Austin "The Noble Savage" Ahenakew has a unique style that weaves rhythm into storytelling and announces an urgent truth from the perspective of an Indigenous youth. Bringing an unapologetic approach to Indigenous struggles, abuse, PTSD and how skin colour is viewed. He brings sweet words to stage without sugar coating any part of the truth.
Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye (she/her) is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, Chorus-Poem Playwright, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Organically from Yorubaland Nigeria, Peace explores the intersectionality of the artist community from an explorer's perspective, dipping her honey-stained fingers into poetry, dance, performance art, critical research, and the theatre world. Peace is the 11th Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan.
Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (2016), and a chapbook titled Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). She is also the co-editor of apart: a year of pandemic poetry and prose (Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, 2021). Her poems have appeared in Grain, Vallum, PRISM, and EVENT, among others. She is queer and disabled, and one-third of a writing group called The Pain Poets.
Jes Battis teaches literature, creative writing, and trans and queer studies at the University of Regina. They're the author of the Occult Special Investigator series (shortlisted for a Sunburst Award), as well as the Parallel Parks series, both with Penguin. Their most recent novel, The Winter Knight (with ECW press), was included in Canada Reads, and won an Independent Publisher Book Award. Their debut collection of poems, I Hate Parties, will be released by Nightwood Editions in September of 2024.
Bev Brenna is a freelance writer, editor, and landscape artist. She has published two scholarly books on Canadian children’s literature and 14 books for young people, earning a Printz Honor, a Dolly Gray Award, a Saskatchewan Book Award, and a Stuchner Award for humour. Her work has also been shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award and included on CBC’s list of Young Adult Books That Make You Proud To Be Canadian. After teaching in elementary classrooms and special education settings, Bev is now a professor emerita from the University of Saskatchewan and the current Children’s Editor of Red Deer Press. She lives in Saskatoon.
An Officer of the Order of Canada, Lorna Crozier has been acknowledged for her contributions to Canadian literature, her teaching and her mentoring with five honourary doctorates, most recently from McGill and Simon Fraser Universities. Her books have received numerous national awards, including the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. The Globe and Mail declared The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things one of its Top 100 Books of the Year, and Amazon chose her memoir as one of the 100 books you should read in your lifetime. A Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria, she has performed for Queen Elizabeth II and has read her poetry, which has been translated into several languages, on every continent except Antarctica. Her book, What the Soul Doesn't Want, was nominated for the 2017 Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 2018, Lorna Crozier received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award. Steven Price called Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats), her latest nonfiction book, “one of the great love stories of our time.” Lorna Crozier lives on Vancouver Island.
Robert Currie is the author of thirteen books, most recently Shimmers of Light: New and Selected Poems. Highlights of his career include receiving a Founder’s Award from the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, having a radio play win the 1977 Ohio State Award, winning third prize in the 1980 CBC Literary Competition, delivering the Anne Szumigalski Memorial Lecture for the League of Canadian Poets, and serving two terms as Saskatchewan Poet Laureate. Currie is a recipient of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.
Geanna Dunbar is a Cree - Metis multi-disciplinary artist located on Treaty 4 Territory, Regina Saskatchewan. Her trades include many mixed medias and spoken word. Her body modification career entails body piercing, skin branding (Fakir Intensives, Kiss of Fire in 2016) as well as machine tattooing and cultural tattooing (traditional practices of the Plains Cree skin stitching and hand poked). They enjoy tattooing illustrative subject matter with bold colors while working in collaboration with her clients, helping them connect to their authentic selves. Recent freelance work involves Ice and Snow Sculpting for Frost Festival 2023 and 2024 and murals throughout the city of Regina.
Eric Gabriel, who goes by the pseudonym "Gabriel 'ArchAngel' Ehijie", is a Nigerian spoken-word poet, screenwriter, copywriter, and aspiring filmmaker. His poems have been used as therapeutic doses to aid Nigerian youths battling with depression and anxiety. Longlisted for the Economic Commission for Africa's ‘SDG Decade of Action Short Story Prize’ in 2021, he went on to win the best written poem in the Institute of Afrikology Resource Centre's 'Heritage Month Poetry Competition' held the same year. The co-author of the collective-novel, ‘Isles;’ is currently a student at the UoR, where he is taking a program in the M.A.P faculty.
Suzy Krause is the bestselling author of Sorry I Missed You, Valencia and Valentine, and I Think We’ve Been Here Before. She grew up on a little farm in rural Saskatchewan and now lives in Regina, where she writes novels inspired by crappy jobs, creepy houses, personal metaphorical apocalypses, and favourite songs. Her work has been translated into Russian and Estonian.
Anne Lazurko’s novel, What Is Written on the Tongue, received the 2023 Fiction Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards and was shortlisted for both the 2023 Saskatchewan Book of the Year and the 2022 Glengarry Book Award. Her novel Dollybird won the Willa Award for historical fiction and was shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award. With short fiction and poetry published in literary magazines and anthologies, Anne is an active editor, teacher and mentor in the prairie writing community. She has a degree in Political Science, is a graduate of the Humber creative writing program, and writes from her farm near Weyburn, SK.
Jeanette Lynes' third novel, The Apothecary's Garden (HarperCollins Canada) was a finalist for a High Plains Book Award and two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her fourth novel is forthcoming from HarperCollins Canada in 2025. Jeanette is also the author of seven books of poetry. She directs the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan.
Elaine McArthur, a 3rd Generation Residential School and Day School Survivor, is a Dakota/Nakota winyan (pronounced: wee-yan) from Ocean Man First Nation. Home is also Kahkewistahaw and White Bear First Nations. She has a degree in Indigenous Education from the First Nations University of Canada. She has won the Indigenous Voices Awards three times for her short story "Queen Bee", the poem "Brush of a Bustle" and her self-published children's book, Elizabeth Dances Pow wow, and has been published in anthologies, and literary magazines for her poetry and short stories. She received the 2023 Dick & Jane Fund's Indigenous Literary Award from the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts for her upcoming graphic novel Akicita (pronounced: Akee-chee-tuh), which was also named a runner up in the 2024 City of Regina Writing Award.
Rhea McFarlane (she/they) is a neurodivergent, queer, prairie poet who grew up on the boreal plains of Treaty 6 territory. Alongside working full-time as the Career Services Coordinator at the University of Regina, she is pursuing a Master of Arts in English, writing a thesis that often feels to be writing her instead. She finds great comfort and support from her family and friends, her spouse, Colton, and two cats, Tesla and Edison.
Heather O’Watch (She/Her) is a Nakoda and Cree woman from the Okanese First Nation in Treaty 4 Territory. Heather is currently enrolled in a Masters Degree in Public Policy (MPP) at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies from the First Nations University of Canada. Heather currently works for a global Indigenous Rights organization and advocates for Indigenous peoples and their rights. When not working or studying, Heather spends her time creative writing. Heather recently published Auntie’s Rez Surprise with Second Story Press. The book is available in Y dialect Cree and English.
Sharon Plumb grew up writing stories in a small town that no longer exists. Now she lives in Regina and writes stories about places that exist only in her imagination. She has published a picture book with Scholastic and three speculative fiction books for young people. Her Middle Grade novel The Mystery of the Giant Kohlrabi won a Silver Moonbeam Award and was a finalist in the High Plains Book Awards. She is now hard at work on the next book in her Dragon Planet series. Find her at sharonplumb.ca.
Fascinated by ghost stories and crime fiction, Heather Polischuk has been writing both in some capacity since her youth. As an adult, she spent more than two decades as a crime reporter, first with the Prince Albert Daily Herald and then with the Regina Leader-Post. The career provided her with a detailed knowledge of crime and those who walk in that world. Writing under the pen name, H.P. Bayne, Heather is the author of paranormal mystery and suspense novels. Her series include the Sullivan Gray Series, the Braddock & Gray Case Files and the Wray Mallory books.
Marie Powell’s castle-hopping adventures across North Wales resulted in her medieval fantasy series Last of the Gifted: Spirit Sight and Water Sight, set in 13th C Wales. Marie is also the author of 40+ children’s books with such publishers as Scholastic Education and Amicus. Her short stories and poetry appear in such literary magazines as Room, subTerrain, and Sunlight Press. She has served in SWG’s mentorship program as a mentor and as Virtual Writer-in-Residence, Sage Hill Teen Writing Experience instructor, and Opening Doors anthology editor. She holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing from UBC, among other degrees. Marie lives on Treaty 4 land in Regina, where she experiments in gardening and medieval cooking. Find more at https://mariepowell.ca
Medrie Purdham lives on Treaty 4 territory, teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Regina and writes poetry. Her first book, Little Housewolf (Véhicule, 2021) was shortlisted for several awards and won a Saskatchewan Book Award. Her poetry has been published in journals across the country and has appeared three times in Best Canadian Poetry (Tightrope Books).
Dash Reimer is an artist and educator based out of Treaty 6 territory in Saskatoon. He works within the worlds of poetry and hip hop and has a decade of experience performing on stages across Turtle Island, North Africa, South Africa and Turkey. He is passionate about community care, grassroots neighborhood movements and baking his friends tasty treats. Dash has been an avid collaborator in playwriting, chapbook making, jazz combos, improv troupes, rap crews and everything in between. Dash is the current Youth Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan.
Michael Trussler writes primarily poetry and creative non-fiction. His work has been anthologized both domestically and internationally. He has received Saskatchewan Book Awards for poetry, non-fiction and short stories. His memoir concerning mental illness, The Sunday Book, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2022. Radiant Press and Icehouse Press will be publishing the poetry collections Realia and 10:10 respectively in 2024. All of his work engages with the beauty and violence of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, though his most recent writing specifically explores what it means to be alive at the beginning of the Anthropocene.
Iryn Tushabe is a Ugandan-Canadian writer and journalist. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Adda, The Walrus, and in the trace press anthology river in an ocean: essays on translation. Her short fiction has been published in Grain Magazine, the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series (Book seven), and has been included in The Journey Prize Stories: The best of Canada’s New Writers (volumes 30 and 33.) Her debut novel, Everything is Fine Here, is forthcoming with House of Anansi Press April 2025.
