Kelly Cooper
Kelly Cooper teaches art and writes poetry, short fiction, and most recently, books for children (If a Horse Had Words, 2018 and Midnight and Moon, 2022). Kelly grew up on the Saskatchewan prairie and now lives on a dairy farm in New Brunswick with her husband, her daughters, a hundred cows, a silly dog and a six-toed cat. She started her relationship with horses at age two, when she fed a pail of oats to a large horse named King.
Hannah Davis
Hannah Bel Davis is a writer and visual artist working and creating on the traditional and unceded land of the Halkomelem-speaking peoples, also known as New Westminster. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Concordia University and a BFA in Film and English from Simon Fraser University. Her work has been published in People Department Magazine and Font.
Dominika Prejdova
Czech writer and screenwriter, film critic and journalist, festival curator, author of the novel Marijin dvor (2009), her second novel Z čeho je den (2021) won the Czech Book Club 2021 Literary Award. She co-authored the concept and screenplay of the TV series Black Daisies (2024) for CANAL+ .
Born in Prague, she has been living in Warsaw since 2011.
Rusti Lehay
December 2024
Rusti L Lehay, as a global editor, book, and writing coach, created over 60 guides for authors. Rusti’s clients generate consistent content; many become published authors. Her writers retain artistic control and learn self-editing techniques. Under Rusti’s empathic, heart-centred approach, authors and novice writers build confidence to craft and tweak writing projects independently.
Keith Liggett
November 2024
Keith Liggett is a ski bum. Chronologically—Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, a RJ (Real Job) back East, Breckenridge, Hood River and Fernie since 2006. As he wandered chasing snow, his ski journalism appeared in over 100 newspapers and all the major journals. For 15 winters, he wrote a weekly ski column carried by 50 to 75 papers and provided stringer coverage of North American World Cup events for Reuters and occasionally AP. He passed his Level 3 PSIA-Rocky Mountain in 1987, which gave him a technical excuse to continue his skiing. When he’s bored, he telemarks.
Francine Cunningham
October 2024
Francine Cunningham is an award-winning writer, artist and educator who spends her summer days writing on the prairie’s and her winter months teaching in the north. Francine is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta but grew up in Calgary, Edmonton, and 100 Mile House, BC. Francine is also Metis, and has settler family roots stretching from as far away as Ireland and Belgium. She currently resides in Alberta but previously spent over a decade calling Vancouver her home.
Ellen Andreassen
September 2024
Born in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba I grew up and spent most of my life in the Stony Plain, Alberta area. I trained as a Graphic Designer and worked in that field for a few years before finding my passion as a fine artist, and art educator. I teach art classes for children, youth and adults. I also facilitate art programs for adults living with dementia and their support person.
Chris Meigh-Andrews
August 2024
Chris Meigh-Andrews is a pioneering video artist, art historian and writer. His installations often incorporate renewable energy technology in tandem with moving image and sound. He has exhibited his work internationally for many years and written and lectured extensively on artists’ video. He is currently working on a novel based on the extended period his grandfather spent living in Canada in the early 1920’s, which began in Eastend, Saskatchewan. Please find more information about Chris at www.meigh-andrews.com or here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Meigh-Andrews
Jaden Bleier
July 2024
Jaden Bleier is an emerging writer and multidisciplinary artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her poetic manuscript atmospheres was a recipient of the Frances Mason Harris ‘26 Prize. Her poetry has additionally appeared in the Oakland Review, Stonecoast, In Parentheses, and Maudlin House and has been awarded Gold and Silver Keys by Scholastic Art and Writing. Jaden's current creative practice focuses on print, photo, text, and textile-based works, and she enjoys bookmaking, assemblage, and installation as methods of combining the visual and literary themes of the everyday. She has recently been working with a small group of fellow artists to collaboratively create the Art Book Collective, Providence (ABC PVD). Jaden received her BA from Brown University and currently works there as a Roberta Joslin Fellow and Teaching Assistant. In her spare time, she plays with her sweet cat Cora and remains chronically less hydrated than her houseplants. See more at www.jadenbleier.com.
Elinor Florence
June 2024
Elinor Florence grew up on a farm near North Battleford, Saskatchewan and worked as a journalist for the next thirty years, at newspapers including the Western Producer in Saskatoon, the Red Deer Advocate, the Winnipeg Sun, and the Vancouver Province. In 1996 she moved with her young family to the mountain resort of Invermere, B.C., where she spent the next eight years as a regular writer for Reader’s Digest Canada before publishing her own community newspaper, the Columbia Valley Pioneer. After leaving journalism, Elinor turned to historical fiction. Her first novel Bird’s Eye View, about a Saskatchewan farm girl who joins the air force in the Second World War and becomes an interpreter of aerial photographs, was published by Dundurn Press in 2014 and became a Globe & Mail bestseller. She appears regularly at public events where she speaks about the inspiration behind her work. She has also written a monthly blog for the past ten years, Letters From Windermere. Elinor is now working on her third novel, about women homesteaders in Western Canada. You may sign up for her blog and read more about her books at www.elinorflorence.com.