Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning in Denendeh. Leanne is the author of seven previous books, including Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (US release from UMP February 2021), which was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, and was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. Her new project a collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living is forthcoming from Knopf Canada in 2022. Leanne is also a musician. Her latest release Theory of Ice was named to the Polaris Prize short list, and she is the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award.

Devyani Saltzman is a Canadian writer, curator and arts leader with a deep practice in relevant, multidisciplinary, programming at the intersection between art, ideas and social change. She is the Director of Public Programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario, working across all disciplines, where she was brought into the museum context to increase engagement and continue to reshape the idea of the museum as a forum for discourse, reflecting community and the narratives of Torontonians. Saltzman was previously the Director of Literary Arts at the Banff Centre, the first woman and first woman of colour in that role, as well as a founding Curator at Luminato, North America's largest multi arts festival. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, National Post, The Atlantic and Tehelka, India's weekly of arts and investigative journalism. She sits on the boards of the Writers’ Trust of Canada, Ontario Association of Art Galleries and SummerWorks Performance Festival, and has been a juror for the National Magazine Awards, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Saltzman has a degree in Anthropology and Sociology from Oxford.