also nominated for the Emile-Nelligan Award for Poetry (2000), while Audioguide was nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival International de Poésie de Trois-Rivières (2003), and Lectodôme for the Grand Prix littéraire Archambault (2009). Find Laverdure on his blog, http://technicien-coffeur.blogspot.ca/, follow him on Twitter @lectodome, or connect with him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bertrand.laverdure.

Oana Avasilichioaei's previous translations include Wigrum by Quebecois writer Daniel Canty (2013), The Islands by Quebecoise poet Louise Cotnoir (2011) and Occupational Sickness by Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (2006). In 2013, she edited a feature on Quebec French writing in translation for Aufgabe (New York). she has also played in the bounds of translation and creation in a poetic collaboration with Erín Moure, Expeditions of a Chimæra, (2009). Her most recent poetry collection is We, Beasts (2012; winner of the QWF's A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry), and her audio work can be found on Pennsound. She lives in Montreal. Learn more about Avasilichioaei at www.oanalab.com.