Robert McGill is the author of the novels The Mysteries, Once We Had a Country, and A Suitable Companion for the End of Your Life, as well as the nonfiction books The Treacherous Imagination and War Is Here. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Walrus, and The Dublin Review. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.
Matthew James Weigel is a Dene and Métis poet and artist. He is the designer for Moon Jelly House press and his words and art have been published in Arc, The Polyglot, and The Mamawi Project. Matthew is a National Magazine Award finalist, a Cécile E. Mactaggart Award winner, and winner of the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award. His chapbook It Was Treaty / It Was Me was winner of the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award.. Whitemud Walking is his debut collection.
Kim Fu is the author of the story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, long-listed for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her first novel, For Today I Am a Boy, won the Edmund White Award Award for Debut Fiction and the Canadian Authors Emerging Writer Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and a Lambda Literary Award. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was long-listed for CBC’s Canada Reads. Fu’s second novel, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. Her writing has appeared in Room, Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, Granta, The Atlantic, and the New York Times. Born in Calgary, she lives in Seattle.
Karolina Ramqvist is one of the most influential writers and feminists of her generation in Sweden. In 2015, Ramqvist was awarded the prestigious P. O. Enquist Literary Prize for her novel The White City.
Karolina Ramqvist’s Festival appearance is generously supported by the Swedish Arts Council.
Karolina Ramqvist appears as part of Nordic Bridges 2022.
Andre Morriseau, from Fort William First Nation, is an enthusiastic advocate and ambassador for Indigenous arts, culture and public affairs. Former secretariat for the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (now Indspire) and communications officer for the Chiefs of Ontario. He chaired the James Bartleman Aboriginal Youth Creative Writing Awards Jury (Ontario Arts Council) and the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival. Currently, Andre is chair of the Anishnawbe Health Foundation and on the board of TakingITGlobal. He is the former Director, Awards & Communications, for the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business and is currently communication manager for the Ontario Native Women’s Association.
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis writer and editor born on Treaty 3 territory (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 territory (Prince Albert, SK) and living on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC). She holds an English BA from the University of Winnipeg and a Creative Writing MFA from the University of British Columbia and is the publisher of Room magazine.
Erica Commanda (Algonquin/Ojibwe) was born in Toronto and grew up in the community of Pikwakanagan. From there she moved across Canada living in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto again, working in the bar/hospitality industry, mastering the art of listening to stories from her regulars while slinging and spilling drinks (at them or to them). Through a series of random decisions and events, she went on a journey to master her own knack for storytelling as an arts reporter for MUSKRAT Magazine, interning with Coach House Books for the Indigenous Toronto anthology and studying broadcasting at Seneca College.
Elaine Bomberry is Anishinabe and Cayuga, from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, in southern Ontario. She has worked as a freelance Indigenous Performing Arts activist/promoter/manager/TV and radio producer full-time for thirty-four years. She has made her home on the Capilano Rez, on the unceded Squamish Nation territory in North Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband, Juno award-winner Murray Porter, for the last 15 years.
Amanda Leduc‘s essays and stories have appeared in publications across Canada, the USA and the UK. She is the author of the novels The Miracles of Ordinary Men and the forthcoming The Centaur’s Wife. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where she works as the Communications Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and stories.
Jonny Dovercourt (a.k.a. Jonathan Bunce) is a writer, musician, and concert presenter based in Toronto, who has been active in the city’s local independent music community since the 1990s. He is a co-founder and the Artistic / Executive Director of the groundbreaking Wavelength Music Arts Projects, a 20+ year non-profit Canadian indie music institution. His first book, Any Night of the Week: A D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music 1957-2001, was published in 2020 by Coach House Books, with an accompanying podcast commissioned by the Toronto International Festival of Authors. He is currently completing a research project, Reimagining Music Venues, in collaboration with the University of Toronto.