Mike Blouin has been the recipient of the Diana Brebner Prize for Poetry from Arc, as well as the Lillian I. Found Prize for Poetry from Carleton University, and his work has been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. He is the author of the collection of poetry I’m not going to lie to you. He resides in Oxford Mills, a rural community near Ottawa.

Claudia Dey is a novelist, playwright and columnist. She writes the weekly “Group Therapy” column for the Globe and Mail, and during its brief but illustrious life, Claudia also wrote the sex column for Toro magazine under the pseudonym Bebe O’Shea. Her plays have been translated into French and German and produced internationally. They include Beaver, Trout Stanley and The Gwendolyn Poems, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award. Her debut novel, Stunt, has been praised by--among others--the Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, and Time Out Chicago.

Patrick Lane is the author of 21 books of poetry and has received many awards for his writing, including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry (1979), the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry (1988), and two National Magazine Awards. Lane lives near Victoria, British Columbia with poet Lorna Crozier.

Mary Swan is the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction and is the author of the collection The Deep and Other Stories. Her work has appeared in several Canadian literary magazines, including The Malahat Review, the Ontario Review, and Best Canadian Stories, as well as American publications such as Harper’s. She lives with her husband and daughter near Toronto.

Joan Thomas has been a regular book reviewer for the Globe and Mail for more than a decade. Her essays, stories, and articles have been published in numerous journals and magazines including Prairie Fire, Books in Canada, and the Winnipeg Free Press. She has won a National Magazine Award, co-edited Turn of the Story: Canadian Short Fiction on the Eve of the Millennium, and has served on the editorial boards of Turnstone Press and Prairie Fire Magazine. She lives in Winnipeg.

Padma Viswanathan is a fiction writer, playwright and journalist from Edmonton, Alberta. Her writing awards include residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Banff Playwrights’ Colony, and first place in the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. She received her Creative Writing MA from Johns Hopkins and her MFA from the University of Arizona, and lives with her family in Fayetteville, Arkansas.