Lydia Kwa was born in Singapore but moved to Toronto to begin studies in Psychology at the University of Toronto in 1980. After finishing her graduate studies in Clinical Psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, she moved to Calgary, Alberta; then to Vancouver, BC, and has lived and worked here on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples since 1992.

Kwa has published two books of poetry (The Colours of Heroines, 1992; sinuous, 2013) and four novels (This Place Called Absence, 2000; The Walking Boy, 2005 and 2019; Pulse, 2010 and 2014; Oracle Bone, 2017). Her next novel, A Dream Wants Waking, will be published by Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn, in Fall 2023. A third book of poetry from time to new will be published by Gordon Hill Press in Fall 2024.

She won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize in 2018; and her novels have been nominated for several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Fiction.

She has also exhibited her artwork at Centre A (2014) and Massy Art Gallery (2018) and has self-published two poetry-visual art chapbooks. An essay “The Wheel of Life: From Paradigm to Presence” appears in the art catalogue In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art, and Social Practice by Haema Sivanesan (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2022).

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Isabella Wang is the author of the chapbook On Forgetting a Language (Baseline Press, 2019), and her full-length debut, Pebble Swing (Nightwood Editions, 2021), shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Among other recognitions, she has been shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year contest, The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award and Long Poem Contest and was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over thirty literary journals and three anthologies. An editor at Room magazine, she also works for poetry in canada and Massy Books, and directs her own non-profit mentorship and consulting business, 4827 Revise Revision St. (iBella Inc.).

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Sam Cheuk is a Hong Kong-born Canadian author of Love Figures, Deus et Machina and Postscripts from a City Burning. He is currently working on Marginalia, which examines the function, execution and generative potential behind censorship.

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Eddy Boudel Tanwrites stories that depict a world much like our own – the heroes are flawed, truth is distorted and there is as much hope as there is heartbreak. He’s the author of two novels: After Elias, a finalist for the ReLit Awards and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and The Rebellious Tide (Dundurn Press). In 2021, he was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada. His short stories can be found in Joyland, Yolk, Gertrude Press and The G&LR, as well as in Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press). He lives in Vancouver with his husband where he is currently writing his next novel while listening to the language of birds from his balcony.

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Bingji Ye came to Canada from Northern China. With majors in international business and economics, she graduated from Hebei University of Economics and Business and the University of Alberta. A poet, novelist and educator, Bingji wrote poems and stories for Chinese language media in Canada. Her first novel, The Trap of Yves Saint Laurent Scent, was published by one of China’s biggest publishers in 2006. The novel is about romance, conspiracy and commercial war. She has lived in Edmonton, Regina, Ottawa
and the Greater Toronto Area with her family.

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Winner of the 2019 Vallum Poetry Award and the 2020 Power of the Poets Contest for their ekphrasis of Abbas Akhavan’s variations on a landscape, Ellen Chang-Richardson’s multi-genre work has appeared in Augur, Canthius, The Fiddlehead and more. A settler of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent, Ellen currently lives/works on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe (Ottawa, ON) where they co-curate Riverbed Reading Series and write collaboratively as part of the poetry collective VII. They are the author/co-author of six poetry chapbooks and an editor for long con magazine and Room. Their debut collection is forthcoming with Buckrider Books in Spring 2024.

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Yilin Wang (she/they) is a writer, poet and Chinese-English translator who lives on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squalism and Tsleil-Waututh nations (Vancouver, BC). Her writing and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, POETRY, Guernica, Words Without Borders, Malahat Review, Room, CV2 and elsewhere. She is the editor and translator of The Lantern and the Night Moths, forthcoming with Invisible Publishing 2024, which features her translations by five modern and contemporary Chinese poets. Yilin has won the Foster Poetry Prize, received an ALTA Virtual Travel Fellowship and been a two-time finalist for the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and is a graduate of the 2021 Clarion West Writers Workshop.

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Anna Ling Kaye is a writer and columnist. She has served as artistic editor at PRISM international and Ricepaper magazines, and guest editor at The New Quarterly. Kaye’s fiction has been finalist for the Journey Prize, CBC Short Story Prize and PEN Canada New Voices Award, and won the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award. A third-culture kid of mixed-heritage, Kaye is grateful to live in Vancouver on the traditional and unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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Sheung-King (Aaron Tang)’s debut novel You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked (Book*hug Press), was a finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Award, a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads 2021 and named one of the best book debuts of 2020 by the Globe and Mail. Born in Vancouver, Sheung-King grew up in Hong Kong. His work examines “the interior lives of the transnational Asian diaspora” (Thea Lim, The Nation). He taught creative writing at the University of Guelph. He now teaches at Avenues: The World School, Shenzhen. His next novel, BATSHIT SEVEN, will be published by Penguin Random House Canada in 2024. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph

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