2022 Festival

Aimee Wall is the author of We, Jane, a novel, out now from Book*hug Press. She is the translator of the novels Testament and Drama Queens by Vickie Gendreau (Book*hug 2016 and 2019), Sports and Pastimes by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard (Book*hug 2017), Prague by Maude Veilleux, in a co-translation with Aleshia Jensen (QC Fiction 2019), and Open Your Heart by Alexie Morin (Véhicule Press 2021). Her essays and reviews have appeared in Maisonneuve, Lemon Hound and the Montreal Review of Books, among other publications. Originally from Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland and Labrador, she currently lives in Montréal.

Alex is a francophone theatre creator, clown, freelance communicator, and queer community activist born and raised in Sudbury. He is a graduate of Laurentian University’s late French-language Theatre and Political Science programs.

A dabbler in playwriting, poetry, and acting, Alex’s first full-length self-directed project, Nickel City Fifs, a celebration of Sudbury’s queer and francophone communities, will be coproduced with Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario in June 2023.

Alex has worked for and with many local francophone arts organizations and currently serves as President of Théâtre Action, a service organization supporting all members of Ontario’s francophone theatre community.

Ali Hassan is a stand-up comedian, actor, and professional chef. He is the host of CBC’s Canada Reads as well as Laugh Out Loud. He is also a frequent guest host of q, CBC’s premier national arts and entertainment show. His comedy has been performed at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and Toronto’s JFL42. He is a Canadian Comedy Awards nominee, and his solo show, Muslim, Interrupted, was performed at the world’s largest comedy festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has appeared in three award-winning films, Breakaway, French Immersion, and as the memorable Lebanese Uncle Stevie in the hockey hit Goon, in addition to other film and TV roles, most recently CBC’s Run the Burbs. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his family.

Amy Jones is the author of the novels We’re All in This Together, a national bestseller, winner of the Northern Lit Award, a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire, and Every Little Piece of Me, named a Best Book of Summer by the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and NOW Magazine. Her debut collection of stories, What Boys Like, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was a finalist for the ReLit Award. Her fiction has won the CBC Literary Prize for Short Fiction, appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories, and been selected as Longform’s Pick of the Week. Originally from Halifax, she now lives in Hamilton.

Casey Plett is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, A Safe Girl to Love, the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers, and the Publisher at LittlePuss Press. She has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. A winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award, her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She splits her time between New York City and Windsor, Ontario.

Charlene Diehl is a writer, editor, performer, former English professor, and the long-time Director of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. She has published poetry, essays, reviews, and an acclaimed memoir, Out of Grief Singing: A Memoir of Motherhood and Loss. She co-edited a jazz magazine for a dozen years and currently produces the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances, an annual concert series in Winnipeg. In 2019, she was honoured with the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making a Difference Award for her contributions to the local arts community.

Chloé LaDuchesse is the author of two poetry collections, Exosquelette (2021, Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Winner; Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, Finalist) and Furies (2017), as well as a noir novel, L’incendiaire de Sudbury (2022). She was the fifth Poet Laureate of Sudbury, where she still lives and raises her cats.

Danielle Daniel is a writer, an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator of settler and Indigenous ancestry. Like many Francophones with origins in Quebec, she shares a family link to an Indigenous ancestor, an Algonquin woman who inspired her first adult novel, Daughters of the Deer. Her debut middle grade novel, Forever Birchwood, flows out of her connection to the land where she was born and raised, her environmental concerns and her interest in Indigenous ways of stewardship. Her picture books include Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox (winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and a Best 100 title at the New York Public Library) and You Hold Me Up, shortlisted for the 2018 Marilyn Baillie award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and recently moved to Mnidoo Mnis (Manitoulin Island) with her family.

Born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida residing in Scarborough. David Delisca is a writer, poet, actor and humorist. A versatile artist, he uses stories about the immigrant and diasporic experience, as well as other various human realities, to bridge realms of communication. His works and performances have been featured in Toronto Star, CBC, Netflix.

David Robertson was the 2021 recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award. He is the author of numerous books for young readers including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award and the McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People Award. The Barren Grounds, the first book in the middle-grade The Misewa Saga series, received a starred review from Kirkus, was a Kirkus and Quill & Quire best middle-grade book of 2020, was a USBBY and Texas Lone Star selection, was shortlisted for the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award, and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award. His memoir, Black Water: Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory, was a Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire book of the year in 2020, and won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction as well as the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award at the 2020 Manitoba Book Awards. On The Trapline, illustrated by Julie Flett, won David’s second Governor General’s Literary Award and was named one of the best picture books of 2021 by the CCBC, The Horn Book, New York Public Library, Quill & Quire, and American Indians in Children’s Literature. Dave is the writer and host of the podcast Kíwew, winner of the 2021 RTDNA Praire Region Award for Best Podcast. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and currently lives in Winnipeg.

Emma Côté is from a small town in Northern Ontario, where the winters were long but the books were aplenty. As a result, she went on to study journalism, English literature and creative writing and most recently completed a postgraduate certificate in publishing. When Emma isn’t re-reading or re-writing a novel, she can be found taking walks in the forest, and asking people if she can pet their dog. Unrest is her debut novel.

Ernie Louttit is a member of the Missanabie Cree First Nation in Northern OntarioErnie, a retired soldier and police officer, and has written three books, Indian Ernie: Perspectives on Leadership and Policing, More Indian Ernie, Insights from the Streets, and The Unexpected Cop: Indian Ernie on a Life of Leadership. . Winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award in 2014 and the Reveal Indigenous Arts Award in 2017. Pine Bugs and .303’s is his debut novel. He lives in Saskatoon.

Farzana Doctor is the Tkaronto-based author of four critically acclaimed novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, and Seven. You Still Look the Same is her debut poetry collection. Farzana is the Maasi behind Dear Maasi, a new sex and relationships column for FGM/C survivors. She is also an activist and part-time psychotherapist.

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 29 books including Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and The Most Charming Creatures.

His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates won the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was long listed for Canada Reads. His interactive writing installation using old typewriters and guitar processors was featured during 2016-2017 at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

Janet Calcaterra is an author who has lived with MS since her twenties. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Sulphur, Reaching Beyond the Saguaros, Cannery Row Magazine, the anthologies Imagination in Action and Gateways and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Prior to retiring to write full time, she worked as a bank teller, a kindergarten teacher, a life-skills instructor, an archivist and museum curator, and both a college and university-level creative writing instructor. The Burden of Memories is her first novel. Currently, she lives in North Bay, Ontario, with her husband. Her adult daughters live nearby.

Jennifer Alicia (she/they) is a queer, mixed Mi’kmaw and settler (German/Irish/Scottish) multidisciplinary artist originally from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk (Bay of Islands, Newfoundland), now residing in Toronto. She is a two-time national poetry slam champion and collective member of the Toronto Poetry Project and Seeds & Stardust. In 2021, her debut chapbook Mixed Emotions was released and she was also published in Issue 09 of Canthius Magazine and NOW Magazine. They presented their play with the working title Restor(y)ing Identity at the first ever Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival in 2021. An audio version of the play was presented at the Weesageechak Begins To Dance 33 Festival in 2020 and at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2021. Jennifer Alicia is a current participant in the Animikiig Creators Unit at Native Earth Performing Arts, continuing to develop this play. Recently, she co-edited an Indigenous poetry anthology called The Condor and the Eagle Meet, which was released in May 2022 through Kegedonce Press. Find out more about Jennifer Alicia’s work at: www.jenniferalicia.com.

Jonathan Pinto is the host of Up North, CBC Radio One’s regional afternoon show for Northern Ontario and is based in Sudbury. He was formerly a reporter at CBC Windsor – and wrote “The Best of Windsor Cookbook” – published by Biblioasis – while he was there.

Kathy Friedman studied creative writing at UBC and the University of Guelph, and she was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Grain, Geist, PRISM international, The New Quarterly, and Canadian Notes & Queries. Her first collection of short stories, All the Shining People, was published in April 2022 with House of Anansi. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about travel, music, and mental health.

Kim Fahner lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her newest collection of poetry is Emptying the Ocean (Frontenac House, October 2022). Kim was the fourth poet laureate of the City of Greater Sudbury (2016-18), and she was the first woman appointed to the role. She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Representative of The Writers’ Union of Canada (2020-24), and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Her first novel, The Donoghue Girl, will be published by Latitude 46 in Fall 2023. Kim is currently working on a new novel, as well as a collection of bee poems. She may be reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com

The city of Greater Sudbury’s 7th Poet Laureate, Kyla Heyming (KPH) is a bilingual Canadian writer with a yearning to set her soul in ink and paper. Fiercely driven to ensnare all of life’s little moments, she works tirelessly for her passion so that she may someday lead others to find their own meaning in her words.

Liselle Sambury is the Trinidadian Canadian author of the Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist Blood Like Magic. Her work spans multiple genres, from fantasy to sci-fi, horror, and more. In her free time, she shares helpful tips for upcoming writers and details of her publishing journey through a YouTube channel dedicated to demystifying the sometimes complicated business of being an author.

Liisa Kovala is a Finnish Canadian author and teacher. Her first book, Surviving Stutthof: My Father’s Memories Behind the Death Gate was shortlisted for a Northern Lit Award and published in Finland under the title Stutthofin selviytyjä (Docendo, 2020). Her work is inspired by her Finnish heritage and the northern landscape she calls home. Sisu’s Winter War is her debut novel. She lives in Sudbury, Ontario with her husband and two children.

Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer was raised on Saddle Lake Reserve and attended Blue Quills Residential School. Her first book, Bear Bones & Feathers (Coteau, 1994), received the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award and was a finalist for the Spirit of Saskatchewan Award, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Gerald Lampert Award. Blue Marrow (Coteau, 1998) was a finalist for the 1998 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, and her fourth book, Burning in This Midnight Dream (Coteau, 2016), won the 2017 Saskatchewan Book Award and the Raymond Souster Award, among numerous other awards. Her newest book is awâsis – kinky and dishevelled (Brick Books, 2021). Brick Books is publishing a new edition of Burning in This Midnight Dream in May 2021. Halfe was awarded the Latner Writers Trust Award for her body of work in 2017, and was awarded the 2020 Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence. She was granted a lifetime membership in the League of Canadian Poets, and currently works with Elders in the organization Opikinawasowin (“raising our children”) and lives near Saskatoon with her husband, Peter.

Olga Filina is twenty plus year veteran of the Canadian publishing industry. She is a former book buyer for Chapters/Indigo, a festival director, publishing consultant, and independent editor, and is the founding member of the Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents (PACLA). She launched 5 Otter Literary in 2021 with partners Cassandra Rodgers and Ali McDonald.

Rod Carley’s second novel, Kinmount, won the Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction from the 2021 Independent Publishers Book Awards and was one of ten books longlisted for the 2021 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medallion for Humour. His first novel, A Matter of Will, was a finalist for the 2018 Northern Lit Award for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in Cloud Lake Literary, Blank Spaces Magazine, the non-fiction anthology 150 Years Up North and More, and HighGrader Magazine. Latitude 46 Publishing is releasing his new interconnected collection of short stories, Grin Reaping in June of 2022. Rod is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers and resides in North Bay, ON.

Scott Miller is a writer and lifelong Sudbury resident. He completed his BA and MA in History at Laurentian University and has published articles on the history of Sudbury in the Canadian Historical Review, Ontario History, and the Canadian Military Journal. In 2019, Scott, along with co-author Mark Kuhlberg, received the Riddell Award from the Ontario Historical Society for the best article published on the subject of Ontario history in 2018. Along with being a fan of the Sudbury Wolves, Scott also supports the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Bills. Leading the Pack is his first book. Scott lives and works in Sudbury, Ontario.

Shani Mootoo is a writer and visual artist. She was born in Ireland, grew up in Trinidad, and moved to Canada in her early twenties. She’s the author of two poetry books, The Predicament of Or, and her latest, Cane | Fire. She’s the author of several novels, including Polar Vortex, finalist for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the acclaimed Cereus Blooms at Night, now a Penguin Modern Classic. Mootoo is the recipient of a Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Award and has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Western University. She lives in Southern Ontario.

Tanis MacDonald is the author of six books of creative nonfiction and poetry, including the essay collection Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female (2022). She has been awarded the Open Seasons Awards for Nonfiction and the Bliss Carman Prize for Poetry, and won the Robert Kroetsch Teaching Award in 2017. She is the Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series, run by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, and hosts the podcast Watershed Writers. She is originally from Treaty One territory in Winnipeg, and now lives in Waterloo, Ontario, on the traditional territories of the Neutral, Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples.

Thomas L. Leduc is the descendant of four generations of miners and works at an industrial supply company in Sudbury.His poetry and writing has been appeared in anthologies and magazines in Canada and the U.S.

Thomas was Poet Laureate of the City of Greater Sudbury between 2014 and 2016. He is President of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild. He lives in Sudbury with his wife and two children.

Vera Constantineau’s poetic focus is in Japanese forms, haibun, haiku, senryu and tanka. In addition to poetry, her non-fiction essay, Options, is included in Against Death—35 Essays on Living (Anvil Press, 2021). She won third place in the 2021 Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop competition for her essay He and I. Her short fiction and haiku have appeared in journals around the world including; Canada, Japan, USA, UK, India and Europe. In 2021 she placed third in the Martin Lucas Haiku Award “Presence Haiku Journal” in Britain. She is a member of the Sudbury Writers Guild, Haiku Canada, Haiku Society of America, Tanka Canada and Canadian Authors Association. She served as sixth poet laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury (2020-2022). She lives in Sudbury with her husband.

Waubgeshig Rice is an author from Wasauksing First Nation. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from the journalism program at the university formerly known as Ryerson in 2002, and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and two sons.