AUTHORS AND PERFORMERS Noreen Ahmed-Ullah teaches Journalism at Centennial College, works in Media Relations at the University of Toronto, and recently reported on a National Post piece exploring the lives of Indigenous teen-aged girls in Winnipeg. She was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune for 15 years where she traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan following 9/11; she reported on Muslims in North America, wrote about gentrification and urban development, and Chicago Public Schools. She now calls Brampton home. Twitter: @nahmedullah. Samuel Archibald’s debut collection of short fiction, Arvida (Éditions Le Quartanier, 2011), won Quebec’s Prix Des Libraries 2012 and Prix Coup de Coeur Renaud-Bray 2012. He currently teaches contemporary popular culture at the University of Quebec in Montreal, where he lectures on subjects including fiction, horror movies, and video games. Twitter: @ArvidaMan. Britta Badour is a spoken word artist who performs nationwide under the moniker Britta B. In 2016, she was selected as an ArtistIn-Residence for The Power Plant Power Youth Program, mentoring youth in Regent Park through artistic engagement with an emphasis on community collaboration. Britta is a lead cast member in the musical and award winning documentary, The Journey, a film based on the revitalization of Regent Park. Twitter: @missbrittab. Patrick de Belen is an educator, speaker, and award-winning spoken word artist. His spoken word has won him a national championship, earned him the title of inaugural Youth Poet of Honour of Canada and provided the opportunity to perform across North America. Off stage, he spends his time in mentorship and leadership, encouraging youth to use storytelling to spark dialogue and to discover the power of their voices. Twitter: @Patrick_deBelen Cherie Dimaline is a member of the Georgian Bay Métis Community in Ontario. Her award-winning debut novel, Red Rooms, was published in 2007. Her 2013 novel ‘The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy’ was shortlisted for the Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature. Named Ontario Emerging Artist of the Year for the 2014 Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, she was also the first Aboriginal Writer in Residence for the Toronto Public Library. Her new fiction collection is A Gentle Habit. Twitter: @writeoncherie. Farzana Doctor is the award-winning author of three novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement and All Inclusive. Farzana was named one of CBC Books’ “Ten Canadian Women Writers You Need to Read Now” (2012), was Voted Best Author in NOW Magazine’s 2015 Best of Toronto Readers’ Choice Poll. Twitter: @FarzanaDoctor. Eden Eyasu is an Eritrean writer and journalist who has worked for both print and online media. The political situation in Eritrea prompted her to address issues related to constitutional governance and freedom of expression, but Eden utilizes a variety of mediums to communicate stories. In 2015, she served as George Brown College’s Writer-in-Residence. Eufemia Fantetti’s short fiction collection, A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love, was runner up for the 2013 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and won the 2014 Bressani Prize. Her work has been published in various anthologies including Conspicuous Accents, Emails from India, and Fish 2012. Twitter: @EufemiaFantetti. Brian Francis’s most recent novel, Natural Order, was selected by the Toronto Star and Kobo as a Best Book of 2011. His first novel, Fruit, was a 2009 Canada Reads finalist. He teaches creative writing as part of IFOA and writes a monthly advice column, “Ask the Agony Editor,” for Quill and Quire magazine. Twitter: @briantfrancis Dalton Higgins is an author, publicist and live music presenter whose six books and 500+ concert presentations have taken him to Denmark, France, Curacao, Australia, Germany, Colombia, England, Spain, Cuba and throughout the United States. His biography of rapper Drake, Far From Over, is carried in Cleveland’s Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame & Museum collection, and his Hip Hop World title is carried in Harvard University’s hip hop archive. His latest book is Rap N’ Roll. Twitter: @daltonhiggins5
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Lawrence Hill is the author of ten books, including The Illegal and The Book of Negroes. He is the recipient of various awards including The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He is a two-time winner of CBC’s Canada Reads. He is currently working on a new novel, as well as a screenplay adaptation of The Illegal. In 2015, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, received the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: The Pierre Berton Award, and was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.
Helen Humphreys’s memoir Nocturne was nominated for the Trillium Book Award and the BC National Award for Canadian NonFiction. The Reinvention of Love was a national bestseller; Coventry was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Humphreys won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for Afterimage and the Toronto Book Award for Leaving Earth. She is the recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence. Truth Is… has headlined conferences focused on social equity, gender equality, labour safety and youth motivation. Truth is… is co-director of Guelph Spoken Word and has also been named on Guelph’s Top 40 under 40. Truth is… is a multiple time individual slam champion, and a 9x national spoken word team member. In addition to slams and feature performances, Truth Is… has opened for HipHop idol K-OS and activist Angela Davis. Twitter: @truthisellipsis Chase Joynt co-authored the 2016 title You Only Live Twice. Joynt is a moving-image artist and writer whose work utilizes strategies of first person engagement to interrogate representations of gender and violence. Recently awarded the EP Canada/Canada Film Capital Award for Emerging Canadian Artist and jury awards for Best Documentary and Best Short, Chase’s work continues to be exhibited internationally. Twitter: @chasejoynt Ian Kamau is an artist, writer and performer from Toronto. He is currently a Masters student in York University’s Environmental Studies program and a writer in residence at The Theatre Centre. Ian has several music releases including his most recent, One Day Soon (2011) as well as publishing work with Vice Magazine and two anthologies of poetry. Twitter: @iankamau Patti LaBoucane-Benson is a Métis woman and the Director of Research, Training, and Communication at Native Counselling Services of Alberta (NCSA). She has a Ph.D. in Human Ecology, focusing on Aboriginal Family Resilience. Her doctoral research explored how providing historic trauma healing programs for Aboriginal offenders builds resilience in Aboriginal families and communities. Twitter: @PALB2011 Carrianne Leung is a fiction writer and educator. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Equity Studies from OISE/University of Toronto and works at OCAD University. Her debut novel, The Wondrous Woo was shortlisted for the 2014 Toronto Book Awards. She is currently working on a collection of short stories titled, That Time I Loved You. Twitter: @kayee13 Melanie Mah holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and is the author of The Sweetest One, a novel forthcoming in spring 2016 by Cormorant Books. She now calls Toronto home. Twitter: @lemonyhams Eric Mann is an Architect and Urban Planner at DIALOG Inc., a Toronto-based integrated design firm active in Canada and abroad. With a commitment to the sustainable growth of cities, Eric applies an integrated approach to his design and writing. Recent work includes project management for the master planning and design of new mixed-income, mixed-use communities, as well as urban planning of LRT transit corridors in Ontario and Alberta. Angela Misri’s life changed at a school assembly when her principal let her know that her poem had been selected for publication. She discovered that despite being of Indian descent, there were in fact other options for your life’s work than medicine or engineering. There was the world of writing. Portia Adams became her homage to her favourite detectives, and she wrote 12 casebooks about the detective in three years. Twitter: @karmicangel Dwayne Morgan founded Up From The Roots entertainment in 1994 to promote the positive artistic contributions of African Canadian and urban influenced artists. He has received the Renaissance Planet Africa Award for Career Achievement, the African Canadian Achievement Award, the Harry Jerome Award for Excellence in the Arts, and has been acknowledged by the Ontario Black History Society as a Community Trailblazer. He has published 8 books, most recently a children’s book, Before I was Born. Twitter: @dwayne_morgan Zarqa Nawaz is the creator of CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie, which ran for six seasons and was watched in over sixty countries. She has spent much of the past six years writing comedy pilots for major networks, and touring the world as a sought-after public speaker. She has been interviewed or profiled by CNN, the BBC, The New York Times and Aljazeera. Zarqa lives in Regina with her loving but long-suffering family. Twitter: @ZarqaNawaz