Rhonda Collis is a writer living on Vancouver Island, BC. She graduated from the UBC Optional Residency Master of Arts in Creative Writing program in 2011, with a focus on the novel. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared widely in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies across Canada the UK and the US, including The Antigonish Review, Room Magazine, The Vancouver Review, On Spec Magazine, The Bridport Anthology, Regreen Anthology, Smartish Pace, ARC, and The Fiddlehead with a story forthcoming in Subterrain magazine. She has taught for Camosun College in Victoria and currently serves on the editorial board for Prism magazine.
Diane Tucker was born in 1965 in Grace Hospital in Vancouver. and grew up in the southeast quadrant of the city, where from the age of pretty much nothing she would get up in front of people and perform. This continued unabated until she graduated from John Oliver Secondary School. She earned a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from UBC in 1987, after which she married Jim and spent several years as a library clerk until her daughter Elizabeth was born in 1990. She then devoted herself to mothering (son Joe was born in 1993) and writing.
Her first book of poems, God on His Haunches (Nightwood Editions, 1996) was shortlisted for the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second poetry book, Bright Scarves of Hours, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2007. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and in more than sixty journals in Canada and abroad. Her first novel, His Sweet Favour, was released by Thistledown Press in 2009.
Her most recent book of poems, Bonsai Love, was released by Harbour Publishing in 2014.
She has recently branched out into writing plays. Her first full-length play, Here Breaks the Heart: The Loves of Christina Rossetti, was produced in 2013 by Calgary’s Fire Exit Theatre.
Diane has been leading writing workshops for many years and has curated several public reading series. She has also served on the executives of both the Burnaby Writers’ Society and the League of Canadian Poets. She has done at least a hundred public readings of her own work.
Currently Diane is on the organizing committee of the Dead Poets Reading Series, a bimonthly excursion into the great works of deceased poets, held at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library (www.deadpoetslive.com).
Publications
Books
Sandgrain Leaf, poetry chapbook, The Alfred Gustav Press, 2010
Manna Days, self-published poetry chapbook, 2009
Bright Scarves of Hours, poems, Palimpsest Press, 2007, www.palimpsestpress.com
Love Along the Tongue, self-published poetry chapbook, Moth Press, 2001
God on His Haunches, poems, Nightwood Editions, 1996, www.nightwoodeditions.com
Anthologies:
Alive at the Center (Ooligan Press, 2013)
The Verse Map of Vancouver (Anvil Press, 2009)
Northern Lights: an anthology of Canadian Christian writing (Wiley, 2008)
In Our Own Words VII (MW Enterprises, 2007)
String to Bow (Leaf Press, 2005)
From This New World (Ten Dollar Words Publishing, 2003)
My poems, short fiction, and essays have been published widely in journals such as The Walrus, The Fiddlehead, and The Malahat Review as well as in several anthologies, most recently, Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013, and I Found it at the Movies: an Anthology of Film Poems (2014). I have published two books of poetry, Somewhere, a Fire, and Erratic. In 2014, I completed my MFA at UBC for which I received a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Research Grant. My thesis, titled Summer of the Horse, is a non-fiction manuscript that explores both the physical landscape of the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area (M-KMA), located in northern British Columbia’s Northern Rockies, and the metaphysical landscape of the human mind.
David A. Poulsen has been a broadcaster, teacher, rancher, high school football coach, stage and film actor and‚ most of all‚ writer. His writing career began in earnest when his story The Welcomin’ won the 1984 Alberta Culture Short Story Competition. Now the author of more than 20 books, many for middle readers and young adults, David has been a popular and much sought-after presenter for all ages and grades schools and at teacher and library conferences for the over two decades. He recently completed his Masters degree in Creative Writing at UBC and in 2012-13 was the Writer in Residence at the Saskatoon Public Library.
In 2011 David’s young adult novel Numbers was selected for the Sakura Medal (awarded by English speaking high school students in Japan to their favourite novel of the year). As a result he was invited to tour International Schools in Japan and Korea in the fall of 2011. Numbers has since been added to the new English curriculum for Grade 10 in Saskatchewan. His 2013 teen novel, Old Man, a YA/Adult crossover novel was a nominee for the White Pine Award in the OLA’s Forest of reading competition. David’s most recent novel, Serpents Rising, his first foray into adult crime fiction and first title in the Cullen and Cobb Mystery series, was released on October 25, 2014. The native Calgarian divides his time between his small ranch in the Alberta foothills southwest of Calgary and a second home in Maricopa, Arizona.
1984 The Welcomin’ Winner of the Alberta Culture Short Story competition
1987 Middle Reader novel The Cowboy Kid. Book 1 of Rodeo Trilogy (Plains Publishing, Edmonton)
1989 Middle Reader novel Ride for the Crown, Book 2 of Rodeo Trilogy. (Plains, Edmonton).
1990 Short story collection Dream. (Plains, Edmonton).
1995 Sports Bio Robokicker, co-written with Dave Ridgway. (Johnson/Gorman Publishing, Red Deer)
1995 Middle Reader novel Ride the High Country, third book in Rodeo Trilogy.
(Red Hawk Books, High River, Alberta. (Coincides with second printings of first two books in trilogy).
1996 Young Adult Novel Billy and the Bearman. (Napoleon Publishing, Toronto) ¬†Selected by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for a Choice Award. ¬†Shortlisted for Blue Heron Book Award and Writers Guild of Alberta Children‚’s Book of the Year.
2000 Wild Ride: Three Journeys Down the Rodeo Road. (Stoddart Publishing Co., Toronto).
2004 Young Adult novel, Last Sam’s Cage. (Key Porter Books, Toronto). Nominated for Snow Willow (Saskatchewan), MYRCA (Manitoba) Young Reader’s Choice Awards and R. Ross Annette (Alberta) Award. Selected by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for a Choice Award
2006 The Vampire’s Visit and The Hunk Machine–first two books of middle reader series The Salt and Pepper Chronicles. Key Porter Books (Toronto).
2007 No Time Like the Past and The Book of Vampire (books 3 and 4 of The Salt and Pepper Chronicles) Key Porter Books (Toronto). The Vampire’s Visit was a finalist for the Silver Birch Reader’s Choice Award in Ontario. No Time Like the Past was a finalist for The Golden Eagle Children’s Choice Book Award in southern Alberta.
Key Porter Books publishes the first two books of the reluctant reader series The Lawrence High School Yearbook‚Wild Thing and Blind Date.
2008 Book 5 of The Salt and Pepper Chronicles‚ÄîThe Prisoners and the Paintings. (Key Porter, Toronto). This book won the 2010 Golden Eagle Children’s Choice Book Award.
Books 3 and 4 of The Lawrence High School Yearbook Series‚ Jeremy’s Song and Cowboy Cool. Key Porter, Toronto)
2009 Book 6 of The Salt and Pepper Chronicles—Shivers and Shakes. (Key Porter, Toronto).
2010 Numbers‚ Young Adult novel (Key Porter Books, Toronto). Winner of the 2011 Sakura Medal, Japan.
2011 I Wish I Could Be Like Tommy Blake (picture book) Donahue House Publishing, Edmonton.
2013 Old Man. (YA/Adult crossover) Dundurn Books, Toronto.
2014 Serpents Rising, (Adult crime fiction) Dundurn Books, Toronto
Estella C. Kuchta’s novel, Finding the Daydreamer, will be published by Elm Books in fall 2020, and her nonfiction eco-education book is currently under contract. She has worked as a researcher for a bestselling author Dr. Gabor Mate, an editor for Susila Dharma International, a freelance writer for Parents Canada Magazine, and an English instructor at various postsecondaries in Canada, China, and Japan. Her creative writing projects have been published in Prism, Grain, Event, Puritan, Subterrain, and The Chadwick Garden Anthology.
Breadwinner: The Life of Leo Poulos. Editor. Forthcoming
Educating Children’s Hearts (Essay/Article) Parents Canada Magazine. Forthcoming ‚Rent. (Poem) Subterrain #68, Fall 2014
Tweens Benefit from Keeping a Diary. (Essay/Article) ParentsCanada Magazine. March 2013 ‚Twenty Reasons to Avoid Thinking. (Poem) Prism International #50.1, Fall 2011
Portrait of a Gifted Child. (Essay/Article) ParentsCanada Magazine. August 2010
Erika Thorkelson is a writer of non-fiction and, occasionally, fiction. She was born in Winnipeg, grew to adulthood in Edmonton and spent extended periods in Dublin, Ireland and Northern Japan. Firmly ensconced in Vancouver since receiving her MFA in 2011, she is a regular contributor of arts and culture writing to the Vancouver Sun. Her work has also appeared in various national publications, including This Magazine, The New Quarterly, Quill & Quire, Herizons, Ricepaper, The Walrus, and Hazlitt. She is currently working on a book that investigates themes of home and impermanence through the lens of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. When not writing, she works as an instructor and tutor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Ruth Daniell is a writer, artist, and performer originally from Prince George, BC. She now lives in Vancouver, where she teaches speech arts and writing at the Bolton Academy of Spoken Arts and runs Swoon, a literary reading series on love and desire. She holds a BA (Honours) from the University of Victoria and her MFA from the University of British Columbia. Her writing appears in literary journals across North America, including The Malahat Review and Room, and has been twice longlisted for the CBC Canada Poetry Prize. Recently, she has been honoured in Contemporary Verse 2 as a runner-up for the 2013 Young Buck Poetry Prize, by inclusion on the shortlist for The London Magazine’s 2014 Poetry Competition, on CBC as the winner of the 2014 Shakespeare Selfie Challenge, and through One Throne Magazine as a nominee for the Pushcart Prize.
Jane Warren has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and undergraduate degrees from University of Calgary (BEd) and McMaster University (BPE). She has published two-dozen short stories and poems in Canada and the UK and has served on the editorial collectives of literary magazines. Currently she lives in the Netherlands where she works as an editorial consultant.
The Caring Day, a collection of short stories, was published in 2014. Her Middle Grade novel (under revision) received an honorable mention in the S.C.B.W.I.’s Undiscovered Voices 2014 competition, as well as a top 100 finish in Amazon’s 2013 Breakthrough Novel Award (YA).
Originally from England, Elizabeth Mason spent seven years in Berlin before moving to Vancouver to pursue an MFA. She now lives in London. She writes and blogs about places and their pasts, modern ruins, and vanished heydays.
No Man Land in Malahat Review, 163 (2008); Blühende Landschaften‚ in Litro, 125 (2013)
Futures Past‚ and New States‚ in Litro online (2014) (http://www.litro.co.uk/2014/11/new-states/)
Karim Alrawi is a novelist and playwright. In addition to his several plays for stage, radio, and television, he is the author of two children’s books, The Mouse Who Saved Egypt (2011) and The Girl Who Lost Her Smile (2000) and, most recently, of the novel Book of Sand (2015). His awards include the John Whiting Award for Best Stage Play, and the Samuel Beckett Award for the Performing Arts. A former editor of the magazine Arabica, he has taught at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, The American University in Cairo, and at the University of Iowa’s international writing program.
