POETS
Jacob Berg is a 23 year-old poet and artist, raised in Toronto and living in Kingston. A graduate of the Queen’s University Creative Writing program, Berg is currently operating a fashion line called “dullstyle” and writing an as-of-yet untitled poetry manuscript.
Susie Petersiel Berg is a former co-curator of the Plasticine Poetry reading series, and the author of two full-length poetry collections, How to Get Over Yourself and All This Blood, both from Piquant Press, and three chapbooks, including You Will Still Have Birds, a conversation in poetry, with Elana Wolff, and published by Lyrical Myrical Press. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, and in print and online journals. She was a 2017 participant in the IFOA Battle of the Bards and is a frequent reader on Toronto stages. Since 2018, she has been leading poetry workshops for teens at in-city programs and overnight summer camps.
Mugabi Byenkya’s writing is used to teach international high school English reading comprehension. His debut novel, ‘Dear Philomena,’ was published in 2017 and he recently concluded a 42 city, 4 country North America/East Africa tour in support of this. In 2018, Mugabi was named one of 56 writers who has contributed to his native Uganda’s literary heritage in the 56 years since independence by Writivism. ‘Dear Philomena,’ was a Ugandan bestseller in the same year.
Halle Gulbrandsen is a pilot and writer from Ladner, BC. Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, filling Station and The Garden Statuary. When not in the sky, she can be found by the water with a dog and a notebook.
Trish Hopkinson has always loved words—in fact, her mother tells everyone she was born with a pen in her hand. She is author of three chapbooks and her work has been published in several anthologies and journals, including Tinderbox, Pretty Owl Poetry, and The Penn Review. She resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow Hopkinson on her blog where she shares information on how to write, publish, and participate in the greater poetry community at http://trishhopkinson.com/.
Bill Howell has five poetry collections. Widely anthologized, with recent work in Canadian Literature, Event, Grain, Prairie Fire and Vallum. Bill was a network producer-director at CBC Radio Drama for three decades. Steadfastly deaf to ageism, he continues to connect with people who refuse to become museums of themselves. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/howell
Redgina Jean-Paul is a poet and writer born in Montreal and raised in Toronto. She has participated in slam poetry events in Reims (France), poetry workshops in Amherst (MA) and has been attending a variety of poetry series in Toronto to find her writing community here. Her first published poem titled “Blue Poem” appeared in Juniper – A Poetry Journal.
Quentin Kerr is a writer, among other things, of poetry, non-fiction, and short stories. He lives and works in Kingston, Ontario, where he writes when he can, and doesn’t when he can’t.
Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals including Poetry and Five Points. He has published novels, short story collections, chapbooks, and full-length poetry collections. He’s been nominated for many Pushcarts, and 3 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize. He runs a bookstore in Memphis.
Bruce Meyer is author or editor of more than sixty books of poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction, and literary journalism. His next book of poems, McLuhan’s Canary, will appear in November from Guernica Editions.
Colin Morton’s ten books of poetry include The Merzbook: Kurt Schwitters Poems and The Hundred Cuts: Sitting Bull and the Major. His other work includes fiction, criticism, recordings and film.
Susan Olding is the author of Pathologies: A Life in Essays. Her writing has won a National Magazine Award and has appeared in The Bellingham Review, The L.A. Review of Books, Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and the Utne Reader, and in anthologies including Best Canadian Essays, 2016 and In Fine Form, 2nd Edition.
Jeannie Prinsen lives with her husband, daughter, and son in Kingston, Ontario, where she teaches an online course in essay writing at Queen’s University. Her writing has appeared in Relief, Barren, Fathom, and elsewhere. Find her online on Twitter (@JeanniePrinsen) and on her blog Little house on the circle.
Mark Sampson is the author of the poetry collection Weathervane (Palimpsest Press, 2016) and four other books: the novels The Slip (Dundurn, 2017), Sad Peninsula (Dundurn, 2014) and Off Book (Norwood Publishing, 2007) and the short story collection The Secrets Men Keep (Now or Never, 2015). His new novel, All the Animals on Earth, will be out with Wolsak & Wynn in 2020. Originally from Prince Edward Island, he now lives and writes in Toronto.
Robyn Sarah is a poet, writer, literary editor, and musician. Since 2011 she has served as poetry editor for Cormorant Books. Her tenth poetry collection, My Shoes Are Killing Me, won the 2015 Governor General’s Award and has just been released in French translation. Wherever We Mean to Be, a Selected Poems spanning forty years, was published in 2017. She lives in Montreal, her home since early childhood.
Dean Schabner’s chapbook, “Surf-body” was published this spring by Ghost City Press. His poems and stories have appeared in the Pushcart Prize, Witness, Northwest Review, the East Hampton Star, The Blue Nib, Juniper, and other publications. He lives on Jamaica Bay, at the far edge of New York City.
Angeline Schellenberg’s collection about autism, Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), won three Manitoba Book Awards and was a finalist for a ReLit Award. Her work was shortlisted for Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2015 and 2019 Poem of the Year. Angeline launches three chapbooks in 2019: Dented Tubas (Kalamalka), Irises (Dancing Girl), and Blue Moon, Red Herring (JackPine). Her second book, Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press), is forthcoming in 2020.
Rob Taylor is the author of three poetry collections, including The News (Gaspereau Press, 2016), which was a finalist for the 2017 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Rob is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation (Nightwood Editions, 2018) and guest editor of the 2019 edition of The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Biblioasis, 2019). In 2015 Rob received the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for the Literary Arts, as an emerging artist. He lives in Port Moody, BC with his wife and son. http://roblucastaylor.com
Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang is the author of 10 books, including poetry, picture books, and fiction. Her book Status Update (2013) was nominated for the Pat Lowther Award and her book Sweet Devilry (2011) won the Gerald Lampert Award. She has been widely anthologized in such collections as Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, Poet-to-Poet, and the Newborn Anthology. She currently teaches poetry through UBC’s optional residency MFA program.
Jonathan Ustun writes poetry and prose and works for a large financial institution in the Washington D.C. area. He is married to Carrie and they have two very lively children and one truly sedentary cat. He is currently also working on a young adult novel.
Jean Van Loon’s first poetry collection Building on River was published by Cormorant Books in April 2018. Her stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in literary magazines in Canada and the US and in Journey Prize Stories 19. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and participated in the 2017 Spring Poetry Colloquium at Sage Hill.
Scott W. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at The University of Buffalo. His poems have appeared in fourteen journals, newspapers and anthologies. His most recent chapbook is Natural Shrinkage (Destitute Press, 2018). He is the editor of two anthologies, A Flash of Dark (The Writer’s Den) and A Flash of Dark Volume 2 (The Writer’s Den). Scott co-curates the series Second Stage Writers (Buffalo, NY) and Poets Soup (Canandaigua, NY). He was an ornamental blacksmith for 11 years with the Rochester Folk Art Guild.
Adele Wiseman (1928-1992) won the Governor General’s Award for fiction for her first novel, The Sacrifice, in 1956. Her other major publications are a second novel, Crackpot (1974), a memoir of her mother, Old Woman at Play (1978), Memoirs of a Book-Molesting Childhood and Other Essays (1987). She was Director of the Writing Studios at Banff from 1987-1992. Her poetry, the work of her last ten years, has remained mostly unpublished. These poems are taken from The Dowager Empress: Selected Poems of Adele Wiseman, edited by Elizabeth Greene, scheduled to appear from Inanna this fall.
Elana Wolff is a Vaughan-based writer of poetry and creative nonfiction, editor, and designer and instructor of social art courses. Her poems have recently appeared (or will appear) in Room, EVENT, Acta Victoriana, White Wall Review, Big Smoke Poetry, Vallum, Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology, and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century. Her sixth collection of poems, SWOON, is forthcoming with Guernica Editions in 2020.
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 3, Issue 1