Mark Abley has written three books of poetry: Blue Sand, Blue Moon (Cormorant, 1988), Glasburyon (Quarry, 1994) and The Silver Palace Restaurant (McGill-Queen’s, 2005). “Glasburyon,” a poetic elegy for dying languages, has been translated into Esperanto and Jèrriais. At the moment he is preparing a volume of new and selected poems.
He has also written two children’s books and five books of non-fiction. The most recent, Conversations With a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott, was submitted on deadline to Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. in October 2012, the same week that the publisher entered bankruptcy protection. Such episodes of bad luck, even though they hurt, don’t begin to match all the good luck he received in winning a Rhodes Scholarship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, marrying an amazing woman and fathering two tremendous daughters.

Maxianne Berger’s most recent book is Dismantled Secrets (Wolsak and Wynn, 2008). She has been involved with poetry in and around Montreal since 1985. Her debut collection, How We Negotiate, appeared in 1999 with Empyreal Press. A French version was published by Écrits des forges in 2006; translated by Florence Buathier, it is titled Compromis. Her recent poems flow in two directions: in some she explores OuLiPo-style constraints, and in others the minimalism of Japanese forms. Her “Winnows” project serves these approaches simultaneously. Active in both the French and English haiku and tanka communities, she reviews for Tanka Canada’s Gusts, and writes on the poetics of tanka for the Revue du tanka francophone. In 2003, she co-edited (with Angela Leuck) the anthology Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today. In 2012 and 2013, she co-edited two French-language tanka anthologies (with Mike Montreuil of Ottawa) for Éditions des petits nuages.

Stephanie Bolster’s latest book, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, and an excerpt from her new project was chosen as a finalist for the CBC/Canada Writes competition in 2012. Her first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award in 1998. Her work has also received the Bronwen Wallace Award, the Archibald Lampman Award, and The Malahat Review’s long poem prize, among other awards, and has been translated into French, Spanish, and German. She edited The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the Ottawa poet Diana Brebner, and co-edited Penned: Zoo Poems. Born in Vancouver, she teaches creative writing at Concordia University and lives in Pointe-Claire, Quebec.

Jason Camlot is the author of three collections of poetry, The Debaucher (Insomniac Press, 2008), Attention All Typewriters (DC Books, 2005), and The Animal Library (DC Books, 2001). A new book of poems entitled What the World Said will appear with Mansfield Press in 2013. His critical works include Style and the Nineteenth-Century British Critic (Ashgate, 2008) and Language Acts: Anglo-Québec Poetry, 1976 to the Twenty-First Century (Véhicule Press, 2007), co-edited with Todd Swift. He teaches Victorian literature at Concordia University in Montreal.

Montreal-based poet, singer-songwriter, editor, and translator Brian Campbell is the author of Guatemala and Other Poems (1994) and Undressing the Night (2007), a translation of the selected poems of Nicaraguan-Canadian poet Francisco Santos.

His poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in literary magazines such as The Antigonish Review, Vallum, CV2, The New Quarterly, Grain, Prairie Fire, Rock Salt Plum Review, The Rover, and The Saranac Review. A finalist in the 2006 CBC Literary Award for Poetry, he is also the co-founder/editor of Sky of Ink Press, which prints quality chapbooks by emerging poets. His independent music CD, The Courtier’s Manuscript, was released in 2002.

Métis spoken word artist Moe Clark fuses her unique understanding of performance narrative with traditions of circle singing and spoken word. Her debut album is Circle of She: Story & Song. She appeared at the IDEA World Congress: Art for Social Change (Belem, Brazil, 2010), the Maelström ReÉvolution Fiéstival (Brussels, 2009), Aboriginal Music Week (Winnipeg, 2012), the Makusham APTN Series (Moncton, 2011), and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (2007, 2008, 2010). A featured speaker at TedXMontreal (2012), she performed for the Canadian Olympic Team at the Olympic Summer Games in London (2012). Her forthcoming album of words and music will appear in 2013. “Intersecting Circles,” which appeared as a videopoem in 2009, is now part of the permanent collection at the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre.
Clark also works as a community educator to facilitate voice, and conducts writing and spoken word workshops in high schools and local communities to promote literacy and creative expression.

Poet, novelist, and member of the collaborative writing group, Yoko’s Dogs, Mary di Michele is the author of eleven books, including a selected poems, Stranger in You (Oxford University Press, 1995) and the novel, Tenor of Love (Viking Canada/ Simon & Schuster, USA, 2005). She lives in Montreal, where she teaches at Concordia University in the creative writing program. Her most recent books are The Flower of Youth, Pier Paolo Pasolini Poems (ECW Press, 2011) and with Yoko’s Dogs, Whisk (Pedlar Press, 2013). She has won numerous awards, including first prize for poetry in the CBC Literary Competition, the Air Canada Writing Award, and the Malahat Review Long Poem Competition. Her poetry books have also been shortlisted for the Trillium Award, and the A.M. Klein Prize twice.

Gabe Foreman was born in Thunder Bay and has worked as a tree planter in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. His first book, A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People (Coach House Books, 2011) was awarded the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Concordia University First Book Prize. A co-founder of littlefishcartpress, his work has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Grain, The Fiddlehead and Event. Currently he lives in Montreal, where he manages the soup kitchen at a long-established mission.

Susan Gillis has lived on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada, and now lives most of the year in Montreal, where she teaches English. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, and her first book, Swimming Among the Ruins (Nuage/Signature 2000), was shortlisted for the 2001 Pat Lowther Award and the 2001 Re-Lit Award. "Kitchen Floor," a limited-edition broadside illustrated by Lori Doody, was published by Delirium Press in 2002. Volta is Susan's second book.

Charlotte Hussey teaches Old Irish and Arthurian Literature at Dawson College in Montreal. She has published Rue Sainte Famille, which was shortlisted for the QSPELL Awards, and a chapbook, The Head Will Continue to Sing. Writing her doctorate on the Modernist poet H.D. reawakened Charlotte’s love of antiquity and led to her latest collection, Glossing the Spoils.

kaie kellough is a Montreal word-sound systemizer. He is the author of two books of poetry: lettricity (Cumulus, 2004), and maple leaf rag (Arbeiter Ring, 2010), which was nominated for the Manuela Dias Design Award. kellough is the voice of two sound recordings, vox:versus (wow, 2011), a suite of conversations between voice and instrument, and esion (howl, 2013). His print and sound work is underwritten by rhythm and by a desire to dis-and re-assemble language and meaning, and his art emerges where voice, language, music, and text intersect. He has performed and published internationally, and is presently working on a novel and on a series of language-based visual works.

Catherine Kidd is author of the novel Missing the Ark and two poetry collections, Sea Peach and Bipolar bear. Sea Peach is also a critically acclaimed solo show, which toured to venues including the Spier Arts Poetry Festival (Cape Town, South Africa), a Yellowknife storytelling festival, Singapore’s Esplanade on the Bay, and Toronto Harbourfront’s World Stage. A graduate of Concordia University’s M.A. program in Creative Writing, Catherine has taught Fiction at Concordia, as well as workshops through the Quebec Writers’ Federation and Blue Metropolis. Her writing has appeared in P.E.N. International, Matrix magazine, and The Journey Prize Anthology. Her new solo performance, Hyena Subpoena, was launched in fall 2011 in Montreal. She is currently recording the Hyena poems with soundscapes.

Award winning haiku and tanka poet Angela Leuck has been published in journals and anthologies worldwide. Her poems were included in Haiku Journey, a video game by Hot Lava Games (2006). The author of Garden Meditations and a cicada in the cosmos (inkling press, 2010), haiku white and haiku noir (carve, 2007) and Flower Heart (Blue Ginkgo Press, 2006), she also edited numerous anthologies, including Rose Haiku for Flower Lovers and Gardeners (Price-Patterson, 2005), Tulip Haiku (Shoreline, 2004), and, with Maxianne Berger, Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today (Shoreline, 2003). She has read and led numerous workshops at schools, libraries and conferences, and participated in the national Random Acts of Poetry project in 2007 and 2010. She is the founder and organizer of the Black Tea Haiku Group in Montreal and is the Quebec Regional Coordinator for Haiku Canada. In 2005, with Kozue Uzawa, she co-founded Tanka Canada and its biannual journal Gusts.

Born in Coventry, England, Steve Luxton has published five collections of poetry, most recently In the Vision of Birds: New and Selected Poems. His work has appeared widely in literary journals such as Canadian Forum, Canadian Literature, Fiddlehead, Sidestreet, and Jacket (Australia), and in Next Teller: A Book of Canadian Storytelling. The former co-owner and editor of DC books, he was one of the original editors of Matrix magazine and The Moosehead Review, and one of the founders of the now defunct Montreal Storytellers, an oral storytelling group which performed in both Canada and the U.S. Before retiring and moving to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, he taught English Literature at John Abbott College and Creative Writing at Concordia University.

David McGimpsey is the Montreal-based author of five collections of poetry, most recently Li’l Bastard, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and named as one of the “Books of the Year” by both Quill & Quire and The National Post. Some of his other books include the short fiction collection Certifiable and the award-winning critical study Imagining Baseball: America’s Pastime and Popular Culture. A contributing editor for EnRoute magazine, he is the Montreal fiction editor for Joyland magazine and fiction editor for the Punchy Books imprint of DC Books. Named by CBC as one of the “Top Ten English-language Poets in Canada,” his work was the subject of a book of essays Population Me: Essays on David McGimpsey (Palimpsest Press). He holds a Ph.D. in Literature, and teaches creative writing and literature at Concordia University.

Montreal poet Erín Moure writes in English, Galician and French and translates from French, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese into English. Her latest published poetry is The Unmemntioable (Anansi, 2012) and most recent translation, with Robert Majzels, is White Piano by Nicole Brossard (Coach House, 2013). Their translation of Nicole Brossard’s Notebook of Roses and Civilization was a Griffin Prize finalist. Moure has recently completed a full-length play, Kapusta, and in the fall of 2013 her Little Theatres (Anansi, 2005) will appear in French translation by Daniel Canty as Petits Théâtres (Éditions du Noroît).

Robyn Sarah has lived in Montreal since early childhood. Her poetry began appearing in magazines in the early 1970s, while she completed studies at McGill and the Conservatoire de musique du Québec. In 1976, she co-founded Villeneuve Publications, and, until 1987, co-edited its poetry chapbook series, which included first titles by August Kleinzahler, A.F. Moritz, and others. The author of nine poetry books and two short story collections, Sarah has also published a book of essays on poetry. A selection of her poems in French translation appeared in 2007. Her poems have been anthologized in Fifteen Canadian Poets x 2 and x 3, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Good Poems for Hard Times (Garrison Keillor), Best Canadian Poems in English (2009 and 2010), and Modern Canadian Poetry: An Anthology (Carcanet, UK, 2010). She is currently poetry editor for Cormorant Books.

Richard Sommer taught myth and poetry at Montreal's Concordia University for many years, served three decades as a volunteer game warden in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and led a citizens' environmental group in a seven-year battle, ultimately successful, to save the Townships' Pinnacle Mountain from developers. Sommer's previous books include Homage to Mr. Macmullin, Blue Sky Notebook, left hand mind, Milarepa, The Other Side of Games, Selected and New Poems, Fawn Bones, and The Shadow Sonnets. In 2004, Sommer was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the verse journal, Cancer Songs, has been an important part of his response to this challenge. He lives on a dirt road outside Frelighsburg with his wife of more than forty years, dance improvisationalist, teacher and artist Victoria Tansey. They have three grown children, three grandchildren, and currently three cats.

Gillian Sze is the author of The Anatomy of Clay (ECW Press, 2011) and Fish Bones (DC Books, 2009), which was shortlisted for the QWF McAuslan First Book Prize in 2009, as well as three chapbooks: This is the Colour I Love You Best (2007), A Tender Invention (2008), and Allow Me to Conjugate (2010). She co-founded Branch Magazine, an online magazine showcasing Canadian art, design and writing, and is currently working on a Ph.D. at Université de Montréal. Her next book, Peeling Rambutan, is forthcoming from Gaspereau Press in 2014.

Mahamud Siad Togane is a Somali-Canadian writer and peace activist who has been living in Canada since 1973. In 1986, he published The Bottle and The Bushman: Poems of the Prodigal Son, which focuses on themes of racism, alcoholism and Christianity. His work has also appeared in Bridges: Literature across Cultures (1994), Quebec Suite: Poems for and about Quebec (1995), Eternal Conversations (2003), and Fifty years, Fifty stories (2003). He received an M.A. in creative writing from Concordia University in 1982.

Endre Farkas was born in Hungary and is a child of Holocaust survivors. He and his parents escaped during the 1956 uprising and settled in Montreal. His work has always had a political consciousness and has always pushed the boundaries of poetry. Since the 1970s, he has collaborated with dancers, musicians and actors to move the poem from page to stage. Still at the forefront of the Quebec English language literary scene - writing, editing, publishing and performing - Farkas is the author of eleven books, including Quotidian Fever: New and Selected Poems (1974-2007). He is the two-time regional winner of the CBC Poetry "Face Off" Competition. His play, Haunted House, based on the life and work of the poet A.M. Klein, was produced in Montreal in 2009. Farkas has given readings throughout Canada, USA, Europe and Latin America. His poems have been translated into French and Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian and Turkish.

Carolyn Marie Souaid is a Montreal-based writer, editor and painter. She is the author of nine poetry collections and the novel, Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik, winner of the Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction at the NYC Independent Publisher Book Awards. She has performed at literary festivals and events in Canada, Europe and the U.S., her work garnering a top prize at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin and appearing on shortlists for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Throughout her career, she has worked extensively to build bridges between linguistic and cultural communities in Quebec, including a decades-long involvement with the Inuit. Souaid's work has appeared in print and online journals, nationally and internationally, and has been featured on CBC-Radio. Her literary papers (1967-2022) are housed at Rare Books and Special Collections of the McLennan Library of McGill University.