ANITA LAHEY’s latest poetry collection is While Supplies Last (2023, Véhicule Press). Series editor for the Best Canadian Poetry anthology, she’s also co-author, with Pauline Conley, of the 2023 graphic novel-in-verse Fire Monster. Her 2020 memoir, The Last Goldfish: a True Tale of Friendship, was an Ottawa Book Award finalist.
LAMEES AL ETHARI holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative and academic writing since 2015. She has published a collection of poems titled From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and, more recently, a memoir titled Waiting for the Rain (2019). Her poems have appeared in About Place Journal, The …
ASHLEY-ELIZABETH BEST is a disabled poet and essayist from Kingston, Ontario. Her work can be found in CV2, Ambit Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada, The Columbia Review, and Glasgow Review of Books, among others. In 2015, she was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and her debut collection of poetry, …
SUSAN BRYANT lives in Waterloo, Ontario, where she taught English for 25 years at Renison University College. She migrated from the U.S. as a teenager to attend the University of Toronto and has happily made Canada her home. Raising her family in Elmira, Ontario, she witnessed in 1989 the devastating contamination of the town’s water with …
CATHERINE BUSH is the author of five novels, including Blaze Island (2020), the Canada Reads long-listed Accusation (2013), the Trillium Award short-listed Claire’s Head (2004), andThe Rules of Engagement (2000), a New York Times Notable Book and a Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year. She was recently a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Germany and has spoken internationally about …
JANE BUYERS is a visual artist. She has an Honours B.A. in Visual Art from York University (1973) and a Master of Education in History and Philosophy from the University of Toronto (1990). She was Professor in the Fine Arts department at the University of Waterloo from 1988 to 2010, where she is now Distinguished …
MICHAEL CRUMMEY has published eleven books of poetry and fiction, including the novels River Thieves, The Wreckage and Sweetland, and Little Dogs: New and Selected Poems. His third novel, Galore, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Canada and Caribbean). His latest, The Innocents, won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was a finalist for the …
NANCY JO CULLEN’S fiction and poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2018, The Journey Prize, Best Canadian Fiction 2012, The Puritan, Grain, filling Station, Plenitude, Prairie Fire, This Magazine, Room and Arc Poetry Magazine. She has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry with Calgary’s Frontenac House Press and has just completed her fourth poetry manuscript. Nancy …
SADIQA DE MEIJER is a writer of poetry, essays, and short fiction. She was born in Amsterdam and emigrated to Canada as a child. Her poetry collections are Leaving Howe Island and The Outer Wards. Her essay collection, alfabet/alphabet, examines the imprint of her first language on her life in English. She also writes on themes of migration, belonging, domesticity, and …
ANTONIO MICHAEL DOWNING grew up in southern Trinidad, Northern Ontario, Brooklyn, and Kitchener. He is a musician, writer, and activist based in Toronto. His 2010 debut novel, Molasses (Blaurock Press), was published to critical acclaim. In 2017 he was named by the RBC Taylor Prize as one of Canada’s top Emerging Authors for nonfiction. He performs and …
HELEN HUMPHREYS is an acclaimed and award-winning author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her work includes novels Machine Without Horses, The Evening Chorus, Coventry and Afterimage. Her nonfiction includes The Ghost Orchard, The Frozen Thames, as well as the memoir Nocturne. She has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Toronto Book Award, and has been a finalist for the …
MAHAK JAIN writes fiction and poetry for young people and adults. She is the author of the picture book Maya (illustrated by Elly Mackay), which was a CBC Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, and winner of the 2017 South Asia Book Award. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared …
CHELENE KNIGHT is the author of the Braided Skin and the memoir Dear Current Occupant, winner of the 2018 Vancouver Book Award, and long-listed for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. Her essays have appeared in multiple Canadian and American literary journals, plus the Globe and Mail, the Walrus, and the Toronto …
AMANDA LEDUC’s essays and stories have appeared in publications across Canada, the US, and the UK. She is the author of Disfigured as well as of the novels The Miracles of Ordinary Men and the forthcoming The Centaur’s Wife. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where she works as the Communications Coordinator …
Y. S. LEE’s fiction includes the young adult mystery series The Agency (Candlewick Press), which has been translated into six languages. Her work has either won or been shortlisted for various prizes including the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s inaugural John Spray Mystery Award, the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple Award, and the Arthur Ellis Award. Her …
KIRSTEEN MACLEOD is a writer of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction whose work has appeared in literary journals including TNQ and Malahat Review. Her work has been a finalist for many awards, including ARC Poetry’s 2020 Poem of the Year. Kirsteen, a yoga teacher, also leads “relaxed writing” yoga workshops. Her new nonfiction book, In Praise of Retreat, is forthcoming in Spring 2021 (ECW Press) – see …
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.
VINH NGUYEN specializes in refugee, immigrant, and diasporic literature and culture. He is a non-fiction editor at The New Quarterly, where he helps to curate the “Scatterings” series. In 2017, he was awarded the John C. Polanyi Prize in Literature. He is currently working on a critical memoir.
SUSAN OLDING is the author of Pathologies: A Life in Essays, and Big Reader, forthcoming from Freehand Books in spring, 2021. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in literary journals and magazines, including Arc, Prairie Fire, Maisonneuve, the Malahat Review, and the Utne Review. Her most recent contribution to TNQ is “Pacific Spirit,” the …
WAUBGESHIG RICE is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation on Georgian Bay. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from Ryerson University’s journalism program in …
JAEL RICHARDSON is the author of The Stone Thrower, a book columnist on CBC’s q and the founder and Artistic Director for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD). Her debut novel, Gutter Child, arrives in 2021.
SUSAN SCOTT has an ear for the personal, the edgy, and the uncommonly sublime. Her latest book, Body & Soul, is an anthology of unorthodox approaches to the sacred that Sarah Selecky calls “a revelation.” A commitment to powerful, disruptive stories that inspire change led to joining Native Immigrant arts collective and to teaching in communities and classrooms …
Originally from Newfoundland, HEATHER SMITH now lives in Waterloo, Ontario. Her middle-grade novel, Ebb & Flow, was short-listed for the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Award and was the winner of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Her picture book, The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden, was recently named the winner of the 2019 Freeman Book Award for …
NICOLE LEONA SMITH is a writer and theatre creator based in Cambridge, Ontario. Her work as a playwright has been supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), the Shaw Festival, and Canadian Stage. Girls From Away is Nicole’s most recent play-in-progress – a co-creation with Newfoundland’s Berni Stapleton, in development through Newfoundland’s Arts and Culture Centres and …
RUSSELL SMITH’S most recent book, Confidence, was longlisted for the Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize. His English translation of Nadine Bismuth’s award-winning novel Un Lien Familial has just been published by House of Anansi. He is now working as an acquiring editor at Dundurn Press. His techno dance mixes can be found …
SANCHARI SUR is a PhD candidate in English at Wilfrid Laurier University. Their writing can be found in Joyland, Al Jazeera, Toronto Book Award Shortlisted The Unpublished City (Book*hug, 2017), Room, Prism International, EVENT, Quill & Quire, and elsewhere. They are a recipient of a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellowship in fiction, a 2019 Banff residency (with Electric Literature), and Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2020 …
Novelist, teacher, activist and journalist, SUSAN SWAN‘s critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries. In 2019, Swan published her eighth book of fiction, The Dead Celebrities Club, described in the Globe and Mail as “a tale of greed, hubris and fraud…a financial fable worthy of the age.” Swan’s novel, the international bestseller, The …
SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, out now with McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Little, Brown (U.S.), and Bloomsbury (U.K.). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and Granta. She was born in the Lao refugee …
SARAH YI MEI TSIANG is a poet, children’s writer and teacher. Her books of poetry include Status Update (2013), which was nominated for the Pat Lowther Award, and Sweet Devilry (2011), which won the Gerald Lampert Award. She was shortlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019 and longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2018. Tsiang’s poetry has won …
EMILY URQUHART is a National Magazine Award-winning writer and has a doctorate in folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her first book, Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of our Hidden Genes (HarperCollins 2015), was a Maclean’s bestseller, a finalist for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and a 2015 Globe and Mail Best Book. Her freelance writing has appeared …
BRENT VAN STAALDUINEN is an award-winning writer from Hamilton. He is the author of the novels BOY, the forthcoming NOTHING BUT LIFE, and SAINTS, UNEXPECTED, as well as the forthcoming short fiction collection CUT ROAD. His stories have won the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Lush Triumphant Literary Award, and the Fiddlehead Fiction Award, and have …
ERIN BOW is an award-winning poet and novelist, whose honors include the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the CBC Literary Award for poetry, and a Governor General’s Award. She was trained as a physicist, and does science writing about things like black holes and quantum gravity. Her novels are written in her garden shed, in …
PAUL VERMEERSCH is a poet, multimedia artist, creative writing professor, and literary editor. He is the author of several poetry collections, including the Trillium–award nominated The Reinvention of the Human Hand and, most recently, Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995-2020. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General’s …
ISABELLA WANG is the author of two poetry collections, On Forgetting a Language (Baseline Press 2019) and Pebble Swing (Nightwood Editions forthcoming 2021). She has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Poetry Contest, The Minola Review’s Inaugural Poetry Contest, and she is the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose …
JACK WANG received a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in creative writing from Florida State University. In 2014–15, he held the David T. K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Stories in his …
ANDREW WESTOLL is an award-winning author and professor whose writing explores our fraught, ever-evolving relationship with the natural world. His books include The Riverbones (2008), the Charles Taylor Prize-winning The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary (2011), and The Jungle South of the Mountain (2016). His next book, The Zoo and You, explores the many enigmas of the modern zoo, and is forthcoming from Doubleday Canada. …
JULIA ZARANKIN is a writer and self-proclaimed birdsplainer with a particular fondness for sewage lagoons. Her writing has appeared in The Walrus, Cottage Life, Orion Magazine, Threepenny Review, Antioch Review, Birding, Maisonneuve, The New Quarterly, ON Nature and The Globe & Mail. Zarankin is the winner of the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival prize for creative non-fiction …
