Maren Lisac

Maren Lisac is a composer and musician currently based in Vancouver.

Donato Mancini

The interdisciplinary practice of Donato Mancini focuses mainly on poetry, bookworks, text-based visual art and cultural criticism. He is the author of four books of poetry: Ligatures (New Star 2005) Æthel (New Star 2007), Buffet World (2011) and Fact 'n' Value (2011). He is also the author of the critical work You Must Work Harder to Write Poetry of Excellence (2012) . His current book, Loitersack (2014), is a book-length poetics essay in the form of poetry, poetics, theory, theory theatre, questions and laugh particles. He is a PhD candidate in English at the University of British Columbia.

Jordan Alexander Key

Jordan Key, a resident of Arizona, has been studying composition since 2005. He has received performances from around the country, most recently featuring “Salve Regina,” performed by the College of Wooster’s Symphonic Choir in 2013 and "Vision of Cataclysm," by the Charlotte New Music Festival in 2014. His recent academic work has culminated in his thesis “Spirosony,” a study of spirituality through music, focusing primarily on experiences of music in chant+ In conducting his research, he spent residencies throughout a year at monasteries around the world, including the Abbey of Solesmes in France and the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

Daniel Cowper

Daniel Cowper is a poet, writer, and editor, among other things. His poems have appeared in literary reviews throughout Canada, including Prairie Fire, Vallum, Arc Poetry and CV2, and he serves as the poetry editor for Pulp Literature.

Adam Scime

Adam Scime has been praised as "…a fantastic success…" (CBC) and "Astounding, the musical result was remarkable" (icareifyoulisten.com). Awards received for his work include The Socan Young Composer's Competition, The Karen Keiser Prize in Canadian Music, Esprit’s Young Composer Competition, and the Electro-Acoustic Composer’s Competition. Recent notable
performances include Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, New Music Concerts, The Esprit Orchestra, l'orchestre francophonie, The Continuum Ensemble, a feature in the Emergents Series at the
Music Gallery, the Hamilton Philharmonic New Music Festival, the UofT New Music Festival, and broadcasts on CBC Radio. Future projects include a new Opera for FAWN and the Thin Edge
Collective, commissions for The Esprit Orchestra, the Array Ensemble and New Music Concerts for upcoming seasons. Adam is currently studying as DMA student with Gary Kulesha at UofT
and previously with Paul Frehner at UWO.

Andrew McEwan

Andrew McEwan is the author of the book Repeater, shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, and chapbooks including Input / Output, This Book is Depressing and Conditional. He lives in Vancouver.

Lucas Oickle

Lucas Oickle is an award-winning Nova Scotian composer currently based in Vancouver. In late 2014 he was awarded the prestigious "2011 Canada Games Young Artist of Excellence Award" by the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, which carries a $10 000 monetary prize.

Other accolades include winning the spring 2013 TEMPO Call for Scores, the Penthelia Singers' inaugural 'Canadian Folk Song Arranging Competition', the Via Choralis 2014 Composition Competition, and the 'Green Dot Composer Competition'. Previously, Lucas was a composer-in-residence for the Bathurst Chamber Music Festival and was the inaugural "Featured Student Composer" of the NSYO's 12/13 season.

Desirée Jung

Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer and translator. Her background is in creative writing, literary translation, film and comparative literature. She has received her MFA in Creative Writing and PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has published translations, poetry and short stories in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antigonish Review, The Haro, The Literary Yard, Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, The Steel Chisel, Loading Zone, Belleville Park Pages, among others.

Mirae Hwang

Composer and pianist Mirae Hwang is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. She holds a master’s degree from College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati and bachelor’s degree in composition and information/multimedia culture from Seoul National University. As the winner in the 4th Eumyeon Composition Competition, she advanced to the final of the 3rd International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition and her works have been selected for many festivals including Upbeat International Music School in Croatia, Midwest Composer’s Symposium, Lexington Philharmonic’s New Music Experience, Fresh Inc Festival, New Music on the Point Festival, soundSCAPE Festival. She has studied with Michael Fiday, Joel Hoffman, Douglas Knehans and Shinuh Lee.

Nikki Hillman

Nikki Hillman is a writer of non-fiction, fiction and flash fiction. As a graduate of the Southbank Writing Program (2012) and The Writer's Studio (2013), she enjoys many roles within the writing community. Her co-hosting duties with the Southbank Reading Series is where she most enjoys supporting and encouraging other writers. She is also a facilitator of the Leigh Square Writers Group, runs several Creative Writing class for 9-12 year olds, and has embarked on a new project entitled FoundWords.

Nicholas Kelly

Nicholas Ryan Kelly is a classically-trained composer of speculative fiction. He recently finished dual master's degrees in music composition and library/information studies at UBC and has since been roaming the Prairies, working as a librarian in Edmonton and Saskatoon and composing whatever strikes his fancy. In 2014, his compositional activities ranged from readings by the Vancouver and Victoria Symphony orchestras to commissions and compositions for elementary school band and community choir.

Rhea Rose

Hi,
I'm a writer of short fiction and poetry, although, lately I've written two novels. I'm a graduate of UBC's creative writing MFA program. I've published many of my short stories in anthologies put out by Edge Press. I've also published much of poetry in the same series of anthologies (Tesseracts). My work is mostly speculative (SF and F).

Colin McMahon

Colin McMahon is a young composer from London, Ontario completing his undergrad at the University of Western Ontario. He has studied under David Myska, Omar Daniel, and Peter Paul Koprowski. Colin, still in his formative years of a composer, is working on developing his style, with an emphasis on vocal music. He has had premiers with the Western Chamber Ensemble and Bass Ryan Vamos. Colin is also the Editor-in-Chief for Nota Bene, Undergraduate Journal of Musicology, which encourages and promotes the academic research of undergrads.

Eve MacGregor

Eve is a poet who lives in Vancouver where she is a member of the Plays vs. Pipelines Collective. She attended Banff's Writing with Style where she was mentored by Ray Hsu and recently completed the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive with Betsy Warland. Eve is a lapsed software engineer.

Jared Hedges

Jared Hedges (b.1993) studies music and English literature at Bethel University (St. Paul, Minnesota). His compositions have won awards from the Oregon Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Music Institute of Chicago and Webster University, and his piece The Wanderers was heard on Chicago's fine arts and classical station WFMT 98.7. His song cycle, Nellie Bly at Blackwell’s Island was recently selected as part of the inaugural Source Song Festival, where he participated in workshops led by Libby Larsen. This past summer he partnered with musicologist Stephen Self on a project funded by a research grant to transcribe a fifteenth century music manuscript from the British Library. Jared is a music composition student of Jonathan Veenker.

Leigh Matthews

Leigh Matthews is a queer, British-born writer who lives in Vancouver, BC, with a sharp-eyed border collie who is both her biggest fan and harshest critic. Leigh supports her tea-drinking habit as a freelance medical copywriter, regularly attends queer literary events in the city, and greatly admires those in possession of the courage to shout out their poetry to the world.

Leigh's first novel, The Old Arbutus Tree, was published in July 2013. Her second novel, Don't Bang the Barista!, was published in October, 2014.

Kaley Lane Eaton

Kaley Lane Eaton is an award-winning composer and vocalist currently based in Seattle, WA. Her work has been performed across the US and internationally, in venues ranging from Hong Kong concert halls, to the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles. Eaton’s work is gaining a reputation for its unusual treatment of the vocal mechanism along with its use of electronic media, improvisation, and audience interaction. As a performer herself, Eaton believes deeply in the role of composer as collaborator, and strives to create works that include performers, audiences, and artists of diverse media as equal partners. Honors include a Boston Metro Opera Advocacy award, a Boston Metro Opera International Contempofest festival award and placement as a top ten finalist in the NATS Art Song Composition. Currently, Eaton is pursuing her DMA in Composition at the University of Washington School of Music and is a composition teaching artist with Seattle-based Arts Corps.

Felicia Klingenberg

I taught in the English Department of Langara College for 20 years before recently taking early retirement. My specialty was creative writing: memoir. I have published personal essays and have written an opera libretto, part of which has been scored and workshopped.

Brian Topp

Brian Topp is a first year doctoral student in composition at the University of British Columbia studying with Keith Hamel. Currently he is working on developing new software and technologies for use in the performance of live interactive electroacoustic music. Brian holds a Masters in Music Compsition from the University of Western Ontario studying with David Myska and Paul Frehner and received his Undergraduate in Music Theory and Composition from Acadia University with Derek Charke.

Heather Haley

The Siren of Howe Sound, trailblazing poet, author, musician and media artist Heather Haley pushes boundaries by creatively integrating disciplines, genres and media. With writing published in many journals and anthologies, Haley was an editor and reviewer for the LA Weekly and publisher of the Edgewise Cafe, one of Canada’s first electronic literary magazines. She is the author of poetry collections Sideways, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, and debut novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter. Haley has toured Canada, the U.S and Europe in support of two critically acclaimed AURAL Heather CDs of spoken word song, Princess Nut and Surfing Season.