Sheena Kamal holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Her debut novel The Lost Ones (US) / Eyes Like Mine (UK) won the 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Magazine Critics Award and Macavity Award for Best First Novel. It has been sold in 15 countries and was a Globe and Mail Bestseller, a Time Magazine Recommended Read, an iBooks Best Book, a Bustle Best Book and a Powell’s Pick.
Shivanee Ramlochan is a Trinidadian poet and essayist. Her book of poems, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Peepal Tree Press, 2017) was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Forward Prize for Best First Collection. The Red Thread Cycle, a suite of poems from her debut collection, won a Small Axe Literary Competition Prize for Poetry (second-place) and was on audiovisual display at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas in 2019. Her second book, Unkillable, a nonfiction narrative focusing on Indo-Caribbean women’s disobedience in Trinidad, is forthcoming from Noemi Press in 2022.
Kyle Hernandez is a creatively maladjusted writer and performer. He has toured five major cities in England including a stint at the Round House Theatre. Hernandez holds a BA in Theatre with honours and has since leveraged his training to win the Motif Poetry Slam in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a two-time first runner up for the National Poetry Slam of Trinidad and Tobago. His published works include Aron, a Radio Drama commissioned by BBC Radio Four. As an actor Kyle has performed on all major stages home to Trinidad, with a lead role in the award-winning feature Grace and Saleem.
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.