Conor Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer living in Edmonton. A member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, he is descended from the Lac Ste. Anne Métis and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His Ukrainian family are settlers in Treaty 4 and 6 territories in Saskatchewan. He grew up in Saskatoon, Edmonton, and other prairie towns and cities. In 2022, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch.  He is the author of the poetry collections An Explosion of Feathers and Old Gods, as well as the novel Avenue of Champions, which was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the 2022 ReLIT award. Conor is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, where he teaches creative writing.

Anne Michael's books have been translated into more than forty-five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. She has been short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice short-listed for the Giller Prize, and twice long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted into a feature film. From 2015 to 2019, she was Toronto’s poet laureate. She lives in Canada.

Shashi Bhat is the author of the novels The Family Took Shape, a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and, most recently, The Most Precious Substance on Earth, a finalist for the Governor General's Award for fiction. Death by a Thousand Cuts is her first book of short fiction. Her stories have won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and appeared in such publications as Hazlitt, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Stories, and The Journey Prize Stories. Shashi holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Cornell University. She lives in New Westminster, B.C., where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

Claire Messud is the author of six works of fiction. A recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she teaches at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Deepa Rajagopalan won the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies such as the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, the New Quarterly, Room, the Malahat Review, Event, and Arc. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Born to Indian parents in Saudi Arabia, she has lived in many cities across India, the US, and Canada. Deepa works in the tech industry in Toronto.

Jane Urquhart, one of Canada’s best loved writers, was born in the north (in Little Longlac, Ontario), and grew up in Northumberland County and Toronto. She is the author of eight internationally acclaimed novels, which have received Le prix du meilleur livre étranger (Best Foreign Book Award) in France; the Trillium Award; and the Governor General’s Award, and have been finalists or longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; the Rogers Communications Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; the Orange Prize; The Giller Prize; the Booker Prize; and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, among others.

katherena vermette (she/her) is a Michif (Red River Métis) writer from Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Born in Winnipeg, her Michif roots on her paternal side run deep in St. Boniface, St. Norbert and beyond. Her maternal side is Mennonite from the Altona and Rosenfeld area (Treaty 1). Her first book, North End Love Songs (Muses’ Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her novels The Break (House of Anansi), The Strangers and The Circle (Hamish Hamilton) were all national bestsellers and won multiple literary awards. Her work for children and young adults includes a picture book, The Girl and the Wolf (Theytus), and graphic novels, A Girl Called Echo, Vol. 1–4 (Highwater)—a special omnibus edition of the series was released in Fall 2023. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia and an honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba. katherena lives with her kids—fur and human—in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.