At age 30, STEPHANIE BOLSTER was hired at Concordia University and entered the world of the working adult, where she’ll remain for the foreseeable future. The author of three collections (a fourth is forthcoming in spring 2009), she guest edited the inaugural Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 anthology.

ASA BOXER is the author of a book of poetry entitled The Mechanical Bird (2007). His work has been anthologized in The New Canon (2005), Montreal vue par ses poetes (2006), Oxford Poetry Broadsides (Series 3 - 2007), and Jacket 34 (online – 2007). See asaboxer.com.

EMILY CARR is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Calgary. She has published or has poems forthcoming in So To Speak, CV2, The Capilano Review, and Isotope. Emily dreams of signing her first book contract before she turns 30 this summer.

A laureate outta Africadia, GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE is the author of Whylah Falls (1990), Beatrice Chancy (1999), Execution Poems (2000), George & Rue (2005), and Illuminated Verses (2005). His new narrative poem, I & I, will appear from Goose Lane Editions in autumn 2008.

JOHN CUNNINGHAM is a Winnipeg writer of poetry and short stories who is also currently working on a play and a novel. He writes poetry reviews in Canada for Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, CV2 and Antigonish Review, in the U.S. for Mad Hatter, LimeWire, Rattle, and Rain Taxi, and in Australia for Jacket. This is his first review for Arc.

JENNIFER DALES writes reviews of poetry, nonfiction and art, as well as the occasional poem, and lots of technical manuals. She lives in Clarence-Rockland, Ontario.

MARY DALTON lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where she teaches English at Memorial University. She is the author of four books of poetry, the most recent of which are Merrybegot and Red Ledger, both published by Véhicule Press. Merrybegot won the 2005 E. J. Pratt Poetry Award.

Joseph Conrad describes the 30th year as the shadow-line, the time when people take stock of their lives. After sixty-seven years, thirty-five books and a dozen national and international awards, GARY GEDDES is still trying to take stock. His most recent works are the non-fiction book Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things: An Impossible Journey from Kabul to Chiapas and a book of poems called Falsework, about the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver.

ROCCO DE GIACOMO is a widely published poet whose work has appeared most recently in the literary journals Contemporary Verse2, Magma Poetry and Tower Poetry Society. His fifth and latest collection of poems, Catching Dawn’s Breath (LyricalMyrical Press, Toronto) was launched with much drunken revelry in March of 2008.

SUSAN GILLIS has lived on the east and west coasts of Canada, and now lives and works in Montreal. She spent her 30th birthday in Paris.

AARON GIOVANNONE’s poetry has most recently appeared in Descant, Grain, Matrix, and Nypoesi. He has won grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and was recently a visiting researcher in poetry and translation at the University of Siena, Italy. Aaron has a blog here: theworddiarydepressesme.blogspot.com.

KATIA GRUBISIC doesn’t particularly believe in linear time, so her recent 30th birthday was merely a fortuitous occasion for cupcakes to show up. She works as a writer, editor and translator, and recently published her first collection of poems, What if red ran out.

STEVE HEIGHTON’s poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Poetry, The London Review of Books, The Walrus, and London Magazine. His most recent collection is The Address Book (Anansi, 2004). Currently he’s working on new poems and translations, along with a novel.

CHRIS JENNINGS has written longer reviews of both Eli Mandel and Don Coles. He would likely be a character in a Mavis Gallant story if it came down to it. He speaks no Galician.

SONNET L’ABBÉ is the author of A Strange Relief and Killarnoe. When she turned 30, she visited Ground Zero in NYC. She then came back to Toronto and destroyed her comfort zone.

SHAWNA LEMAY is the author of All the God-sized Fruit, Against Paradise, Still and Blue Feast. She has two books forthcoming: Red Velvet Forest (The Muses’ Company), a collection of poetry, and Calm Things (Palimpsest Press), a book of essays. She lives in Edmonton.

RICHARD LEMM teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Prince Edward Island. His latest book is Shape of Things to Come (short fiction), and his most recent poetry collection is Four Ways of Dealing With Bullies.

Thirty Helens agree: TANIS MACDONALD’s third book of poetry, Rue the Day, is out this spring from Turnstone Press. The author of Fortune (2003) and Holding Ground (2000), she lives in Kitchener and teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.

When JENNY MCMASTER turned 30 she decided to be an eating artist rather than a starving artist. She is currently working on her Masters in Art Education at Concordia University while experimenting with encaustic painting and handmade paper. Her paintings, performance art and textiles explore urban spaces, architecture and clothing as second skins.

When COLIN MORTON turned 30 he was a student at the University of Alberta and father of a three-year-old, volunteering at NeWest Review, publishing poetry in The Fiddlehead and reviews in Cross-Country, and trying to write a novel. Plus ça change.

BARBARA MYERS was born and grew up in Halifax, but has lived most of her adult life in Ottawa and Toronto. She is a former editor with Arc and often facilitates poetry workshops. Her work is published in a number of periodicals and anthologies.

When ANTONY DI NARDO was 30, Arc was but a year old and those thin, paper-bound journals, from The Fiddlehead to Grain, were just beginning to fill his shelves. Now he finds his own poetry in those and other journals. He lives in Beirut where he teaches at International College.

SHANE NEILSON has just published a book of love poems with Frog Hollow Press called Exterminate My Heart. He was in love before he was thirty, and remains so now, thank you very much.

When Arc turns 30, ELISE PARTRIDGE will raise a glass and wish it many happy returns. (Partridge is the author of Fielder’s Choice and Chameleon Hours).

ALISON PICK was the winner of the 2002 Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry, the 2003 National Magazine Award for Poetry, and the 2005 CBC Literary Award for Poetry. Her second collection, The Dream World, has just been published by McClelland & Stewart. Alison lives in Toronto. She still thinks of herself as 30.

CRAIG POILE lives in Ottawa, where he works as a technical writer and is co-owner of Collected Works, which opened for business the year he turned 30. Poems from his book of poetry, First Crack (where “Thickening” first appeared) have also been recently reprinted in Seminal: Canada’s Gay Male Poets.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS PROVOST had received several prizes and distinctions for his work as a painter. His work is found in galleries and collections all over the world, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, Loto-Québec, as well as in collections in England, the U.S., Canada and Belgium.

HAROLD RHENISCH won second prize for poetry in the 2008 CBC Literary Prizes, and the 2005 and 2007 Malahat Review Long Poem Prizes. He’s using his winnings, augmented by the excellent VISA grant system, for a spring trip to Germany, to research a book on the Via Regia. He lives in Campbell River, BC.

When TADZIO RICHARDS, from western Canada, turned 30, he jumped in a lake to: a) cool down on a hot day; b) wash away lipstick and ash; C) catch fish by hand…. (Hint: it was instinct, and some residue still remains.)

ROBYN SARAH is the author of seven poetry collections (most recently A Day’s Grace), two collections of short stories, and an essay collection, Little Eurekas: A Decade’s Thoughts on Poetry. A Selected Poems in French translation, Le tamis des jours, was published last fall. She lives in Montreal.

M. A. SCHAFFNER’s poetry publications include Stand (UK), the Beloit Poetry Journal, Shenandoah, Agni, Prairie Schooner, and The Rialto (UK). Schaffner is also the author of the collection, The Good Opinion of Squirrels and the novel, War Boys. When not writing, Schaffner works as a civil servant in Washington, D.C.

BREN SIMMERS worked as a fire lookout for five years before moving to Vancouver. Look for her work in recent or forthcoming issues of Grain, The Fiddlehead, CV2 and The Antigonish Review.

When ADAM SOL was 30, he realized that he was almost the same age as Andre Agassi, and that while Adam’s career had hardly started, Agassi’s was just about over. Adam’s next book, Jeremiah, Ohio, will be published by House of Anansi in September 2008. Andre’s next book is still in development.

The day he turned 30, CARMINE STARNINO realized he was about to make an awful mistake.

CLAY STOCKTON was born in 1975 and has lived in California ever since. His writing has appeared in print and online venues based in the United States and Australia; this is his first Canadian publication.

NICK THRAN’s debut collection, Every Inadequate Name (Insomniac), was a finalist for the 2007 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. New poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Forget, Grain, the National Post and Prism International. He lives in Toronto.

MATTHEW TIERNEY is a thirtysomething who lives in Toronto. Poems of his have recently appeared in The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and Event, as well as the online magazine Jacket and the anthology IV Lounge Nights.

JOSHUA TROTTER is putting the finishing touches on a manuscript of poems called Prophets and Losses. Or Prophet and Loss. Or Loss and Prophets. He can’t decide.

Since turning 30, ZACHARIAH WELLS turned 31. He will soon turn 32. He, like the Earth, continues turning and will someday no doubt turn in his grave; into what remains to be seen.

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