Writers & Storytellers

Alison Colwell spends her time crafting memoir from fairy tales and learning how to blur the lines between creative non-fiction and fiction. She graduated from the BFA program at the University of Victoria in 2002 and is now the Executive Director of the Galiano Club & Community Food Program, a charity with one of its goals being increasing food security on Galiano Island.

Her Creative Non-Fiction essays have been published in several literary journals including: The Humber Literary Review, The Ocotillo Review, Roi Faineant Literary Press, Hippocampus Magazine, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, Literary Mama and Grist Magazine. Her fiction short stories have been published in: The Orange & Bee Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Tangled Locks Journal, and Crow & Cross Keys Magazine.

Bryant Ross' storytelling talent leaves audience members aching with laughter, choking back quiet tears of heartbreak, and pondering the blood and beauty of the human condition. Bryant was the 2009 and 2014 Vancouver Story Slam champion, and has performed at numerous events including the Under the Volcano Festival of Art and Social Change, the Vancouver International Storytelling Festival, and Main Street's Car Free Day. He is a father, an artist, a beekeeper, a forty-two-year veteran of the Langley Fire Department, host of the Vancouver Story Slam, and a damn fine baker of pies.

Charles “Charlie” Demers is a Juno-nominated stand-up comedian, BC Book Prize-nominated author, political speechwriter & communications consultant, and co-star of two Emmy-winning Netflix animated series, Beat Bugs and The Last Kids on Earth. One of the stars of CBC Radio’s long-running comedy smash-hit The Debaters, he has also written jokes & speeches for leaders in politics, academia, & organized labour. He provides the voice of ‘Poutine’ on Will Arnett’s patriotic superhero send-up Super Team Canada on Crave.

Christina Shah lives in New Westminster and works in heavy industry, where she drinks from the firehose of knowledge. Her poetry has appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals. Her work has been shortlisted for the Fiddlehead’s 2021 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2023. She is one-fifth of the Harbour Centre 5 poetry collective, whose chapbook, Brine, was released in 2022. Her first video poem, “rig veda” (in collaboration with videographer Mark Mushet), was translated into Spanish and screened internationally. rig veda, her first solo chapbook (Anstruther Press), received an honourable mention for the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2024. if: prey, then: huntress is her first full-length poetry collection.

Giselle Vriesen (she/they) is an author and tarot reader living on Halalt First Nations land on Vancouver Island Canada. Her YA multicultural mythology, fantasy duology Why We Play with Fire (2024) and Why We Fight the Tide (2026) are published through Row House Publishing, distributed by Simon and Schuste

Hilary Peach is a writer, recording artist, and producer of unusual art projects. She was a founder and the director of the Poetry Gabriola Festival, an infamous interdisciplinary performance event that presented many Canadian and international artists on Gabriola Island. For twenty years she also worked as a transient welder, travelling across Canada and the United States, working in pulp mills, chemical plants, refineries, and generating stations.

In 2022 she released a memoire about this time, Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood (Anvil Press 2022).

She has a collection of poetry, BOLT (Anvil Press 2019), and has released three audio-poetry projects, Poems Only Dogs Can Hear, Suitcase Local, and Dictionary of Snakes.

Hilary Peach now works as a welding inspector and a Boiler Safety Officer, and is writing fiction.

“Jack Garton’s music and presentation defies folk labels and categories.  He delivers Freakin’ Free Flowing Fun Folk music!  Jack is above all else an exceptional entertainer and an audience connector.  He can go from insightful and vulnerable to astounding in the blink of an accordion or trumpet note or a leap from the audience to the stage.”

– Stu Muir, Artistic Director – New Moon Folk Club

Kahla Lichti is an electrician, and self published comic/zine artist. She is big into unions, loves DIY culture, and is overjoyed to be on her new journey of motherhood. She is looking forward to sharing her construction trade comics with you.

During her early years in construction, with no other women to talk to, she began talking instead to her journals, keeping copious notes to try and understand the very male culture of construction (“Why are they acting like this?  Why am I?”)  Eventually as the working days grew longer and her lines shorter, she realized she was writing poetry.  This led to her first book, Covering Rough Ground, which won the Pat Lowther Award for best book of poetry by a Canadian woman.

Marc Perez is a Filipino poet and writer living in the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in The Fiddlehead, EVENT Magazine, decomp journal, CV2, PRISM international, and Vallum, among others. A recipient of grants from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts, he has a BFA from the UBC School of Creative Writing. He is the author of the chapbook, Borderlands (Anstruther Press, 2020), and Dayo is his first full-length poetry collection.

Martin West was born in Victoria and spent his youth working and living in the Canadian west. His debut novel Long Ride Yellow won the 2018 ReLit Award for Fiction. He was previously a ReLit nominee in the short fiction category in 2016 for his collection Cretacea and Other Stories from the Badlands (recipient of a Gold IPPY award). The title story “Cretacea” was a finalist for the Journey Prize, and his story, “Miss Charlotte”, appeared in the 2017 edition of Best Canadian Stories. His second novel, The Father of Rain, was published in 2023. Martin currently lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Poet/Musician

Vancouver-based writer, unceded Coast Salish territories. Interests include the “found”, the repurposed and the critically appropriated. Books include Hard Core Logo, Kingsway, The Pornographer’s Poem and, most recently, Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems. Thirty-two years since I last read at the festival. Honoured to be back.

Nate Nate Nainers’ first book of poetry, Smokin' Holy Spirits (Galleon Books) is a psychedelic exploration of the internal fall-out of leaving evangelicalism, split into six simple steps to quit smoking. Their work looks at queerness, neurodivergence, working-class realities, and seeks resolve.

RENA GRAHAM writes culturally rich creative nonfiction that speaks to the human condition. A graduate of SFU’s Writers Studio, one of her earlier pieces was longlisted for the CBC 2017 Nonfiction Prize. She is currently revising a memoir called Infallible: A San Francisco Story and doing research for Blastphemy: Stories of Sacred Materiality.

Robin McLean worked as a lawyer and then a potter in the woods of Alaska before turning to writing. Her first story collection Reptile House won the BOA Editions Fiction Prize, was twice a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Prize, and was noted as a best book of 2015 in Paris Review. 

Her debut novel Pity the Beast was published Nov. 2o21 by And Other Stories was noted as a best book of fiction of the year in such outlets as The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, White Review,and long-listed for the Reading the West Prize.  It was a recommended paperback in the NYTimes in Nov 2022.

Her second story collection, Get'em Young, Treat'em Tough, Tell'em Nothing was published by And Other Stories in Oct. 2022, was an Editors' Choice in the NYTimes, and was longlisted for the2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

I was born and raised in the commercial fishing industry, spending the first half of my life fishing around Galiano Island and the Salish Sea, sometimes as far as Prince Rupert. Since leaving the industry, I’ve worked in the arts community as a writer, storyteller and researcher. Recognized in 2009 by the Vancouver Mayor’s award for emerging artist and in 2014 as the Vancouver Public Library’s Storyteller in Residence, my work is deeply rooted in my family history on Galiano Island.

SAM WIEBE is an award-winning and best-selling author of Pacific Northwest crime fiction. His novels about Vancouver PI Dave Wakeland (Guns Across the River, The Last Exile, Sunset and Jericho, Hell and Gone, Cut You Down and Invisible Dead) are one of the most authentic and acclaimed contemporary detective series.

Sean is a poet, activist, academic and storyteller based out of Vancouver’s downtown eastside. He has organized over 650 literary and spoken word events across Canada and the US, has performed across North America and Europe, and is the curator/Salonniére for Death Rides a Unicorn. He admires the silliness of children, clowns and other poets.

Stephen Roxborough is the middle of three children. What are the odds of his older brother growing up to be the world's foremost oddsmaker and his younger brother a Catholic Mormon? He was raised by his Canadian father, business executive, and age group swim coach, and his American mother who made whipped wax candles, fabric angels, award-winning quilts, and 14 different kinds of Christmas cookies. They were married 64 years. His Canadian grandfather graduated as far as grade 8, yet became Chairman of the Toronto Board of Education. His American grandfather was an inventor for Bell Telephone, and secretly wanted to become a minister. The author raised two boys from diapers to high school. He knows there's no retirement from parenting, and works at writing, photography, and being a better father.

An internationally acclaimed, award-winning writer, Rox has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2003, 2006), appeared at the Skagit River Poetry Festival (2004), Brave New Words (Whidbey Island, 2009) and co-edited radiant danse uv being, a poetic portrait of bill bissett (2006).

Susan Cormier is a spoken word artist, filmmaker, beekeeper, and caretaker of assorted small critters. Her lyrical essay “Advice to a New Beekeeper” won the CBC Nonfiction Prize and her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. She has received recognition in multiple literary competitions and is known for her dynamic, engaging readings. Cormier produces Vancouver Story Slam, Canada's longest-running live indie storytelling competition. She lives in Langley, British Columbia, Canada.

“The ink of Susan Cormier’s writing never dries. Its cadence and imagery run deep and leave impressions on the mind like long, heavy brush strokes….There is a realness to her writing, one that betrays experience, hard-earned wisdom, and a bright, graceful defiance against the odds. There is a subtle rage here, but it is definitely not blind, Susan knows where she is going.”– Rocco DiGiacomo, author of Ten Thousand Miles Between Us

“What holds (Susan’s) writing together is the precision of language, the intelligence with the choices made, and the humour. The humour sneaks up and surprises you.”– Rob Taylor, author of The Other Side of Ourselves

"bill bissett is a one-man culture... he is a lesson to us all." -- James Reaney



"bill bissett is my astral twin" -- Margaret Atwood



"The greatest living poet today" -- Jack Kerouac on bill bissett, Paris Review

There really isn't anyone quite like bill. That's one of the reasons he was awarded the Order of Canada and an honorary doctorate from Thompson Rivers, and why he was denounced in the House of Parliament years ago as a pornographer, and why, as poet Miranda Pearson put it, being such a non-gendered person, subsequent to his being denounced, he was the subject of a hate campaign in the 80's and 90's stoked by a homophobic shock jock in Calgary to the point where bill was actually in fear of his life and had to keep his whereabouts concealed. Nevertheless, he was shortlisted as one of three writers to be appointed the first Poet Laureate of Canada. As a measure of the generosity of his spirit, you don't need to look any further than his volunteer work as founder of the Secret Handshake Club in TO, a peer support group for people and artists with Schizophrenia. For all these reasons, for his over 60 books, for his complete dedication to his art, he's been a huge inspiration to generations of Canadian poets and the LBGTQ+ community. He's deeply loved and will be for as long as his work is out there. There's no one quite or even remotely like bill.