Zoe J. Dagneault currently studies English Literature at Simon Fraser University. She is also enrolled in SFU's The Writer's Studio. Zoe's work explores wordscapes varying from Buddhist robot romances to emo-techno-pastoral portraits. Most recently, her altru-eco-feminist contemplations have refocussed with the birth of her daughter, Violetta. Zoe lives and writes in East Vancouver.
Karen Garry is a Visual Artist and Storyteller who moonlights as a poet when no one's paying attention. She began self-publishing at the age of 14 and has since carried many a title from the mundane to the remarkable and has marvelled at the destinations one can arrive should they continue to put one foot in front of the other. She has made 'zines, panned pizzas, illustrated books, drawn comics, sold groceries, taught Art and English, had international art shows, pre-visualized animated scenes in 3D, storyboarded sequences for cartoon movies and is currently in the process of writing her first picture book. She's fluent in three languages, has travelled a fair bit of the world and wants humans to help save the bees and keep the polar bears afloat. When's she not trying to convince people to stay up past their bedtimes, she can usually be found on her bicycle, at the beach or strumming the strings on her classical guitar. She currently resides in Vancouver, BC, and thinks it'd be great if there were never another tanker blocking the view.
Eve is a poet and lapsed software engineer. For Art Song Lab 2015 she co-created the piece "Song for Shed Bird" with Colin McMahon. Her work gravitates toward finding emotional access to sites of inaction or stasis. She is currently at work on a long poem set in the great pacific garbage patch.
Mark Bondyra is a writer and designer who lives in Vancouver. He is a recent graduate of SFU’s The Writer’s Studio and is working on a collection of short stories. In his free time he climbs mountains.
Leigh (L) Matthews is a bisexual, queer, vegan, feminist, immigrant writer living in Vancouver, BC. Her first novel, The Old Arbutus Tree, was published in 2013, followed by the first two novels in the All Out Vancouver series: Don't Bang the Barista! (2014) and Go Deep (2016).
The All Out Vancouver series is a contemporary take on the genre of lesbian pulp fiction. Set in East Vancouver, the series follows the lives of a medley of queer characters and offers all the fun, frolics and drama of classic pulp fiction, but none of the death, denial or heteronormativity.
L took part in Art Song Lab 2015, and her work featured at Queerotica as part of the 2015 Queer Arts Festival. Her poetry and journalism has appeared in Hobart Pulp, Driftwood, Aesthetica, PUSH, and elsewhere.
When she's not at the beach with her pup, L works as a medical copywriter focusing on nutrition and public health communication. She is a qualified nutritionist with an interest in food security, nutriepigenetics, and intersectional vegan feminism, and published her first non-fiction title (Eat to Beat Acne) in 2015.
L is fond of real ale, border collies, tea, and crumpets.
Vancouver writer and editor Judith Penner has co-authored several books, been a journalist in the UK and Canada, and written for film and radio. She continues to work as an editor and to write poetry and short fiction. Her work has appeared in The Capilano Review online, Geist magazine and other periodicals, and at Song Room, writer/composer collaborations curated by David Pay and the late Tom Cone. Why is the World as Crunchy as a Diamond?, a book of prose/poems, will be ready this year.
Katherine is an earnest interlocutor and a fierce thinker who is endlessly interested in the conversation of art and impact, topics surrounding gender and sexuality.
Her writing focuses on poetry, prose, and art reviews. Having lived abroad in Berlin for the last two years pursuing a master’s degree in English Literature, she is currently researching for her thesis project specializing in temporality and queer studies. Connected to the independent art scene in Vancouver, she is the Gallery Associate at Untitled Art Space located in the DTES, where she assists in curation, public relations, and install processes for art shows. She is also a regular contributing writer at Sad Mag, a print and online publication on Vancouver’s independent arts and culture.
A fan of collaboration and meaningmaking, she is constantly in the pursuit of meaningful work with artists, creatives, to generate impact.
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is the author of Paper Pavilion, recipient of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize and the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Motton Book Award; Notes from a Missing Person (Essay Press 2015); and Song of a Mirror, finalist for the Tupelo Snowbound Chapbook Award. Her work has appeared recently in Blackbird, Columbia: A Journal of Art and Literature, Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, Indiana Review, and Poetry International. She has received grants from the Daesan Foundation, Intermedia Arts, and Minnesota State Arts Board. Currently, Jennifer is associate professor of English and program director of Race and Ethnic Studies at St. Olaf College where she teaches creative writing and Asian American literature. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Jude Neale was shortlisted for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Ireland), TheInternational Poetic Republic Poetry Prize (U.K),The Mary Chalmers Smith Poetry Prize(UK), The Wenlock International Poetry Prize (UK), finalist for Pandora's Poetry competition (Canada) and finalist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award (Canada), and was nominated twice for an Internationally renowned Pushcart award for her third book, A Quiet Coming of Light.
She is an opera singer and poet who enjoys performing with other genres as diverse as dance, tabla or viola. Thomas Beckman and Jude have just released a collaborative EP (Places Beyond) a blend of viola and the spoken word.
She recently contributed to the League of Canadian Poets, Women's Caucus, a chapter on collaboration for their upcoming anthology of essays on this subject. She was one of the jurors of this year’s Pat Lowther Memorial Award.
When she is not writing, she is singing in underground parking lots.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am a poet. Over my lifetime I have been published as poet, playwright and journalist. I made a living, however, teaching high school students. In March 2013 I had a stroke and it has been challenging to recover. I have been to the Banff Centre 6 times as a poet: participating four times in Writing with Style workshops, and twice in the Feb. 2014 and the upcoming Feb. 2015 Writers' Guild of Alberta retreats. I am excited and intrigued by the tabula rasa aspect of the creative process involved in the Art Song Lab experience. Let the games begin.