Kerry Gilbert
Kerry Gilbert grew up in the Okanagan and has lived on Vancouver Island, in South Korea and Australia. She has returned to the valley and now lives in Vernon, BC where she teaches Creative Writing at Okanagan College and raises their three children. Her first book of poetry, (kerplnk): a verse novel of development, (Kalamalka Press, 2005). Her second volume, Tight Wire (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2016) made the ReLit Long Shortlist for 2017. Most recently, Kerry won the Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award for Best Suite by an Emerging Writer, 2016/2017. The suite formed the core of a new verse manuscript, Little Red (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2019).
Stephen Collis
Vancouver Island-born Stephen Collis is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Commons (Talonbooks, 2008), the BC Book Prize-winning On the Material (Talonbooks, 2010), Once in Blockadia (Talonbooks, 2016) and Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten (Talonbooks, 2018). In 2019, he was awarded the Latner Writers’ Trust of Canada Poetry Prize in recognition of his body of work. His most recent volume of poetry is A History of the Theories of Rain (Talonbooks, 2021). Stephen lives near Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish Territory, and teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.
Renée Saklikar
Renée Sarojini Saklikar is a writer and lawyer who lives in Vancouver on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples. Her work appears in many journals and anthologies, and she is the author of four books, including the ground-breaking poetry book, children of air india, about the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Prize; and is the co-author, with Dr. Mark Winston, of the poetry and essay collection, Listening to the Bees, winner of the 2019 Gold Medal Independent Publishers Book Award, Environment/Ecology. Her work has been adapted for visual art, dance, and opera, including air india [redacted] with SFU Woodward’s, the Irish Arts Council, and Turning Point Ensemble. (premiered 2015: https://tomcreed.org/portfolio/air-india-redacted/ ). She was the inaugural Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), and she teaches creative writing as well as law and ethics for writer and editors. Renée Sarojini curates Lunch Poems at SFU (https://www.sfu.ca/continuing-studies/events/lunch-poems.html) and the Vancouver Poetry Phone (https://www.dtvan.ca/what-we-do/placemaking-and-public-spaces/poetryphone/); and is a member of Meet The Presses (https://meetthepresses.wordpress.com/ poetry chapbooks and micro presses). She also serves on the advisory boards of Event magazine, The Ormsby Review as well as serving as a board director for the Surrey International Writers Conference (https://www.siwc.ca/). Renée Sarojini works the epic, reclaiming it for climate justice and female heroes in her long poem project, THOT J BAP, The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns, an epic fantasy in verse. The first book in this series is Bramah and The Beggar Boy, (Nightwood Editions, 2021). For more information on this epic series as well as a statement of poetics, please visit https://thotjbap.com/
James Gifford
James Gifford is an Associate Professor of English and teaches Literature and Humanities at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Vancouver Campus. He is also the Director of FDU Press. His research interests include Transatlantic Modernism, (British, American, Irish, and Canadian), media studies, cultural studies, genetic criticism, anarchism, and radical political thought. If that is not enough, Gifford also pursues significant studies in Music and operatic performance. Among his many scholarly publications are A Modernist Fantasy (ELS Editions, 2018), From the Elephant's Back (UofA Press, 2015), and Personal Modernisms (UofA Press, 2014). He is currently editing the works of Edward Taylor Fletcher, a 19th-century Canadian poet and philologist. He also regularly reviews poetry.
Theresa Rogers
Theresa Rogers lives in Vancouver and teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Her academic interests include youth arts and media literacies, children’s and young adult literature, and teacher education in English and literacy. She is co-author of Youth, Critical Literacies and Civic Engagement: Arts, Media and Literacy in the Lives of Adolescents (Routledge, 2015) and has published numerous articles in academic journals. Her poetry has been published in various outlets, including the Cape Cod Poetry Review, Uppagus, and the English Bay Review. She also volunteers her time to Family Services of Greater Vancouver.
JP Baker
JP Baker works as a Planning Consultant with Vantage Point, supporting non-profit organizations and charities with strategy, capacity planning, and governance. He is deeply interested in change and collaboration and takes great joy in helping people and organizations enhance mission impact. Prior to his career in organizational development, JP worked in internaional education and freelance writing. He lives in Kamloops, where he is an active father, musician, and writer.