Darren Bernhardt earns a living as a journalist but pulls in the occasional buck through his acrylic paintings and freelance writing. His obsession with Jack Kerouac worries his wife but impresses everyone else who sees his book collection. His dog’s name is Jack – go figure.

Erin Bidlake is an East Coast poet currently living in Calgary. Her first book, The Goddess Count, was published in 2000 by South Devon Publishing. Her work has also been published in many Canadian magazines, such as Grain, Prism, The Fiddlehead, and The Malahat Review.

Tamara Bond is an artist now living in Victoria, BC. Her books have been shown across Canada via the bookmobile project/projet mobilivre and her drawings have appeared in Grain Magazine. She is represented by the Bau-Xi Gallery in Vancouver.

Jessica Butler is originally from Saskatoon where she majored in painting at the University of Saskatchewan. She moved to Montreal to study design and computation art at Concordia University. She is interested in digital text and creative writing, bookmaking, object design, programming and electronics for artists, interactive web experiments, soft computing, cross-disciplinary integration of arts and technology, cultural theory/simulation culture, and more broadly, all things related to graphics, kinetics, and sound.

Hilary Clark was born in Vancouver. She now lives in Saskatoon, where she teaches English and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatoon. Her first book, More Light, won the 1999 Pat Lowther Award and the 1999 Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry. Her most recent book of poetry, The Dwelling of Weather, was published by Brick Books in 2003.

Don Domanskiwas born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published seven books of poetry. Two of his books (Wolf-Ladder, Coach House 1991 and Stations of the Left Hand, Coach House 1994) were short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. In 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry. His most recent books are All Our Wonder Unavenged (Brick Books 2007) and Earthly Pages (Wilfrid Laurier University Press 2007). Published and reviewed internationally, his work has been translated into Czech, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Dorothy Field is a visual artist who uses handmade paper for sculptural works and artists’ books. She is the author of In the Street of the Temple Cloth Printers and Meetings at the Edge: Paper and Spirit, both of which have grown out of her frequent travels in Asia. Dorothy’s first poetry book, Leaving the Narrow Place, has just been published by Oolichan Books.

Jackie Forrie is an artist and book designer living in Saskatoon. She has a degree in printmaking from the Alberta College of Art and Design and a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan. She has worked as a book designer and Production Manager with Thistledown Press since 1993.

Brecken Rose Hancock lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick where she writes poetry while pursuing a PhD in English. She’s interested in things like science fiction and post-modern architecture.

In 2007 Prairie Fire awarded Maureen Scott Harris first prize in their creative nonfiction contest for the essay Opening the Griefcase. Her haibun sequence, Reaching Eastend, was nominated by Prairie Fire for both a National Magazine Award and a Western Magazine Award in 2007.

Kate Hodgson was born in Lindsay, Ontario, studied English Literature at Concordia University in Montreal, and Fine Arts at University of Ottawa and University of Saskatchewan. She has had two solo exhibitions in Saskatoon and participated in several group exhibitions. Her work is in the permanent collections of the St. Nicholas Centre, Holland, Michigan, the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, The University of Saskatchewan Library and private collections in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Home is Saskatoon with Murray and the Cats.

Norma Jane originally from Kyle, SK, currently lives on a farm near Lumsden, SK. She works part-time as a registered nurse, and has interests in painting, sewing, and woodcarving.

Kirsten Johnson is a visual artist who was born and raised in Armstrong, BC, and, with a small handful of towns and cities in between, now resides in Victoria, BC where she makes art (puppets and dolls and pictures and books), bakes pies (apple and pear mostly these days), and teaches sewing, among other things.

Sean Johnston was born in Saskatoon and grew up in Asquith, Saskatchewan. He has worked across the prairies as a labourer and surveyor, received a Bachelor of Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, and recently finished a MA in Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick. His poetry and fiction has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Speak! (Broken Jaw Press). His manuscript for A Day Does Not Go By won the 2002 David Adams Richards Award for fiction. Johnston currently lives in Vancouver.

Drew Kennickell is an artist and designer who grew up in Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia and now makes his home in Toronto. He studied Biology at Acadia University and Graphic Design at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design. He has a weakness for potatoes in all their various forms.

Barbara Klar is a well-known Saskatchewan poet whose work has appeared in many Canadian periodicals. Her books are The Night You Called Me A Shadow, co-winner of the Gerald Lampert Award for the best first book of poetry in Canada in 1993, and The Blue Field, both from Coteau Books. . Her latest collection, Cypress, is forthcoming from Brick Books in 2008. She lives in an old farmhouse northwest of Saskatoon.

Judith Krause is a Regina-based writer, editor and teacher whose poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She and another 2007 Jack Pine Press author, Jeanette Lynes, were co-winners of the 2006 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize. Hagios Books will publish her fourth collection of poems, Mongrel Love, in April 2008. Current projects include work on a new manuscript and collaboration on a bilingual, multi-disciplinary site-specific installation.

Rebecca Langer is a compulsive doodler and sometime physics major attending Queen’s University this year. Her philosophy of life is to expect nothing, hope for everything, and never ever try to eat a veggie-dog without catsup ever again.

Katherine Lawrence lives in Saskatoon and works for the Royal University Hospital Foundation as Campaign Director and Development Officer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous Canadian journals and anthologies. Her first book, Ring Finger, Left Hand (Coteau Books, 2001) won a Saskatchewan Book Award. Her second collection, Lying to Our Mothers, (Coteau Books, 2006) was a finalist in the 2006 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Katherine holds a BA from Carleton University and a post-graduate certificate in Creating Writing (fiction) from Humber College. Her JackPine publication, Split Ends, is a short story.

Tim Lilburn was born in Regina. He has published six poetry collections, including his most recent, Kill-site (2003), winner of the 2003 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, To the River (1999), winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Book of the Year, Moosewood Sandhills (1994), winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry, and Tourist To Ecstasy (1989), a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in poetry. His poems have been widely anthologized. Lilburn teaches Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, BC.

Holly Luhning lives in Saskatoon. She is the author of Sway, a collection of poems. Her work has also appeared in several journals and anthologies, and has been broadcast on CBC radio. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Saskatchewan.

Jeanette Lynes' fourth poetry collection, The New Blue Distance, is forthcoming from Wolsak and Wynn in 2008. Her first novel will be published in 2008 by Coteau Books. Jeanette has been a writer in residence at the Saskatoon Public Library and Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, BC. She is a faculty member at the Sage Hill Writing Experience and will return to teach Introduction to Poetry and Fiction with Robert Currie in 2008.

Troy Mamer is a Public Programming Assistant at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, where he gives public and school tours, teaches art classes, and develops programs. He received his B. Ed majoring in art and minoring in English in 1999. Troy has been drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and teaching for the past 13 years. Troy’s photography was included in Remnant, part of JackPine’s 2002 poetry chapbook series.

Helen Marzolf is a practicing visual artist who has taught Early Twentieth Century Studies in Art and Architecture at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a former Assisant Curator at the Kenderdine Art Gallery (U of S) and from 1991–2001 was Director/Curator of the Dunlop Art Gallery at Regina Public Library. She moved to Victoria, BC in 2005 where she is Executive Director of Open Space.

Mariianne Mays is a writer, editor and sometime visual artist who draws her inspiration from the rivered city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she also lives.

Don McKay has published eight books of poetry, including Birding, Or Desire (1983), Night Field (1991), and Apparatus (1997). He has received a number of awards, including the 2007 Griffin Prize for Strike/Slip. Since 1975 he has served as editor and publisher with Brick Books, and taught Creative Writing and English at the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick. He edited The Fiddlehead from 1991 to 1996, and has served as faculty resource person at Sage Hill and Banff, where he currently holds the position of Senior Poetry Editor. He has connections with Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, where he currently resides.

Robert McNealy is a visual artist living in Vancouver, BC. He has exhibited his work extensively in North America and Europe, and collaborated on several books. He is currently caught up in the fossil record.

Darren Molnar is a violin maker and an oil painter who lives and works in Saskatoon. He has had numerous group and individual shows in Saskatoon.

Blah blah blah Ellen Quigley, blah blah native Saskatonian blah blah blah blah went to Harvard, blah etc.

Dawna Rose is a visual artist who lives in Saskatoon. Her work has been exhibited throughout Canada. She has received many awards including grants from The Canada Council and The Saskatchewan Arts Board. Smoking With My Mother is her first book and her second animated film. It won second prize in the 2006 Alcuin Awards.

Betsy Rosenwald is a painter and graphic designer. Originally from Boston, she moved to Canada after 22 years in New York City. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S., and in Canada, Europe, and Japan. A solo exhibition of paintings, Still Work, was on view at the Art Gallery of Regina in October 2006. She is the recipient of grants from the Saskatchewan Arts Board, New York Foundation for the Arts, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. She was Artist-in-Residence at the Klondike Institute for Art and Culture (2003) in Dawson City, YT. She returned to Dawson City in 2005 for a solo exhibition entitled Salvage at the ODD Gallery.

Mari-Lou Rowley has published five collections of poetry, most recently Viral Suite (2004) and Interference with the Hydrangea (2003). Her work has been published and anthologized in Canada and the US—including the Canadian Association of Physicists website—and she has performed across the continent, from Harbourfront to Bumbershoot. In May 2005, Rowley was one of two writers internationally to receive a month-long funded residency at Can Serrat Centro de Actividades Artisticas, Spain. She recently moved from Vancouver to Saskatoon where she works as science writer and is an affiliate of the Humanities Research Unit, University of Saskatchewan. 

Anne Simpson’s most recent collection of poetry, Loop, won the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize and her first collection of poetry, Light Falls Through You (2000), won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Poetry Award. Her first novel, Canterbury Beach (2001), was shortlisted for the 2002 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. In 1997, her short story Dreaming Snow shared the Journey Prize; and in 1999, she was awarded the Bliss Carman Poetry Award. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies: Atlantic Canada Poetry; Words Out There; Women Poets in Atlantic Canada; and Home for Christmas - stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland.

Simpson has spent periods of time working or studying in Italy, West Africa and the United Kingdom. Currently she lives with her family in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she has worked for seven years as the Coordinator of th Writing Centre at St Francis Xavier University. During 2002–2003, she was Writer in Residence at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

Steven Ross Smith, writer and sound poet, has published eleven books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and has appeared on more than ten recordings in group and solo contexts. His book fluttertongue book 3: disarray, won the 2005 Book of the Year Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. The chapbook Pliny's Knickers, a collaboration between Smith, poet Hilary Clark and artist Betsy Rosenwald, won the 2005 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Smith has performed his work and/or been published in England, Holland, Russia, Portugal, USA, and Canada. His new poetry book, fluttertongue 4: adagio for the pressured surround was published in the spring 2007. It is the fourth in a multi-book suite of poems. His website is at www.fluttertongue.ca.

Shelley Sopher is a visual artist who works mainly with photographs, generally in series and on a large scale. Her work has been shown across Canada, most recently in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the two provinces between which she divides her time. In a more conventional collaboration, her photographs form part of Gerald Hill’s book of poetry, 14 Tractors, to be released by NeWest Press in spring 2009. She is also at work on an installation comprising another large photographic floor piece, this time with a video component.

Jennifer Still’s poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, CV2, Other Voices, Qwerty, NewWest Review, Tart and Spring. A series of poems were dramatized for Globe Theatre’s 2003 On the Line festival and another series will be broadcast on CBC radio in 2005. Jennifer’s creative non-fiction has been broadcast on CBC Radio and her poetry chapbook, Remnant, was published in December 2002 by JackPine Press. She is the guest poet for the 2004 Sage Hill Teen Writing Experience. These poems are from her first book, Saltations.

Mina Tobin is the grandmother of Sheri and Heather Benning. Her artwork appeared in The Breath of Looking, JackPine Press 2002.

Miranda Traub is in the final stages of finishing a Master’s Degree in English at the University of Saskatchewan. She has studied creative writing with Tim Lilburn and Guy Vanderhaeghe and published work in In Medias Res, a literary journal published by St. Thomas Moore College.

Seán Virgo was born in Malta, and grew up in South Africa, Malaya, Ireland and the U.K. He immigrated to Canada in 1966 and became a citizen 1972. He has lived on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Newfoundland, various Gulf Islands, the Bruce Peninsula and—for the last few years—in Southwest Saskatchewan. His first publications were poetry, and while he still sometimes performs as a poet, he is better known for his short fiction: White Lies, Wormwood, Waking in Eden, A Traveller Came By, and a novel, Selakhi. A new collection of stories, Begging Questions, was published in the Fall of 2006. It's a joy to see a fiction writer deploying his imaginative powers to the full in an age when—given the dominance of fact—the imagination itself is under suspicion.—Patricia Robertson, National Post, January 2007.

Onjana Yawnghwe is a founding editor of the little literary journal Xerography, and has a micro-press called fish magic press. She produces small books and is a collector of envelopes."