New League Members

Jeri Brown is an African American griotte (vocal artist, educator, vocalist, researcher, writer of praise and love songs of creative fiction and nonfiction, producer, composer activist of minority matters expressed in rights & ritual songs), wife, sister, aunt, parent, grandparent and a recluse. Brown is also internationally recognized vocal recording artist, arts journalist, and fine arts professor emeritus from Concordia University, [Department of Music, Theatre & Contemporary Dance]. She’s published two collections of poetry, Skin Folk, and Unnecessary Family. A daughter of a chef and business man and abstract artist, granddaughter of a railway porter, she is also a cook with a sixth sense, recipient of Martin Luther King Jr. Award in 2005, and an end of life doula. Jeri Brown grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her ongoing research on her concept of “improvisation within the vocal ecosystem” explores the role of the improvising vocal artist in the larger musical setting including the role of performance of vocalists with severe handicaps. She has several published papers and books.

Sarah Burgoyne is an experimental poet. Her first collection Saint Twin (Mansfield: 2016) was a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize in Poetry (2016), awarded a prize from l’Académie de la vie littéraire (2017) and shortlisted for a Canadian ReLit Award. Other works have appeared in journals across Canada and the U.S., have been featured in scores by American composer J.P. Merz and have appeared within or alongside the visual art of Susanna Barlow, Jamie Macaulay and Joani Tremblay. Her second manuscript, BECAUSE THE SUN, is forthcoming with Coach House Books in 2021.

Raul Da Gama Based in Milton, ON, Raul is a poet, musician and accomplished critic whose profound analysis is reinforced by his deep understanding of music, technically as well as historically.

Julia Gibson is a multidisciplinary thinker, creator, and problem solver who aspires to connect people, perspectives, and ideas toward a more understanding and compassionate world. After studies in violin performance at Manhattan School of Music, she earned a BA in Cognitive Science from Brown University and an MSc in Mathematics from McMaster University. She currently works in aerospace engineering in Toronto. Her poetry explores topics such as

socioeconomic inequality, LGBTQ+ issues, cross-country cycling, technology, and womanhood in the twenty-first century. When neither tinkering nor writing, she can usually be found in the dance studio or climbing gym. Her personal website is at www.julia-gibson.com

Exsanguine Hart is a spoken word poet, soundscape artist, arts organizer, and park naturalist based in Treaty 7 land, Calgary AB. Her work is rooted in wild, both outside and in. She is a passionate advocate for mental health awareness, love, and care for the natural world through her work in education and poetry. Audrey Lane’s work embodies wild feminist rhetoric, political discontent, tender feels in a body that overheard it was broken, deep time, and river rhythm. She has competed and performed nationally and internationally, completed residencies in the Yukon and at Banff Centre for the Arts, and loves creating and performing in ways that stretch the edges of art. She is invested in exploring poetry, artistic fusion, community, learning,

David Haskins is published in over thirty literary journals, anthologies, and books, and has collected his earlier poems in the book Reclamation. He has won first prizes from the CBC Literary Competition, the Canadian Authors Association, and the Ontario Poetry Society. He lives in Grimsby, Ontario.

Shakkoi Hibbert Shakkoi, also known as, “Need Some Koi”, has been writing poetry for over 10 years. In 2018 she self published a poetry book titled, The Poetic Transitions from a Hothead to a Conscious Queen. This book confronts anger in a way that allows one to reflect on their own emotions and appreciate the tribulations that they have been through. Shakkoi is a Self Expression Coach as she uses poetry and movement, through her Floetry Fitness workshops to allow participants to express themselves verbally and physically. She has facilitated Self Love workshops that evolve through poetry. With years of experience in the community as a speaker and spoken word poet under her belt, there is no doubt that everyone needs some Koi in their lives.

Jessie Jones grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan, spent a decade on Vancouver Island and now lives in Toronto. Her work has been shortlisted for the Malahat Review’s Open Season Poetry Award, Arc’s Poem of the Year contest, and was the first runner-up in PRISM International’s 2015 Poetry Contest and has appeared in magazines across Canada, the US and the UK. She is the co-founder of Literistic, a service for writers, and is currently working on her first manuscript.

Martin Jones I’ve loved poetry since encountering “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” in grade 5. I began writing poetry in my last year in high school and continued on through university, winning a creative writing award. Unfortunately, I found little time to write during a long career, but began with a vengeance after retiring in 2017. That, and writing short stories, have become a main focus of my life.

Samantha Jones (she/her) is a Calgary-based writer of mixed European settler and Black Canadian heritage. She is a literary magazine enthusiast with poetry most recently published in Blanket Sea, CV2, Grain Magazine, New Forum, and Room Magazine. Her work has also been anthologized in “March 2020: A COVID-19 Anthology” (The /temz/ Review & 845 Press) and “Tap, Press, Read” (Loft on EIGHTH). She is the founder and facilitator of the Diverse Voices Roundtable and Writing Circle for BIPOC writers offered at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society in Calgary. Samantha is currently a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of Calgary. Find her on Twitter: @jones_yyc

Robyn Kaur Sidhu (she/he/they) is a Queer, mad, chronically ill, PunjabiCanadian spoken word poet. They are currently enrolled at McMaster University, where they pretend to know what they want to do with

their life. They have had feelings publicly, and has performed them on national and international stages in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. They are a director for the Voices of Today youth poetry festival, the creative director of Hot Damn it’s a Queer Slam, and is the Co-chair Communications of the SpeakNORTH. They are also a teacher of consent, race and 2SLGBTQ+ identity to youth across the Greater Toronto Area. They are a poetry educator and love seeing youth use writing as a tool for healing and growth. They are always trying to be gentle with themself. You can find Robyn in vintage cardigans or also on the internet if that’s your thing @ Robyn_Sidhu

Nancy Lee Hailed by the Globe and Mail as “a masterwork of revelation and catharsis,” Nancy Lee’s first book, Dead Girls was the winner of the VanCity Book Prize, as well as a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Pearson Readers’ Choice Award, and the Wordsworthy Award. The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Vancouver Sun chose Dead Girls as one of the best books of the year, and Now Magazine named it Book of the Year. The Vancouver Sun described The Age, Lee’s second book, a novel about adolescence, sexual identity, and nuclear war, as “utterly transfixing.” Lee’s work has been published in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands. She has served as Visiting Canadian Fellow for the University of East Anglia, and as Writer-in-Residence for Historic Joy Kogawa House, the City of Richmond and Ville de Vincennes, France. Lee holds the position of Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and is co-creator of the popular EdX online education series, “How to Write a Novel.”

Kathryn Mandell

Christian McPherson is a poet, novelist and cartoonist. He was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1970. He is the author of ten books; three novels, two collections of short stories, and five books of poetry. He has a degree in philosophy from Carleton University and a computer programming diploma from Algonquin College. He is married to the beautiful Marty Carr. They have two kids, Molly and Henry. They all live together in Ottawa.

Cassandra Myers (they/she) is a queer, trans, crip, mad, South Asian-Italian, from Toronto, Ontario. Cassandra has performed her award winning poetry across North America and has received the Best Poet Award at CUPSI. A Masters of Social Work Candidate at York University, Cassandra is an arts-educator, crisis intervention counsellor, and youth worker. A Pink Door fellow, her work can be found in Overheard Press, The Shortline Review, and ARC’s Magazine Poem of the Year Honourable Mention (2020)

Dominic Parisien, is a disabled, bisexual French Canadian. He is the author of the poetry collection “Side Effects May Include Strangers” (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) and the chapbook We, Old

Young Ones (Frog Hollow Press, 2019). His poetry has appeared in journals such as The Literary Review of Canada, PRISM International, This Magazine, EVENT, The Puritan, and Arc Poetry Magazine, and his creative nonfiction in Maisonneuve, PRISM International, Queen’s Quarterly, and Riddle Fence, among others. As an editor, he has won the Hugo, Shirley Jackson, British Fantasy, and Aurora Awards. Dominik lives in Toronto.

Andre Prefontaine Calgary born and raised, Andre Prefontaine is an accomplished slam poet who lives and works in Toronto. He holds the coveted “triple-crown” – having won the Underground Slam Championships, Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW), and Canadian Individual Poetry Slam

(CIPS) championships – and was a finalist at the World Cup Poetry Slam in Paris, France in 2017. Listed in Metro News as one of Toronto’s top young poets, Andre is a graduate of Buddies in Bad Times’ Young Creators Unit 2015, where he developed his one man show “(mE)dith piaf,” which toured to Halifax in Canada. He is currently coach for the 2017 Toronto slam team, which recently took first place at the provincials slamtario in Guelph (October 2017) and won the national poetry slam at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Peterborough, Ontario (October 2017).

Anna Quon is a Halifax poet, novelist, visual artist and filmmaker who likes to make paintings and short animated films of her original poetry. She is also a middle-aged, mixed race

Mad woman, a writing workshop facilitator, and maker of messes. Anna holds a BA in English literature From Dalhousie University and has worked contracts in the not for profit sector all her adult life, except for several years as a freelance writer. She has traveled as far as the Czech Republic and Russia to work on her writing, likes to swim and walk and and spends way too much time on social media for her own good. Anna’s motto is “Be kind, be careful, be curious, but above all be kind.”

Nirmal Sarker was born in Bangladesh and currently lives in Toronto. He was a professor of Geography from 1988 to 2008 at Notre Dame College, Dhaka and presently employed by the Toronto District School Board. Throughout his career, Nirmal Sarker has written mostly prose, specializing in children’s and academic books as well as geographical research articles. He authored ten books and twelve research articles. He used to write (contributor) newspaper articles in Bengali here in Canada and Bangladesh , especially on Geography and Persons with special Needs.

Elizabet Stevens lives where she was born in Southern New Brunswick. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and received recognition in poetry competitions. She has taken part in readings as far away as Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she was an instructor. A former journalist, Elizabet worked for the CBC, and was a contributor to the Globe and Mail. Sarah Venart used to write under her initials, S.E., but screw that. Sarah’s writing has been published in Numero Cinq, Concrete and River, New Quarterly, Malahat Review, Fiddlehead, This Magazine, Prism International and on CBC Radio. She is the author two books: Neither Apple Nor Pear/Weder Apfel Noch Birne and Woodshedding. A new collection, I am the Big Heart, is coming out soon-ish. Sarah lives in Montreal and teaches at John Abbott College.

Grant Wilkins is a printer, papermaker, small press publisher and occasional poet from Ottawa whose writing has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, Train: a poetry journal, and BafterC magazine, amongst other places. He recently published “Literary Type” with nOIR:Z visual poetry. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he likes ink, metal, paper, letters, sounds and words, and combinations thereof.