Jacqueline Turner is the author most recently of Flourish, which critics call, “a quiet tornado: riveting, expansive, and profoundly moving on multiple levels” and “a blueprint for what it looks like to think and feel everything at once.” The writer Wayde Compton says, “reading Jacqueline Turner’s Flourish makes us want to write, to remember; also to sing, then read, then cry, and re-read. What the book makes us want to do is re-think it all, and re-think remembering it all, and remember re-thinking it — and most of all — to keep reading this, to keep this reading.” Her other books include: The Ends of the Earth, Seven into Even, Careful, and Into the Fold all with ECW Press. She is a Lecturer and Writing Specialist at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and has held writing residencies in Brisbane, Tasmania, Granada, and Berlin. Her work is published widely in Canada and internationally.

Juliane Okot Bitek has never stopped exploring the power of narrative, focusing her essays, poetry and nonfiction work on political and social issues. Her work has been published widely on-line, in print and in literary magazines. Juliane’s 100 Days (University of Alberta 201) was shortlisted for several writing prizes including the 2017 Pat Lowther Award (League of Canadian Poets), 2017 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes), 2017 Canadian Authors Award for Poetry (Canada Authors Association), Alberta Book Awards, Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry.

Joanne Arnott is an award winning Métis/mixed blood writer from Manitoba. Born in 1960 in Winnipeg, she studied at the University of Windsor in Ontario. She has lived on the West Coast since 1982. She is currently the poetry editor for Event Magazine. Joanne recently won the 2017 City of Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award. Her first book of poetry, Wiles of Girlhood won the Gerald Lampert Award in 1992. Other books include: My Grass Cradle, Breasting the Waves: On Writing & Healing, and the children's book, Ma MacDonald . She has performed readings of her work and given writing workshops across Canada and in Australia.