Kirti Bhadresa's fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Fiddlehead, PrairieFire, The Quarantine Review, The Sprawl, and Room, and she has been a finalist for the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Award in the category of Feature Writing. Bhadresa lives with her family in Calgary, AB, on Treaty 7 territory.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife, winner of the 2020 Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award. Her stories have won an O. Henry Prize and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Granta. Pick a Colour is her first novel.

Ian is the award-winning author of seven acclaimed books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. His debut novel, Reproduction, won the 2019 Giller Prize. His first work of nonfiction, Disorientation: Being Black in the World, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction, as well as a CBC and Boston Globe best book of the year. In 2024, Williams delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, which became the bestselling book What I Mean to Say, on rehabilitating conversation in divisive times. A trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Williams is a professor of English and director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Toronto.

Otoniya J. Okot Bitek writes poetry and fiction. Her first collection, 100 Days, won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. Her second collection, A is for Acholi, won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her most recent collection of poetry, Song & Dread, is published by Talonbooks. Otoniya was born in Kenya to Ugandan parents and has lived in Canada for more than three decades. Her short story “Going Home” received a special mention in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Fiction Prize. We, the Kindling is her first novel.

Emma (she/her) is an author, journalist and entrepreneur. She has an MA in Journalism and an MSc. in International Development from Sciences Po in Paris. Emma’s writing about books, maternal health and more has appeared in Literary Hub, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus and The New York Times. She is the creator and co-host of the culture podcast Fanfare. In 2014, Emma co-founded a now multi-award-winning organic beverage company called Greenhouse, where she is Head of Brand. She is the author of two bestselling cookbooks, How to Eat with One Hand (2021) and The Greenhouse Cookbook (2017). Emma lives in Toronto with her family. The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is her first novel.

Amanda is a disabled writer whose most recent novel, The Centaur’s Wife, is “an exquisite magical world, perfectly rendered, for [a] dark and wonderful story about the dream life of outsiders and the disabled” (Heather O’Neill). Her non-fiction book Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space was nominated for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award. Her essays and stories have appeared in Canada, U.S., the U.K. and Australia, and she speaks regularly across North America on accessibility and the role of disability in storytelling.