An annual celebration of writers and literature
Jasmine Sealy is a Bajan – Canadian writer based in Vancouver, BC. Her work has been published in The New Quarterly, Adda Stories, Cosmonauts Avenue, GEIST, Room and elsewhere. She has been previously longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Jasmine Sealy’s novel, An Island of Forgetting, will be released in April, 2022.…
Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer, artist, and filmmaker born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, the Malahat Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, GUTS magazine and more. Her debut novel Butter Honey Pig Bread was a Canada Reads 2021 runner-up, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was a finalist for a Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and a Lambda Literary Award.…
Victoria’s Julie Paul is the author of three short fiction collections, The Jealousy Bone, The Pull of the Moon, and Meteorites, and the poetry collection The Rules of the Kingdom. The Pull of the Moon won the 2015 Victoria Butler Book Prize, and The Rules of the Kingdom was a finalist for both the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.…
Jen Sookfong Lee is a BC writer who has written three adult novels (including The Conjoined, which was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award), creative non-fiction, as well as several fiction and non-fiction books for children and youth. She has been a columnist on the CBC for On the Coast, All Points West and The Next Chapter, and taught fiction at Simon Fraser University’s Writers’ Studio Online. …
Tamara Goranson is the author of three works of historical fiction in the Vinland Viking series publishing with Harper Collins. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, and she works as a therapist in private practice with Adjunct Professor status at the University of Victoria. Tamara draws on her expertise as a psychologist to explore modern day trauma themes in her novels. …
Carla Funk was born and raised in Vanderhoof, one of the earliest Mennonite settlements in British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of the memoir Every Little Scrap and Wonder, which was a finalist for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. She has also written five books of poetry and is the former poet laureate for the City of Victoria.…
Susan Olding’s debut collection, Pathologies: A Life in Essays, was selected by 49th Shelf and Amazon.ca as one of 100 Canadian books to read in a lifetime. Her essays, fiction, and poetry appear widely in literary journals and anthologies, and her work has won a National Magazine Award, the Edna Staebler Prize for the Personal Essay, and other honours.…
M.A.C. (Marion) Farrant is the award-winning author of seventeen works of fiction, memoirs, and two plays. She has published eight books with Talonbooks, the most recent being her trio of miniature fiction: The World Afloat (2014), The Days (2016), and The Great Happiness (2019). She lives in North Saanich, British Columbia.…
Darrel J. McLeod is Cree from treaty eight territory in Alberta. Darrel was a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with Assembly of First Nations. He holds degrees in French Literature and Education. Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity is his second memoir following the events in his Governor General’s Literary Award-winning Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age.…
Glenn Dixon is living the dream in double time, combining his passions for writing and playing rock ‘n’ roll into the novel, Bootleg Stardust. In fact, the protagonist in the novel, Levi Jaxon, has become his avatar. Dixon plays guitar in a Calgary rock band that has recorded under the name Downtown Exit, the name of the ’70s band in the book.…
Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty 8 territory in northern Alberta. His creative work is published in Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, PRISM international, and Arc Poetry. His first children’s book, Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock, was published through Highwater Press in 2018, and was nominated for several awards.…
Hiromi Goto is an emigrant from Japan who gratefully resides in Lekwungen Territory. Her first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book, Canada and Caribbean Region, and was co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Other titles include The Kappa Child, Half World and Hopeful Monsters. Her first graphic novel, Shadow Life, was published in March of 2021 with First Second Books.…
