2019 Wild Writers

PAOLA FERRANTE

PAOLA FERRANTE

PAOLA FERRANTE is a writer living with depression. Her fiction collection, Her Body Among Animals (Book*hug Press, 2023), contains stories that won The New Quarterly’s Peter Hinchcliffe Award and were longlisted for The Journey Prize. Her debut poetry collection was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She lives in Toronto.

HELEN KNOTT

HELEN KNOTT

HELEN KNOTT is a Dane Zaa, Nehiyaw, Métis, and mixed Euro-descent woman living in Fort St. John, British Columbia.Her bestselling debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike.

LAMEES AL ETHARI

LAMEES AL ETHARI

LAMEES AL ETHARI immigrated to Canada with her husband and two boys in 2008. She holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching academic and creative writing since 2015.  Her poetry has been published in About Place Journal, The New Quarterly, The Malpais Review, the …

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NOELLE ALLEN

NOELLE ALLEN

NOELLE ALLEN is the publisher of Wolsak and Wynn literary press based in Hamilton, Ontario. She has been the chair of gritLIT: Hamilton’s Readers and Writers Festival and of the Literary Press Group, a national publishing organization. She also volunteers with the Hamilton Arts Council’s Literary Awards and the Hamilton Review of Books.  Photo Credit: Jeff …

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MAYA AMEYAW

MAYA AMEYAW

MAYA AMEYAW was born and raised in Toronto by a family of poets and visual artists. Her poetry has previously been published in the independent journals Wake (2014) and From The Root (2016). Her poetry and short stories have also appeared in two community arts anthologies, A Place For Us (2016) and The Double World …

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DAVID BEZMOZGIS

DAVID BEZMOZGIS

DAVID BEZMOZGIS is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. He is the author of Natasha and Other Stories, The Free World, and The Betrayers. He has been twice nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award, and his debut story collection, Natasha and Other Stories, won the Toronto Book Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize …

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MARILYN BIDERMAN

MARILYN BIDERMAN

MARILYN BIDERMAN entered the Transatlantic Agency after working at her own literary agency and consultancy practice, where she helped launch the careers of début and prize-winning authors. She has worked at McClelland & Stewart as VP, Director, Rights and Contracts, and handled the international rights for authors including Leonard Cohen, Alistair MacLeod, and Madeleine Thien. Marilyn is a …

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MICHAEL CRUMMEY

MICHAEL CRUMMEY

MICHAEL CRUMMEY’S first novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the 2001 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and his second novel, The Wreckage, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His third novel, Galore, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. His last novel, …

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FRANCINE CUNNINGHAM

FRANCINE CUNNINGHAM

FRANCINE CUNNINGHAM is an award-winning Indigenous writer, artist and educator originally from Calgary, AB but who currently resides in Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of the UBC Creative Writing MFA program, and a recent winner of The Indigenous Voices Award in the 2019 Unpublished Prose Category and of The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art …

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GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE

GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE

GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE is an internationally-renowned poet and scholar whose books—including his highly-esteemed poetry collections Execution Poems and Whylah Falls—have won him many honours, including the Portia White Prize (1998), the Governor General’s Literary Award (2001), the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award (2004), and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship Prize (2005). Born in Windsor, Nova …

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CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA

CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA

CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA is a visual artist, a CBC commentator, the founder and artistic director of Native-Immigrant arts collective, and the Artistic Director of Métèque gallery and art hub in Montreal. An excerpt from her memoir appears in Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers (Caitlin Press 2019), and her artwork adorns the cover. The title …

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SARAH ENS

SARAH ENS

Originally from Treaty 1 territory (Landmark, MB), SARAH ENS is currently a writer and editor based in Treaty 6 territory (Saskatoon, SK). Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, Arc Poetry Magazine, and Poetry Is Dead. This year’s winner of The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest, she also placed …

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EUFEMIA FANTETTI

EUFEMIA FANTETTI

EUFEMIA FANTETTI’S debut, A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love, was runner-up for the 2013 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and winner of the 2014 Bressani Literary Prize. A graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA in Creative Writing, she is a three-time winner of Accenti Magazine’s annual competition. Her work appears in Event, The New Quarterly, the Globe and Mail and the recently released …

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KATHY FRIEDMAN

KATHY FRIEDMAN

KATHY FRIEDMAN has appeared in Grain, Geist, Room, Poetry Is Dead, The New Quarterly, PRISM international, This Magazine, Humber Literary Review, and Canadian Notes & Queries. A finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, she has also been runner-up for the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award and PRISM international’s short fiction contest. Kathy has an MFA in creative writing from …

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ELIZABETH HAY

ELIZABETH HAY

ELIZABETH HAY is the author of the #1 nationally bestselling novel Alone in the Classroom, the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novel Late Nights On Air, as well as four other highly acclaimed works of fiction, His Whole Life, A Student of Weather, Garbo Laughs, and Small Change. All Things Consoled, her first book of non-fiction, is …

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PHILIP HUYNH

PHILIP HUYNH

PHILIP HUYNH was born in Vancouver to parents who had fled Vietnam during the civil war. His stories have been published in the Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Event, and the Journey Prize Anthology and cited in The Best American Stories. He is the winner of the Open Season Award from the Malahat Review, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and …

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SHENIZ JANMOHAMED

SHENIZ JANMOHAMED

SHENIZ JANMOHAMED (MFA) is a firm believer in fostering community through collaboration, compassion and creativity. In her own practice, she strives to embody words through performance, land art and writing in the ghazal form. A poet, educator and land artist, Sheniz has performed her work in venues across the world, including the Jaipur Literature Festival, Alliance …

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AMANDA LEDUC

AMANDA LEDUC

AMANDA LEDUC is a disabled author with cerebral palsy whose work has been shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize, the CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Malahat Review’s Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize, and the Thomas Morton Fiction Prize. Her first novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, was shortlisted for the ReLit Award. Her new …

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NADJA LUBIW-HAZARD

NADJA LUBIW-HAZARD

NADJA LUBIW-HAZARD is a writer and a veterinarian. Her short fiction has been published in Room, Understorey, The Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly and more; her first novel, The Nap-Away Motel, was published by Palimpsest Press in May 2019.  She is currently working on several picture books about animals, and a second novel, Her Name …

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HAZEL MILLAR

HAZEL MILLAR

HAZEL MILLAR is the Co-publisher at Book*hug, an award-winning independent literary press based in Toronto. An avid reader, Hazel is rarely without a book. She is the current Chair of the Board of the Literary Press Group of Canada, and she also sits on several other publishing advisory boards and committees. She lives in Toronto …

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K.D. MILLER

K.D. MILLER

K.D. MILLER’S stories and essays have appeared in Canadian literary magazines, have been collected in Oberon’s Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology, and have been broadcast by the CBC. She has published four collections of stories: A Litany in Time of Plague, Give Me Your Answer, The Other Voice and All Saints; an …

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PAMELA MORDECAI

PAMELA MORDECAI

Jamaican-Canadian author PAMELA MORDECAI writes stories and poems for adults and children. A former language arts teacher with a PhD in English, she has authored/co-authored numerous textbooks and edited/co-edited groundbreaking anthologies of Caribbean writing, especially the writing of women. Her poetry for children is widely anthologized and used in textbooks and online curricula in the …

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Pamela Mulloy. Photo by Ayelet Tsabari

PAMELA MULLOY

PAMELA MULLOY

PAMELA MULLOY is the editor of The New Quarterly and the creative director of the Wild Writers Literary Festival. She is also a writer with short fiction published in the UK and Canada. Her debut novel The Deserters was published by Véhicule Press in 2018. Photo by Ayelet Tsabari.

VINH NGUYEN

VINH NGUYEN

VINH NGUYEN specializes in refugee, immigrant, and diasporic literature and culture. He held a SSHRC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, a Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction, and a Harry Lyman Hooker Fellowship, among other honors. He is the 2017 recipient of the John C. Polanyi Prize in Literature. His writing can be found or are …

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KATHY PAGE

KATHY PAGE

KATHY PAGE is the author of ten previous books, most recently Dear Evelyn (2018), which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Fiction Prize. Other works include Paradise & Elsewhere (2014) and The Two of Us (2016), both nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Born in the UK, she moved to Salt Spring Island with …

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MICHELLE PARISE

MICHELLE PARISE

MICHELLE PARISE is an award-winning journalist, writer and performer. She’s worked for the CBC for twenty-three years, in everything from children’s television, national radio news, music programming and documentary making. In 2017, she adapted her unpublished memoir, Alone: A Love Story, into an international hit podcast for CBC. In May 2020, the book that became …

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CASEY PLETT

CASEY PLETT

CASEY PLETT is the author of the novel Little Fish (Arsenal Pulp Press) and the short story collection A Safe Girl to Love (Topside Press), and co-editor of the anthology Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers (Topside Press). She wrote a column on transitioning for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, …

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STUART ROSS

STUART ROSS

STUART ROSS is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and publisher living in Cobourg, Ontario. He sold his chapbooks on the streets of Toronto in the 1980s, and is now the prize-winning author of twenty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, including Motel of the Opposable Thumbs (Anvil Press, 2019), A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (winner …

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HEIDI REIMER

HEIDI REIMER

HEIDI REIMER’S short stories and essays have appeared in Chatelaine, The New Quarterly, Little Fiction, Literary Mama, Stealing Time, and Hip Mama, and in the anthologies Outcrops: Northeastern Ontario Short Stories, The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood, and Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers.  Heidi lives and works in Toronto. She is currently at …

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SUSAN SCOTT

SUSAN SCOTT

SUSAN SCOTT is the editor of Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers (Caitlin Press 2019) and the author of Temple in a Teapot. A deep interest in the interplay of the edgy, the iffy, and the sublime, and in championing neglected voices, informs her editorial instincts. She serves as The New Quarterly’s lead nonfiction editor, retreat director, …

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LEANNE TOSHIKO SIMPSON

LEANNE TOSHIKO SIMPSON

LEANNE TOSHIKO SIMPSON is a Japanese-Canadian writer from Scarborough. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 17, she writes about navigating the mental health system, and was featured as an ambassador for Bell Let’s Talk. You can find her work in Contemporary Verse 2, Room magazine and Unpublished City II. In 2016, she was named Scarborough’s Emerging …

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SARAH TOLMIE

SARAH TOLMIE

SARAH TOLMIE is a medievalist trained at the University of Toronto and Cambridge and is associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo. Her poetry collection, The Art of Dying (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018) was shortlisted for the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize and her 120-sonnet sequence Trio (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015) was shortlisted for the 2016 Pat …

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AYELET TSABARI

AYELET TSABARI

AYELET TSABARI was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She is the author of the memoir in essays The Art of Leaving, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize and winner of the Jewish Literary Award for memoir. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr …

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JESSICA WESTHEAD

JESSICA WESTHEAD

JESSICA WESTHEAD’s fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards, selected for the Journey Prize anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her short stories have appeared in major literary journals in Canada, the US and the UK, including Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, Indiana Review and Hamish Hamilton’s Five Dials. She is the author of the novel Pulpy and Midge and the …

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TERENCE YOUNG

TERENCE YOUNG

TERENCE YOUNG lives in Victoria, BC, where he has recently retired from teaching English and creative writing at St. Michaels University School. His poems and stories have appeared in literary periodicals across Canada. Most recently, the poem “Tender Is The Night” was the winner of the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest, sponsored by The New …

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