Suraya Ahmed is a French teacher of immigrant children from Stratford, Ontario, now living in Montreal with her husband, two young girls and a dog named Cashew.

Kate Anderson is a family physician practicing in Fergus, Ontario, and has the world’s sweetest husband plus two wonderful girls. She loves running, squash, cooking, gardening and red wine.

Bill Atkinson is a former fast-food executive and career counsellor who studied poetry with Robin Skelton at the University of Victoria. He is retired and lives in the Comox Valley.

Chris Aung-Thwin runs HomelessNation.org, a non-profit dedicated to facilitating self-empowerment and self-expression in the street community. Living in Montreal, Chris also blogs about his hometown Canadiens and teaches youth soccer.

Aaron Baxter lives in Montreal with a few roots still on Vancouver Island. He likes plants, people and vibrating strings. He is currently in love with the poem “Healing” by Wendell Berry, which profoundly affected his understanding of creativity.

Jacqueline Best is from Victoria, and now teaches political science at the University of Ottawa. She’s discovered that she quite enjoys real Canadian winters, but sometimes wishes that they weren’t quite so long.

Stephanie Bolster has published three collections of poetry, edited The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the late Ottawa poet Diana Brebner and The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008, and co-edited Penned: Zoo Poems (forthcoming from Signal Editions/Véhicule Press, fall 2009). She teaches creative writing at Concordia University.

Roo Borson is a poet and essayist living in Toronto. With Kim Maltman, she also produces collaborative work under the pen name Baziju.

Tim Bowling is the author of eight collections of poetry, including The Book Collector (Nightwood Editions 2008). He has also published several works of prose, including the non-fiction book, The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory, and the Death of Wild Culture (Nightwood Editions 2007). Every day he reads at least one poem by R.S. Thomas.

Jen Buck is a nurse practitioner from Quebec, with a home in BC, working in the Northwest Territories. She loves skiing, making jam and questioning authority.

After eight books of poetry, Toronto poet/psychiatrist Ron Charach has launched his first collection of essays, Cowboys & Bleeding Hearts. It focuses on violence, health and identity, which includes gun and taser control, the soft addictions of marijuana, video games and porn, mental health care delivery to artists, his own journey through alternative medicine, and Jewish identity and its political allegiances.

Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke, edited and selected by Jon Paul Fiorentino (Wilfrid Laurier University Press) and I & I, a verse-novel (Goose Lane Editions), are the newest poetry titles from the revered poet, librettist, and novelist.

Sherella Conley is an Idaho “Sweet Potato” and retired nurse residing near paradise in West Vancouver—looking out to the Tantalus Mountains, the Pacific Ocean and Bowen Island, watching the ferries slip by. She plays golf, weaves tapestry and paints.

Carole Devine is a registered nurse living in Pembroke, Ontario, and executive director of a retirement home. Family, community and an interest in politics are all important to her.

Jocelyne Doray lives in Montreal and works as a freelance translator into French.

Moira Farr is a writer based in Ottawa and sometimes Cobourg, Ontario. Her first published poem, “Wilderness” appeared in her high school yearbook, and contained several typos that still make her cringe.

David Franklin is deputy director and chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada. He grew up in Mississauga and is just now starting to see its poetic potential (and plans to reform his punk band for a reunion tour very soon).

Jim Good, an English teacher and dean of arts now retired from Western, lives in London and Victoria, and is happily reading what he wants, not what he must. Peter Harris calls Ottawa home and covers Parliament Hill for Global National. His wife Jess and shaggy dog Charlie put up with him.

Aislinn Hunter is the author of two books of poetry and two books of fiction. A new book of lyric essays on paratexts and thing theory A Peep Show with Views of The Interior will be published in the fall of 2009. Aislinn currently divides her time between Vancouver and the UK, where she is pursuing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.

Natasha Henderson is an artist, cartoonist, illustrateuse and felt-wool scarf maker who is happily figuring out the perfect poutine/exercise ratio in Montreal. She is originally from Comox, BC. Her “sentimental” favorite poem is “Alone,” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Chris Jennings edits Arc_’s _How Poems Work column.

Amanda Jernigan is a writer and editor currently living in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her poems are represented online in the archive of the Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org.

Chris Knight, film critic for the National Post, hails from Scarborough and lives in Toronto on the street where his dad grew up. He is married with two young sons. His favourite poem is Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice:” “I steal from it regularly, making up my own ‘lyrics’ to fit its melody.”

Geoff Lahey is a federal public servant from Louisbourg, Nova Scotia now living in Halifax with wife Jacqueline and son Justin. He loves running in Point Pleasant Park and spending time with his family.

Phyllis Lahey grew up on a farm in Burlington, Ontario (which is now a mall, to her dismay). She worked for many years a medical receptionist for psychiatrists. She has four grown children—a sales manager, writer, teacher and engineer—and two grandchildren.

Wendy Lahey works for the Northwest Territories Recreation and Parks Association. She is a former wilderness guide for Outward Bound and taught high school in Bogota, Colombia for three years. She lives in Yellowknife with her boyfriend and their retired sled dog, Taiga.

David Kosub is a professional writer and reviewer living in Victoria, B.C. He has written for Books in Canada, Quill and Quire, Fiddlehead and other Canadian literary journals

Ross Leckie is the author of three collections of poetry: A Slow Light (Signal Editions); The Authority of Roses (Brick Books); and Gravity’s Plumb Line (Gaspereau Press). He is the director of creative writing at the University of New Brunswick, editor of The Fiddlehead, and poetry editor for Goose Lane Editions.

Henry Ledingham is a boy who lives on a farm and likes to play soccer. His favourite poem is Hop on Pop.

Lori Ledingham is an editor and journalist who doesn’t read poetry as often as she should.

Kisa Macdonald is studying law at the University of Victoria. Most of her days are full of case law and poetry. But when evening comes, she is usually playing her violin on the edge of the Gorge.

Margo MacDonald is a professional actor from Ottawa, where she is a longtime member of the Shakespeare troupe A Company of Fools and has recently started writing her own plays. Her favourite poem is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot: “It was the first real bit of poetry that I ever delved to the bottom of.”

Mary Mackenzie is a clinical exercise physiologist in cardiac rehab from Toronto, now living in Vancouver with her husband and two children. She loves hiking, skiing, gardening and walking her dog.

Jorden Marshall is from the Comox Valley. He and his wife Sherry own and operate a chocolate shop, bakery and greeting card & gift store. They have 2 kids each (blender family).

Richard McAlpine is a pure water technologist living in the lower Laurentians with his wife, a physiotherapist. He is the proud father of Heather, a PhD candidate at Ottawa U, and Michael, an engineering student at Concordia.

Jenny McMaster is an artist and curator from Ottawa. She is currently living in Montreal, completing a master’s in art education at Concordia University. She can’t stop coming up with new art mediums.

Fred Milsum is an investment advisor. On the weekends, he likes to paint and work on getting the woodpile full for winter.

François Nadeau is an archivist in Montreal wondering how to live a life less cluttered; right now he would quite enjoy being barefoot in the Old Port savouring an ice cream.

Shane Neilson edited an anthology of Alden Nowlan’s medical poems titled Alden Nowlan and Illness.

Sabrina Ovesen is a Vancouver-based artist and honours graduate of Ryerson University in Toronto. After completing school, she lived briefly in Prince George, B.C., and held her first solo show, Self-Portraits, at the Prince George Art Gallery in 1999. Ovesen has exhibited widely throughout B.C. and in Toronto.

Douglas Parker is an entomologist in Ottawa with a passion for Victorian prose and poetry. His favourite is “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy: “It may not have much in common with ‘Back Road Farm,’ but both have a country flavour and a respect for the constancy of nature. Hardy’s poem is much more bleak and pessimistic.”

Rob Phillips is a realtor in Courtenay, BC. He’s a proud father of three grown-up kids, an avid cruciverbalist and reader of fiction.

Teresa Phillips, raised in West Vancouver, is now happily transplanted into the Comox Valley, BC. Doting mother of three, she loves her family, friends and gardening.

Lynda Grace Philippsen of Metro Vancouver reviews for Arc Poetry Magazine, the Globe & Mail, Kyoto Journal: Perspectives from Asia, and The Vancouver Sun. She is a contributor to A Verse Map of Vancouver and Half in the Sun: Anthology of Mennonite Writing.

Alessandro Porco is the author of Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems (ECW Press, 2008). Currently, at SUNY-Buffalo, he is writing a dissertation on hip-hop and American poetry. Porco writes “In Extremis,” an online column for Maisonneuve, and he is also a regular reviewer for Canadian Notes and Queries.

Shane Rhodes’ most recent book of poetry, The Bindery, published by NeWest Press, won the 2008 Lampman-Scott Award for poetry. Shane has also received an Alberta Book Award, a previous Lampman-Scott Award, and The Malahat Review 2009 P. K. Page Founder’s Award for Poetry. Shane lives and writes in Ottawa.

Margaret Rigg is a 64-year-old great-grandmother in West Yorkshire, England, with an ever-growing, lovely family. Before she retired she was a credit controller, which means she harassed people to pay outstanding bills—quite successfully too! Poetry keeps her sane.

Simon Rollin is 14 years old and plays the baritone sax. His favourite song to play is Meet the Flintstones.

Artist and designer Heather Ross runs her own gallery/boutique, Heather Ross [In House], in Vancouver, where she lives with her boyfriend and cat Griffin. She also works as a photographer for such magazines as Canadian House & Home and Western Living.

Carol Sanford, born and raised in Montreal, now resides in Prince George, BC, with her family. She is completing a master’s degree in social work and working with adjudicated youth.

David Seymour’s book Inter Alia, published by Brick Books, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award (for best first book in Canada). His work has most recently appeared in the inaugural 2008 Best Canadian Poetry Anthology, and he was a finalist in the 2009 CBC Literary Awards. He lives in Toronto, where he writes and works in film.

Sandy Shreve’s most recent books are Suddenly, So Much (Exile Editions, 2005), and In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry (co-edited with Kate Braid, Polestar, 2005). Born in Quebec and raised in Sackville, New Brunswick, she now lives in Vancouver.

Peter Simpson is a PEI native who covers arts for the Ottawa Citizen. He lives with his wife, Jennifer Campbell, who is also a journalist, and two cats, Dief and Baker, who are not. He wrote this in Brussels, after several steins of beer, so it should be considered as dubious.

Janice Thorburn is an accountant from Vancouver Island. She lives on a small farm with her husband, daughter, son and practical farm animals such as fainting goats. David Turbitt lives in the country and enjoys eating puffed wheat squares with his friends.

Zachariah Wells is a writer, editor and passenger train attendant living in Halifax. Past works include Unsettled (poems); Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets (anthology) and Anything But Hank! (children’s picture book, co-written with Rachel Lebowitz and illustrated by Eric Orchard). Forthcoming books are Track & Trace (poems, fall 2009) and Career Limiting Moves (essays and reviews, 2010). Visit his website: zachariahwells.com.

Bernadette Wyton is a grandmother who loves her family, animals, gardens, and homes in Port Alberni and Bamfield, BC. She works in furniture manufacture, healing touch, and air quality science. She enjoys weaving, running, and mind-training— Tibetan style.

Keith Wyton lives in Port Alberni, BC and has a furniture manufacturing business. He grew up on a grain farm near Newdale, and raised his family in Bamfield, a small fishing village, where he and his family still spend time at their oceanside retreat.

Thomas Young is a community development professional with extensive experience in project management, especially in cultural and ecotourism development. He lives in Upper Economy, Nova Scotia. One of his favourite poems is “Low Tide on the Grand Pre,” by Bliss Carmen.

Naji El Zein, a recent immigrant to Canada from Lebanon, used to work as a sales manager for Nestle, a job that had him jet-setting around the Middle East. He’s now completing a graduate diploma in business management at McGill University.

Arc Annual 2010 | Press Release | Table of Contents | Contributors | Cover Credit | Purchase