Jason Allen, the Environmental Urbanist, is a city builder and community leader with a deep love of the outdoors. As the host of The Environmental Urbanist on 93.3 CFMU radio, Jason has shared the stories and knowledge of hundreds of scientists, naturalist, gardeners, farmers, urban planners and engaged citizens with people keen to learn more about the intersection of cities and climate change. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Charlie Angus has been the Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay since 2004. He is the author of eight books about the North, Indigenous issues, and mining culture, including the award-winning Children of the Broken Treaty. He is also the lead singer of the Juno-nominated alt country band Grievous Angels. Charlie and his wife, author Brit Griffin, raised their three daughters at an abandoned mine site in Cobalt, Ontario, that looks like a Crusader castle. Authors Tent, Sun Sept 11, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Sifton Tracey Anipare is a Ghanaian Canadian writer with a double major in biology and cinema who lived and taught in Japan for four years. She loves video games, bubble tea, and Japanese coffee mixes, and is an avid collector of stickers and stamps. Yume (Dundurn Press) is her first novel. Authors Tent, Sun Sept 11, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Michael Barclay is the author of the 2018 national bestseller The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip. He is also a co-author of Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985–95, to which his new book Hearts On Fire: Six Years That Changed Canadian Music 2000-2005 (ECW Press) could be considered a sequel. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Writer, musician and multimedia artist, Gary Barwin is the author of 22 books including the nationally bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates, winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award. He is a three-time recipient of the Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, has received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and has co-won the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the K.M. Hunter Artist Award. His work has been performed, exhibited and published internationally. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Exclaim! Stage, Sat Sept 10, 2:15 pm – 2:30 pm
Ralph Benmergui is best known as a TV and radio personality. First at the CBC for over twenty years and then at Jazz FM with his morning show Benmergui in the Morning. Born in Tangiers, Morocco, Ralph and his family arrived in Canada in the late fifties settling in Toronto. Ralph has had an eclectic career. Stand-up comic, singer in a band, national media, then government communications. Executive Advisor to the President at Sheridan College and along the way seeking out and becoming becoming an ordained Spiritual Director. Authors Tent, Sun Sept 11, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm (interviewing)
Nic Brewer is a writer and editor from Toronto. She writes fiction, mostly, which has appeared in Canthius, the Hart House Review, and Hypertrophic Literary, among others. She is the co-founder of Frond, an online literary journal for prose by LGBTQI2SA writers, and formerly co-managed the micropress words(on)pages. She lives in Kitchener, ON, with her partner and her dog. Suture is her first book. It was a finalist for the ReLit Award for Fiction and the Foreword INDIES Prize for LGBTQ Fiction. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Sally Cooper writes novels, creative nonfiction, screenplays and short stories. Her most recent novel, With My Back To The World (Wolsak & Wynn, 2019) was nominated for the 2021 Hamilton Literary Award and the Kerry Schooley Award. Her linked short story collection Smells Like Heaven was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit Award. Her essays have been shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and the Short Works Prize. She was a 2021 Cotton Factory Writer-in-Residence and is currently working on an essay collection and a novel. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 3:00 pm – 4:00pm
Raised in Niagara wine country, Terri Favro grew up with an electrician father who worked with the first factory robot and built his own robots at home. The experience fueled Favro’s lifelong love of science fiction, comic books, and space exploration. A novelist, storyteller, essayist, and graphic novel writer, Favro is also an award-winning advertising copywriter who worked on campaigns for emerging technologies that changed the world. Terri lives in Toronto. Authors Tent, Sun Sept 11, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Sydney Hegele (née Brooman) (they/them) was raised in Grimsby, Ontario. They attended Western University in London, Ontario, and currently live in Toronto. The Pump is their debut short fiction collection. Their story “The Bottom” was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s 2020 Open Season Awards, and they have recent work in American Chordata, Thorn Literary Magazine, and other literary journals. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Lorraine Johnson lives in Toronto, ON, and has been researching and writing about environmental issues for three decades. She is a community activist and advocate for protecting, supporting, and growing the urban forest. Johnson is the author or editor of 14 books, including 100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants for Canadian Gardens. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Jon-Erik Lappano’s debut picture book, Tokyo Digs a Garden, illustrated by Kellen Hatanaka, won the Governor General’s Literary Award and was a finalist for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award and Japan’s Sakura Medal. He has also written Maggie’s Treasure, illustrated by Kellen Hatanaka, to wide acclaim, and Song for the Snow, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler. Jon-Erik lives in Stratford, Ontario, with his family. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 1:00 pm-2:00pm
Eddie Lartey is a Hamiltonian poet — and a decorated one at that. The 2022 winner of the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam, he is also the 2021 Human Rights Film Festival Poetry Slam Champion and 2019 Toronto International Poet Slam Champion. Connection is key to the poet’s craft, a conversation built by forging authentic and transformative bonds with the audience through stories of beauty, love, struggle and triumph within the black experience. Lartey is also part of Hamilton Youth Poets (HYP), a local organization that supports the creative talent of young writers and creates programming to engage with poets in the community. Exclaim! Stage, Sat Sept 10, 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm
Fareh Malik, from Hamilton, Ontario, is a spoken-word artist, winner of the 2022 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award, Hamilton Art’s Shirley Elford Prize, and Muslim Hands Canada’s 2020 Poetry Contest. He was a Best of the Net finalist in 2021, and that same year a Garden Project recipient. His individual works have been published by literary magazines such as Waccamaw Journal, 86 Logic, Lucky Jefferson, Chitro, and Twyckenham Notes. In 2020 some of his work was on exhibit in the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Fareh tells the stories of his struggle and of the community around him in the hope that others can find inspiration and companionship in it. Exclaim! Stage, Sun Sept 11, 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm
Judith McCormack was born in Evanston, and grew up in Toronto, with several years in Montreal and Vancouver. She is Jewish through her mother, and her maternal grandparents came from Belarus and Lithuania, with her father contributing his Scots-Irish heritage. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Fiction Prize, the Journey Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award, and her short stories have appeared in the Harvard Review, Descant, The Fiddlehead, Coming Attractions, and Best Canadian Stories. She also has several law degrees, which first introduced her to story-telling, and is a recipient of the Law Society Medal and The Guthrie Award for access to justice. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 3:00 pm – 4:00pm
Robert McGill’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines including The Atlantic, The Dublin Review, Hazlitt, and The Walrus. He teaches at the University of Toronto. His previous books include two novels, The Mysteries and Once We Had a Country, and two nonfiction books, The Treacherous Imagination and War Is Here. robert-mcgill.com. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Sheila Murray’s short fiction has been published in many literary journals including Descant, The Dalhousie Review, and The New Quarterly. Finding Edward is her first novel. Murray is an advocate for social justice and currently leads a grassroots, volunteer-driven initiative that engages urban residents in adapting to local climate change impacts. She was born and raised in St. Albans, England, and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 3:00 pm – 4:00pm
Aimee Reid is an author with a background in education and editing. She taught high school English, Music, and Special Education before she began to work full-time as a writer. As a child, Aimee was a voracious reader and could often be found—curled in a corner, tucked in the crook of a tree limb, or crouched by a book rack in the grocery store aisle—carried away to the world of a book. Now Aimee sends her own stories out into the world. It brings her great joy to think of other children nestled on a lap or cuddled on a couch reading good books to share. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 1:00 pm – 2:00pm
Jamie Tennant is a writer and radio program director based in Hamilton, ON. A long-time music enthusiast, James has covered music and pop culture both locally and nationally. He is the Program Director at 93.3 CFMU at McMaster University, hosting two shows. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm (interviewing) & Sun Sept 11, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm (reading)
Andrew Wilmot is a writer and editor based out of Toronto, Ontario. They’ve won awards for screenwriting and short fiction, with myriad online and in-print credits (magazines and anthologies). They’re also Co-Publisher and Co-EIC, alongside editors Michael Matheson and Chinelo Onwualu, of the online magazine Anathema: Spec from the Margins. Their first novel The Death Scene Artist, was published by Wolsak and Wynn. Authors Tent, Sat Sept 10, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm (hosting)
