Previous Q&A

Darrel J. McLeod is a Cree writer from Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. Before deciding to pursue writing, he worked as an educator, chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government, and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. His debut memoir, Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, received […]

Wanda John-Kehewin is a Cree writer, poet, fiction author and script writer. She is an Indigenous woman searching for the truth and a way to be set free from the past. Spells, Wishes, and the Talking Dead, a collection of poetry and prose, is about the grief she feels in working to make sense of […]

Luanne Armstrong is a multi-award-winning author.  She has written twenty-five books and has co-written or edited many others. Her most recent memoir A Bright and Steady Flame, was published by Caitlin Press in 2018. Her new book of essays, Going to Ground came out in 2022.  In this meditative collection, Armstrong weaves together nature-inspired philosophy and social critique to help us […]

Joseph Kakwinokanasum is a member of the James Smith Cree Nation, a graduate of SFU’s Writers Studio, and the author of the novel, My Indian Summer (Tidewater Press, 2022). He continues to write on the unceded territory of the Sooke First Nation. For more about Joseph visit starblanketstoryteller.com Joseph will be showcasing new/ previously unpublished work […]

Marie Metaphor Specht is a multidisciplinary artist living on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and SENĆOTEN speaking peoples. A long-time member of the Canadian spoken word community, Marie is currently serving a two-year term as the sixth Poet Laureate of Victoria. Her debut full-length book of poetry, Soft Shelters, explores the double-edged gift that is caregiving through the lens of intimacy, […]

Sandy Ibrahim is an Egyptian/German immigrant, settler and uninvited guest currently living on Lekwungen territory. She was shortlisted for the Malahat Review’s 2022 Constance Rooke Prize for her piece “Preparing the Eulogy” which is an intimate account of memories that surfaced after her father died. She doesn’t know if her grandmothers are rolling over in […]

Michelle Poirier Brown is a Cree Métis poet, performer and photographer living on unceded syilx territory in Vernon, BC. Michelle is the author ofYou Might Be Sorry You Read This (University of Alberta Press, 2022), “The Amnio Journal” (The Malahat Review, 2020), and the chapbook Intimacies (Jack Pine Press, 2022). You Might Be Sorry You Read This is a […]

Tim Lilburn is the author of twelve books of poetry and three essay collections. His work has been translated widely, and garnered awards including the Governor General’s Award, The Canadian Authors’ Association Award and the Homer Prize. A new essay collection, Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change, will appear from the University of Alberta Press in November.  […]

Alissa York’s internationally acclaimed novels include Mercy, Effigy (shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), Fauna and The Naturalist. Her most recent novel, Far Cry, was partly inspired by time she spent as a child with her dad in a skiff off the BC coast. York now makes her home in Toronto. Far Cry, set in 1922 in a small northwest BC cannery […]

Robert Bringhurst, winner of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, trained in sciences at MIT but made his career in the humanities. He is an officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of two honorary doctorates. He lives on Quadra Island, BC. At turns loving, elegiac, playful, angry […]

Ian Ferguson won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for Village of the Small Houses and is the co-author, with his brother, Will, of How to Be a Canadian. A writer and creative director in the film and television industry, he lives in Victoria. Will Ferguson is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour. His novels […]

Daniel Allen Cox is the author of four novels and I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah’s Witness. Daniel’s essays have appeared in The Guardian, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Maisonneuve, and The Malahat Review, and have been nominated for a National Magazine Award and included in Best Canadian Essays. I […]