POETS
Marsha Barber’s two recent poetry books: What is the Sound of Someone Unravelling and All the Lovely Broken People were published by Ottawa’s Borealis Press. She’s won many awards for her work and been longlisted for the national ReLit award and shortlisted for the international Bridport Poetry Prize. Marsha has published in such periodicals as the Literary Review of Canada, The Walrus, FreeFall and The Antigonish Review. She’s on faculty at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Ronna Bloom’s sixth book The More was published by Pedlar Press in 2017. Her poetry has been recorded for the CNIB and translated into Spanish and Bengali. She has collaborated with musicians, filmmakers, doctors, academics, spiritual leaders, and architects. Her poem “The City” is painted on King Street in Toronto as part of this year’s King Street Pilot project. Ronna is currently Poet in Community at the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence in the Sinai Health System.
Eric Bodwell is a poet and high school librarian who lives and works in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. His work has been published in The Main Street Rag. When he is not writing, he works with a team of talented young poets who compete annually at the Louder than a Bomb Spoken Word competition in Chicago.
Frances Boyle is the author of a novella, Tower, from Fish Gotta Swim Editions, and a poetry collection, Light-carved Passages from BuschekBooks. Her poetry and fiction appears in literary magazines and anthologies throughout Canada and in the U.S, and has won prizes including the Diana Brebner Prize and the Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Her website is www.francesboyle.com. She is part of Arc Poetry Magazine’s editorial team.
Pat Connors’ chapbook, Scarborough Songs, was published by Lyricalmyrical Press in 2013, and charted on the Toronto Poetry Map. Part-Time Contemplative, his second chapbook with Lyricalmyrical, was released in 2016. He has recently been accepted for publication by the Spadina Literary Review, the Lummox 7 Anthology, and Tamaracks, an anthology of Canadian poets being released this fall in Long Beach, California. He is a manager of the Toronto chapter of 100,000 Poets for Change.
Sophie Else has published a chapbook, In Search of Whitman, with Lyricalmyrical Press and has read at Hot Sauced Words and the Art Bar. She keeps working on her poetry and lives in Toronto.
Ben Gallagher is a poet and essayist, who divides his time between Toronto ON and Scotch Village NS. He is currently in a PhD program at OISE, studying poetry curriculum and pedagogy, alternative arts education, and land. Recent work can be found in Prairie Fire, The Puritan, Sewer Lid, Arc, (parenthetical), and Lion’s Roar.
Michael Gessner has authored 11 books of poetry and prose; the latest is Selected Poems (FutureCycle, 2016) several of which were chosen by The Poetry Foundation for its online archives (2017). His reviews appear frequently, and he is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife, a watercolorist and their dog, “Irish”. His son, Chris, writes for screen.
Adam Hanover is a poet who lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his fiancee and their young son. He has an MA in Medieval Literature from the University at Buffalo and an MFA from Emerson College.
Robert Hilles won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for Cantos From A Small Room and his novel, Raising of Voices, won the George Bugnet Award. His second novel, A Gradual Ruin, was published by Doubleday Canada. His books have also been shortlisted and won numerous literary awards. He has published fifteen books of poetry, three works of fiction, and two nonfiction books. He is working on a short story collection called, Little Pink Houses. His next poetry collection, Line, will appear in the spring of 2018. He recently completed a novel set in Thailand and called, Don’t Hang Your Soul on That, and is working on a new poetry book called, One of Not Many and a second novel set in Thailand called One True Note.
Bill Howell has five poetry collections. He’s been widely anthologized, and his work appears regularly in lit-mags across the country. Originally from Halifax, Bill was a network producer-director and program exec at CBC Radio Drama in Toronto for three decades. His shows include Air Farce, Sunday Matinee, Midnight Cab, Clean Sweep, and the internet classic, Nightfall. By now, many of his early radio broadcasts have reached the Zubeneigenubi star cluster. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/howell
Redgina Jean-Paul’s love of poetry started in the 8th grade and has only grown since. After partaking in the slam poetry scene in Reims, France and poetry workshops in Amherst, MA she decided to return to Toronto to find a Canadian writing community. Apart from writing journal entries, poems and letters, she also enjoys traveling, food, postcards and the company of her turtle Speedy.
Claire Kelly’s first full-length collection, Maunder, is available from Palimpsest Press. Her poem “Mother, What Should We Do?” was recently longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. She lives and writes in Edmonton. Her second book of poetry will be released in 2019 with ECW.
J.I. Kleinberg: A Pushcart nominee and winner of the 2016 Ken Warfel Fellowship, J.I. Kleinberg is co-editor of 56 Days of August (Five Oaks Press 2017) and Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington (Other Mind Press 2015). Her poetry has appeared recently in One, Diagram, Otoliths, Raven Chronicles, Calamus Journal, and elsewhere. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, and blogs most days at chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com and thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com.
Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, Raritan, and other magazines.
Rhonda Melanson: A graduate of Queen’s University Artist In The Community Education Program, Rhonda Melanson has been published in several print and online magazines, including The Boxcar Poetry Review, Quill’s, Philadelphia Poets, Ascent Aspirations, Lummox and the Windsor Review. In 2011, she published a chapbook called Gracenotes with Beret Days Press, and she is also featured in the Encompass IV anthology, a publication from Beret Days Press and The Ontario Poetry Society. Recently, she was featured in Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, A Poetry Anthology, edited by Deena November and Nina Padolf (Lascaux Editions).
Emilio Puerta is a Toronto-based writer who spans a number of literary genres from poetry to stories to plays. His debut poetry collection, Abre la Puerta, is forthcoming this summer. He can be found on Twitter @CanCol16.
Kate Sorbara is a mother, a farmer, and a lover of rivers. Her chapbook, Burnt River, is in its second printing.
Sarah Varnam is a Toronto writer, editor, and artist, as well as founder of The Quilliad Press. Her writing has appeared in The Quarterday Review, Third Wednesday, Transition Magazine, and Litbreak, among others. She has two self-published chapbooks, Evening and BITE, which she is expanding into a full-length collection thanks to a Writers’ Reserve grant.
Elana Wolff is a Vaughan-based writer of poetry and creative nonfiction. Her poems have recently appeared in Grain, Literary Review of Canada, The Maynard, Tamaracks Anthology (US), The League of Canadian Poets Tree Anthology, and Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology. Elana’s Kafka-quest essays can be found in New Madrid, Humber Literary Review, Wanderlust Journal, and Cargo Literary. Her fifth collection of poems, Everything Reminds You of Something Else, was released with Guernica Editions in 2017.
Artists
Susan Winemaker works as a food photographer and recipe developer in Toronto. She’s a certified chef, a nutrition consultant, an entrepreneur, a writer, an internationally published novelist, an art photographer, an urban observer, and a soon-to-be licensed paralegal.
— contributors from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 1