In this Issue

Elaine Alec is from the Syilx (Okanagan) Nation and Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation. A member of the Penticton Indian Band, she started her first business when she was twenty-one years old. Elaine has spent over twenty years in over a hundred communities across Canada to promote healing and wellness with Indigenous knowledge. She recently completed her first book, Calling My Spirit Back.

Jacqueline Larson Carmichael is the author of Heard Amid the Guns: True Stories from the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Heritage House, 11/03/2020). She is a journalist and editor whose work has appeared in the Edmonton Sun, the Dallas Morning News and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Terry Ann Carter is the author of six collections of long form poetry, two haiku guidebooks, and five haiku chapbooks; and editor of four haiku anthologies. Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir (Ekstasis Editions) and Moonflowers: Pioneering Women Haiku Poets in Canada (catkin press) were both published in 2020. Coming out soon from Jack Pine Press, Blue Moon: The Ono no Komachi Poems. www.terryanncarter.com.

Ian Cognitō is a Van Isle poet who has worked as a language teacher, public speaking instructor, and child and youth care worker. Other incarnations have included theatrical clown, mask maker, contact dancer, and gadfly. Ian’s most recent poetic excursions include Animusings, Much Adieu about Nothing (w. Pat Smekal), and an anthology featuring 27 Canadian poets entitled Old Bones & Battered Book Ends. repartee@telus.net www.facebook.com/reparteepress.

Jessica Cole is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University. She writes fiction for adults and teens on Wattpad under the pen name Jess Wesley, where her romantic comedy, Girl Under Construction, is available for purchase. She lives in Smithers, BC. jesswesley.com. Chelsea Comeau is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in Freefall, CV2, Room, subTerrain, and other Canadian literary magazines.

Born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Carolyn Daley served with the Vancouver Police Department for twenty-eight years. During her career she rose through the ranks to deputy chief constable and holds the distinction of being the first woman to do so. She is the author of Vancouver’s Women in Blue (Ruddy Duck Press, 2020). www.cjdaley.ca.

Barb Drozdowich is an author and a technical trainer. She takes her decades of teaching experience and focuses it on the needs of authors and the rapidly evolving publishing world. Barb is the author of 30 books, many YouTube videos, several online courses and she blogs at Bakerview Consulting. She lives in the mountains of British Columbia with her family.

Sara Graefe’s CNF has appeared in Literary Mama, Walk Myself Home, Boobs, and A Family By Any Other Name. She is editor of Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories (Caitlin Press/Dagger Editions). Sara teaches in the Creative Writing Program at UBC. Her blog Gay Girls Make Great Moms can be found at https://queermommy.wordpress.com. (saragraefe.com).

Caitlin Hicks is an author, international playwright, and acclaimed performer in BC. Her work has been published on radio and in many periodicals. Her debut novel A Theory of Expanded Love (published in the US in 2015), won numerous awards including iBooks Best New Fiction. Just before the pandemic, she released a podcast called Some Kinda Woman! Stories of Us. www. caitlinhicks.com/wordpress/podcast.

Christine Lowther is the author of Born Out of This, shortlisted for a BC Book Prize. Her poetry books are Half-Blood Poems, My Nature, and New Power. Chris gratefully received the inaugural Rainy Coast Arts Award

for Significant Accomplishment in 2014. Currently she is serving as Poet Laureate of Tofino. https://www.facebook. com/ChristineLowtherAuthor and https://www.facebook. com/tofinopoetlaureate.

Adelia MacWilliam is co-founder of Cascadia Poetics Lab, www.cascadiapoeticslab.ca, which pre-Covid19 produced annual poetry events in Cumberland and the monthly Red Tree reading series and may again some day! She has poems published in Reckoning 3 and 4, Sweet Water: Poems for the Watershed and more recently, Drift, an anthology of poets of the Comox Valley.

Vicki McLeod is a writer, coach and award-winning entrepreneur. Her four non-fiction books explore being fully human in a technical world. Her short story “Georgie” was longlisted for the 2020 CBC nonfiction prize; “My People Came Down from the Mountains” won the BC-Yukon 2020 Flash Fiction prize. A graduate of the SFU Writers Studio, she leads workshops, writes poetry and personal essays and bakes bread. vickimcleod.com.

Mary Ann Moore encourages others to write their stories through Writing Life, a women’s writing circle; poetry circles; and various writing resources. One of them is Writing to Map Your Spiritual Journey. Her personal essays and poetry have been published in several anthologies. Fishing for Mermaids is Mary Ann’s book of poetry (Leaf Press). www. maryannmoore.ca.

Barbara Pelman is a retired high school English teacher, and poet. She often conducts poetry workshops in her home, and is a frequent participant and assistant at Planet Earth Poetry. She has three published books of poetry, and four chapbooks. In 2018 her glosa, “Nevertheless” won the Malahat Open Season Poetry Contest. Her poems can be found in anthologies as well as in various literary journals.

Anuradha Rao is a Registered Professional Biologist, writer and facilitator with a focus on coastal and marine ecosystems. She has worked on research, conservation, mapping, planning, policy, restoration and stewardship projects across Canada and in 12 other countries. She is the author of the book One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet (Orca, 2020) and more than two dozen other publications in academic and popular media.

Nicholas Read has published two YA novels and eight works of non-fiction, all of them about animals. Many were done in partnership with his photographer friend, Ian McAllister, executive director of Pacific Wild. A Home Away From Home is coming from Heritage House in November. It’s about sanctuaries for exotic animals. And he’s now working on a book about Critter Care, a wildlife refuge in Langley, also for Heritage House. https://shop.pacificwild.org.

Rob Taylor is the author of four poetry collections, including the forthcoming Strangers (Biblioasis, 2021). He is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation and the guest editor of Best Canadian Poetry 2019. He lives in Port Moody, BC, with his wife and children.

Naomi Beth Wakan has written over fifty books including her recent trilogy, The Way of Haiku, The Way of Tanka and Poetry that Heals (Shanti Arts). She is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo and the Inaugural Honorary Ambassador for the BCFW. Her recent book, On the Arts, was published in spring 2020, and is also from Shanti Arts. http:// www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/vwxyz/WAKAN_ARTS. html www.naomiwakan.com.

Ann Graham Walker studied with Canadian Master poet Patrick Lane and had poems published in the chapbooks Lane edited, as well as in the Rocksalt Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry and Poems from Planet Earth. The Puzzle at the End of Love was published by Leaf Press. Ann worked for many years as a CBC radio and print journalist. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College.

Martha Warren’s diverse writing projects have ranged from fairy stories, to cooking, to aspects of law. A graduate of SFU’s Writer’s Studio, her work has appeared in The LCP’s Poetry Pause and Fresh Voices, Headline Press, the Red Alder Review, and others. She reviews poetry for The Poetry Question and is working on her first novel. @m_warren_writer www.carnationpublishing.com.

Michael Dylan Welch is a Canadian living near Seattle, where he served two terms as Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. He cofounded the Haiku North America conference in 1991 and the American Haiku Archives in 1996, founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000, the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2008, and National Haiku Writing Month (www.nahaiwrimo.com) in 2010. www.graceguts.com.