Luanne Armstrong
Author of The Colour of Water

Armstrong lives in the small community of Boswell BC, where she farms land with her parents and siblings. She has worked as a feminist researcher, a freelance journalist and a writing instructor. She teaches Creative Writing at the College of the Rockies.


Gloria Atamanenko
Co-editor of Gumption and Grit
Gloria Atamanenko was born in northern Alberta and worked as a social worker in Williams Lake.


Peter Austen
Author of Everest Canada

Peter Austen, originally from England, has lived in Canada now for more than twenty years. He has a Ph.d in Motivational / business management. However, he lives and breathes mountain climbing, having climbed in almost every country in the world from Austria to China where he led a team to tackle the highest peak in the world-Everest. Everest Canada is the story of that heart-breaking climb.


Jacqueline Baldwin
Author of Threadbare Like Lace and A Northern Woman

Born in New Zealand, Baldwin immigrated to Canada at the age of 22, and travelled extensively until she began an organic farm in Steelhead, near Vancouver. Years later, Jackie raised her three children on a farm in Loos, in the Robson Valley. She can now be found enjoying her garden 'Studio Dacha' in Prince George, BC.


Kathy Bedard
Illustrator of Little Lake Saga

Kathy Bedard is originally from Vancouver Island. She now lives in Burns Lake, but she has lived in Calgary and has been painting, mostly water colours, since 1974. Her work has won many awards.


Ken Belford
Author of Lan(d)guage, ecologue, Pathways into the Mountains, Fireweed, and The Post Electric Caveman

Born to a farming family near DeBolt, Alberta, Belford grew up in East Vancouver. In the late 1960's, he moved to the Hazelton area of Northwest BC, where he homesteaded with his wife and daughter. Together they operated a soft paths eco tourism business in the remote, unroaded Nass River headwaters at Damdochax Lake. Remarried, he now lives in Prince George, BC with his partner Si, and continues to blend the borders of poetics. Belford has published four previous books of poetry; Fireweed, The Post Electric Caveman, Pathways Into the Mountains, and ecologue.


Sage Birchwater
Co-editor of Gumption and Grit and Double or Nothing, and the author of Chiwid: Biography of a Chilcotin Woman

Sage Birchwater is the author of Chiwid and Williams Lake: Gateway to the Cariboo Chilcotin. He was a staff writer for the Williams Lake Tribune until 2009, and is the editor of Gumption & Grit: Extraordinary Women of the Cariboo Chilcotin (Caitlin Press, 2009). Sage still lives in Williams Lake, BC, and continues to write about the Chilcotin.

Jack Boudreau
Jack Boudreau has devoted his professional life to British Columbia’s forest industry working as a licensed scaler, industrial first-aid attendant and forest fire fighter mostly with the Ministry of Forests. From early childhood he has been an avid lover of the outdoors. He is a mountain climber, fisherman and naturalist. Boudreau is the author of seven BC bestsellers—Trappers and Trailblazers; Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats, Crazy Man’s Creek, Grizzly Bear Mountain, Wilderness Dreams and Mountains, Campfires and Memories and Wild & Free. He is the author of Whitewater Devils, forthcoming in fall 2010. He now lives in Prince George, BC, where he spends his time writing.


Kate Braid
Author of A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems and Inward to the Bones

Kate Braid worked as a receptionist, secretary, teacher’s aide, lumber piler, construction labourer, apprentice and journey-carpenter before finally “settling down” as a teacher. She has taught construction and creative writing, the latter in workshops and also at SFU, UBC and for ten years at Vancouver Island University (previously Malaspina University-College). She is the author of A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems, Covering Rough Ground, To This Cedar Fountain and Inward to the Bones: Georgia O'Keeffe's Journey with Emily Carr. In 2005 she co-edited with Sandy Shreve, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry. Braid's second book of poems about her carpentry experiences Turning Left to the Ladies will be published by Palimpsest Press in Fall 2009. She lives in Burnaby, BC with her partner.

Rob Budde
Author of Finding Ft. George

Rob Budde teaches Creative Writing and Critical Theory at the University of Northern BC in Prince George. He has previously published five books (two poetry collections—Catch as Catch and traffick, two novels—Misshapen and The Dying Poem, and most recently short fiction—Flicker). In 2002, Rob facilitated a collection of interviews, In Muddy Water: Conversations with 11 Poets.


Lily Chow
Author of Sojourners in the North and Chasing Their Dreams

Lily Chow was born in Malaysia, but has lived in Canada since the mid-sixties. She has taught in the Prince George School District and at the University of Northern British Columbia. She now devotes her time to researching and writing. Her previous book, Sojourners in the North, won the Jeanne Clarke history award and is used in many colleges and universities as a reference text.


Darcy Christensen
Author of Double or Nothing

Darcy Christensen was born in Ocean Falls in 1929. He purchased the AC Christensen general store from his father in the ’60s and ran it for over three decades. In the ’70s he bought a plane, got a license to fly and became the only flying fur buyer in the region. He now lives in Williams Lake, BC.


Kim Clark
Author of Attemptations

Kim Clark lives on Vancouver Island. Disease and desire, mothering and the mundane propel her ongoing journey between poetry and prose. Kim's work can be found in Body Breakdowns (Anvil Press), the Malahat Review, e-zines and other publications in Canada and the US. She was a 2010 winner in the scratch Poetry and Fiction Contests and was short-listed in The Malahat Review 2010 Novella Contest. Kim holds a BA in Creative Writing from Vancouver Island University and has edited for Artistry and Portal. Attemptations is her first book.


Ken Coates
Co-author of Traveller's Guide to Northern British Columbia

Ken Coates is a well known C canadian historian, specializing in the history of the Yukon and Northern Canada in general. While he was Vice President at the University of Northern British Columbia, he had the opportunity to travel throughout northern BC. A Traveller's Guide to Northern British Columbia is the result of these travels.It is co-authored by his wife Carin Holroyd, a university Researcher.


Marita Dachsel
Author of All Things Said & Done

Marita Dachsel was born and raised in Williams Lake, BC, and has lived in Kamloops, Dawson City, Auckland and Montpellier, France. She has an MFA in creative writing from UBC and has been published widely in Canadian literary journals. She currently lives in Vancouver.


Twila Deinard
Illustrator of A Horse of His Own and Friends From the Sea

Twila ranches near Williams Lake, BC with husband Steve and their three children. Born at Big Lake, she returned to the ranch in 1982. She is often found operating a haybaler and other heavy equipment, but finds time between ranching chores to work with pen and brush. More recently, she broadened the scope of her art work to design and market children's greeting cards.


Ben Dlin
Author of Country Doctor - A Memoir

Ben Dlin, author of Country Doctor - A Memoir, born of European Jewish refugees, has led an unusual life. His was the only Jewish family in the town of Bruderheim in northern Alberta. An indifferent student with an attitude problem in high school, he became a leading psychiatrist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He now splits his time between Pender Harbour BC and Philadelphia.

Kristeva Dowling was born and raised in Vancouver and attained her master's degree in Social Anthropology in New Zealand. In 2003, she returned to Canada and bought a small acreage in the Bella Coola Valley. Determined to grow her own food, she turned her attention to sustainable farming, started a blog on homesteading and began to write about self-sufficiency. She has been a contributor to the blog "Not Dabbling in Normal," the Coast Mountain News and the Williams Lake Tribune. She has also been published in Small Farm Canada, and has an upcoming article in Outdoor Edge Magazine about moose hunting. Kristeva is now living in Grande Prairie, Alberta.


Lorne Dufour
Author of Jacob's Prayer

Lorne Dufour has worked as a teacher, a counsellor, a logger, a travelling showman and a poet. In 1985 he played the alcoholic priest in the film The Honor of All, the story of the Alkali Lake Reserve's battle with alcoholism. Dufour has published two books of poetry, Spit on Wishes and Starting From Promise, which won the Poets' Corner Award from Broken Jaw Press in 2000. He is a handlogger and lives off the grid in McLeese Lake, BC, with his wife Diana.

Anne Edwards
Author of Seeking Balance: Conversations with BC Women in Politics

Edwards has worked as a journalist in radio, television and newspapers, and as a freelance writers for various magazines. She has co-written three published books: Exploring the Purcell Wilderness, Cranbrook 1905-2005, and The Purcell Suite: Upholding the Wild. She instructed and managed at the College of the Rockies for a decade and represented Kootenay constituency for 10 years as MLA. Edwards retired from politics and the working world in 1996, and now lives in Moyie, BC.

Effie Fahey
Author of Patience of Dearing Bay

Effie Fahey was raised by her grandparents in Wing's Point, one of Newfoundlands outports. She now lives with her family - on Canada's opposite coast - in Victoria, British Columbia.


Tor Forsberg
Author of North of Iskut

Tor Forsberg is a writer based in Watson Lake, Yukon. She is a columnist for the Yukon News and has also published in Yukon, North of Ordinary magazine. Her prize-winning short stories have appeared in subTerrain and in two recent anthologies, Bannockology and Under the Canopy. An accomplished visual artist, she has also raised ostriches on Vancouver Island and worked in a funeral home. North of Iskut is her first book.

Maureen Foss
Author of Scribes

Maureen Foss's first novel, The Cadillac Kind, was published by Polestar in 1996. The zany masterpiece was serialized on CBC's "Between the Covers." Her second novel, The Rat Trap Murders, was published by Nightwood Editions. Maureen was born in New Westminster, BC, and now lives in Lac La Hache in the Cariboo.

Betty Frank
Author of The Legendary Betty Frank

Born in 1931 during the Great Depression, Betty Frank (nee Cox) grew up in Coastal British Columbia on a tiny island named after her father in the logging and fishing community of Owen Bay just off Sonora Island. Her Dutch immigrant parents raised five children. Betty was both the oldest and the wildest. After an exciting career in the Cariboo, Betty Frank relocated to Quadra Island, but she still takes care of the lodge and cabin on Quesnel Lake where she once guided, trapped and cut shakes years ago. She cowrote her memoir, The Legendary Betty Frank, with Sage Birchwater.

Earle Frood
Author of The Wabasca Adventure

Earle Frood , now in his nineties and living in Nanaimo BC, grew up in Northern Alberta. His book, Wabasca Adventure, is a fictionalized account of one of his more dangerous adventures as a young adult.

John Grain
Author of Flylines & Fishtales

John Grain has been an avid outdoorsman since growing up on Saltspring Island in the 1960s. He has been a BC public school teacher since 1976 and is active with the BC Teachers Federation and the BC College of Teachers. He was also a fishing guide and taught the C.O.R.E hunting program. A few times each year John and his wife Kirsti still make the trek to Glimpse Lake to enjoy the fishing and to chuckle or shed a tear over those magical memories from so long ago.

The Ghostwriter
Author of The Adventures of Grey-Dawn

"The Ghostwriter," born in the Haida Gwaii realm, was raised by his grandparents—on Haida Gwaii, not far from the Golden Spruce—until he was six years old. His dad was a Native American, born in Ohio, and died when the author was just two years old. His mom was a Métis who was born in Cowley, Alberta and died when he was forty-six.

A few words from the author: "I walked the path of a renegade for many years, until 1980 when I met my wife in, of all places, the Yukon. I had a Harley and two suitcases, heading nowhere. For the last twenty-one years we have both lived, laughed, cried, loved and learned together. I tell the stories and she is my trusty scribe. Together, The Adventures of Grey-Dawn was born."


Kuldip Gill
Author of Dharma Rasa (Nightwood Editions) and Valley Sutra

Kuldip Gill was born in Faridkot District, Punjab, India. She immigrated to Canada at age five and then attended school in the Fraser Valley. She worked in the forestry and mining industries for twenty years and then obtained her PhD in anthropology from UBC. She taught at UBC, SFU, and at the Open Learning Agency. She taught a creative writing class at the University College of the Fraser Valley. Her poetry has aired on radio and has appeared in periodicals such as Event, BC Studies, Contemporary Verse 2, and AMSSA–Cultures West. She served on the editorial board of Prism International. Gill’s first book of poetry, Dharma Rasa (Nightwood Editions), was a winner of a BC 2000 Book Award.


Kate Greenaway
Co-author of Lorne Greenaway: From Horseback to the House of Parliament

Lorne's oldest child and only daughter, Kate Greenaway, worked side by side with him as he dictated the stories of his life, serving as secretary, computer technician, editor and cheerleader on Lorne's memoir project. She currently lives in Kamloops with her husband and son, where she works from home as an international HIV specialist.


Lorne Greenaway
Author of Lorne Greenaway: From Horseback to the House of Parliament

Lorne Greenaway was born in Bella Coola in 1933 and grew up in the Okanagan. He studied veterinary medicine at Guelph University and set up a practice in BC's Interior; he went on to ranching and exporting cattle before becoming a member of Parliament for the Progressive Conservative Party. Lorne suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and passed away September 13, 2010.


Jo Hammond
Author of Edge of the Sound

Before immigrating to the Sunshine Coast, Jo Hammond was a dairy farmer, a school teacher and a member of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir. She is an accomplished singer and performer and has a University Diploma in secondary education. She began her writing career as typist and editor for her husband, the author Dick Hammond, when he refused to lay his hands on a typewriter. Eventually Jo turned her attention to her own stories, writing articles for the local newspapers and then novels for young readers. Her first book, Home Before Dark, was published by Orca Book Publishers in 2005. She lives in Gibsons, BC.


Heather Harris
Author of Rainbow Dancer

Heather Harris is a professor in Native Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. Never one to be idle, she creates clothing and jewelry in the Northwest coast style. As well she and her daughters dance with the Rainbow Dancers. She says, " I'm not happy unless I'm busy...if I don't create something every day, it is not a happy day."

Sterling Haynes
Author of Bloody Practice and Wake-up Call

Raised in Alberta, Sterling Haynes received his medical degree from the University of Alberta. He served as a Colonial Officer in Nigeria, practised medicine in the Cariboo, Alberta and Alabama. Now retired, he lives in Westbank and travels extensively in Central America. His articles and poetry have been published in journals including The Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine and the Harvard Alumini Review.

Rose Hertel-Falkenhagen
Author of Wilderness Beginnings

Born and raised in Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island, Rose has lived in Canada, Germany and is now a resident of California. Her sense of adventure and travel reflect the spirit of her pioneering parents, Paul and Grete Hertel.

Rex Holmes
Author of The Spruces

Rex Holmes and his wife live in Osoyoos British Columbia. He is retired but has homesteaded, worked in the Army Signal Corps and then with BC Telephone. He says, "If I had it all to do over again, I would go with joy back to the homestead and stay there forever." He is author of one other book, The Last Summer, now out of print.

Matt Hughes
Co-author of Breaking Trail

Matt Hughes was Len Marchand's speechwriter and co communications aide during his term as Minister of State for Small Business and Minister of the Environment. Hughes is the author of two published novels and a number of short stories, but his main occupation for the past twenty years has been as a writer for hire, specializing in freelance corporate and political speechwriting, annual reports and ghostwritten newspaper articles for a wide range of clients in business and politics.


Paul Jones
Author of Pembina Country

Paul Jones lives in Vernon, BC and is active in the arts and sports scene there. He has produced several award-winning paintings as well as writing poetry and short stories. Pembina Country is his first full-length book.

Debbie Keahey
Editor of Unfurled: Collected Poetry from Northern BC Women

Debbie Keahey is an award-winning writer and editor. Her books include a collection of poetry, waking blood, a book of literary criticism, Making it Home: Place in Canadian Prairie Literature, and an anthology of women’s writing, The Madwoman in the Academy.


Betty Keller
Author of A Thoroughly Wicked Woman, Better the Devil You Know and co-author of Forests, Power & Policy: The Legacy of Ray Williston

Betty Keller was born in Vancouver, BC, and moved to the Sunshine Coast in 1980. She is a teacher, mentor, editor and a writer, and has authored or co-authored seventeen books, including biographies, histories, plays and novels. She is a founder of the Sunshine Coast’s Festival of the Written Arts and the Writersin- Residence Program. Betty has won numerous awards for her literary work. She is an avid potter, gardener and fisherperson.


Dan Kishkan
Author of Porcupines, Politicians and Plato

Dan is a popular columnist with the Cariboo Observer. He lives with his wife Linda in Nazko, a small community 75 miles west of Quesnel and 75 miles south of Prince George, on the northern fringe of the historic BC Cariboo.


G.P. Lainsbury
Author of Versions of North

G.P. Lainsbury has been teaching at colleges and universities in northern British Columbia since 1995. He is the author of The Carver Chronotope: Inside the Life-World of Raymond Carver's Fiction (Studies in Major Literary Authors, Volume 23. New York and London: Routledge, 2004); his poems, stories and articles have been published widely in journals across North America.

Fiona Tinwei Lam
Author of Enter the Chrysanthemum

Fiona Tinwei Lam is a Scottish-born, Vancouver-based writer whose work has appeared in literary magazines across the country, as well as in the Globe & Mail, and anthologies in Canada, the US and Hong Kong. Her work has also been featured as part of B.C.'s Poetry in Transit program. Her book of poetry, Intimate Distances (Nightwood 2002), was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Twice short-listed for the Event literary non-fiction contest, she is a co-editor of and contributor to the anthology of personal essays, Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood (McGill-Queens University Press, 2008). Her work will also be appearing in the anthology, Best Canadian Poetry 2010 (Tightrope Books, 2010), edited by Lorna Crozier. Her new collection of poetry, Enter the Chrysanthemum (Caitlin, 2009), depicts the journey into single parenthood, exploring themes of family, love and loss. She is a former lawyer.

Judith Lapadat
Author of Mixed Messages

Raised in Smithers, Judith Lapadat has lived in Saskatoon and in Vancouver. She now lives with her two children in Prince George where she teaches at the University of Northern Britihs Columbia. As well as a scholar and a poet, she is an accomplished painter.

Suzanne LeBlanc
Author of Cassiar, A Jewel in the Wilderness

Suzanne was born in the Gaspe[accent over Gaspe] region of Quebec and was raised in Montreal. She has also lived in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Having lived in Prince George since 1995, she is an instructor at the University of Northern British Columbia.


Mary Lawrence
Author of My People, Myself

Born on the sprawling Vernon Indian Reserve at the head of Okanagan Lake, Mary is plucked from her friendly carefree environment and placed in a cold, regimented residential school. Later she and her siblings are taken from her dysfuntional but loving family and placed in a series of dysfuntional and not-so-loving foster homes. It is a recipie for disaster, affecting her life for the next twenty-odd years.


Eldon Lee
Co-author of From California to North 52°

Eldon has been a rancher, fighter pilot, and doctor. Now retired, he is delighted to study classical Latin and Greek, as well as to pilot ultralight planes.


Todd Lee
Author of A Horse of His Own, Friends From the Sea, He Saw With Other Eyes and co-author of From California to North 52°

Todd Lee grew up on a Cariboo cattle ranch from which comes the inspiration for many of his children's stories. In his life, he was a minister, probation officer and human rights advocate.


Brendan Lillis
Author of Atlin's Anguish

Brendan Lillis was born in Haslemere, in the county of Surrey, in England, but he grew up in the neighbouring county of Hampshire. After studying management and business in London, Lillis began a successful career in sales and marketing. He worked for Beecham Group and Cadbury Schweppes Ltd. before founding Specialty Leisure Ltd. He brought the company to America in 1982, and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and Kinsale, County Cork, in Ireland. Atlin's Anguish is his first book.


Vivien Lougheed
Author of Forbidden Mountains

Vivien Lougheed is a travel writer and author of several other books, including Central America by Chicken Bus. She is a passionate traveller and loves nothing better than adversities which would make you and I vow never to leave the comfort of our living rooms again--where, of course, we'd read of her daring adventures.


June Lunny
Author of Spirit of the Yukon

June Cruickshank Lunny was born in Edmonton. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, and an honours graduate from the British Columbia Provincial Normal School. She is married, and is the mother of four sons.


Ian MacDonald
Co-Author of Disaster on Mount Slesse

Ian MacDonald is a journalist in Vancouver. He has collaborated on ten popular history books with Betty O'Keefe including The Mulligan Affair: Top Cop on the Take and The Final Voyage of the Princess Sophia.

W.B. MacDonald
Author of The Good Hope Cannery

W.B. (Bruce) MacDonald was born and raised in New Westminster, B.C. A poet and author, Bruce has published writing in The Malahat Review, Quarry, and The Antigonish Review. His poem 'i like your parents' liquor store, baby' won first prize in This Magazine's 'Great Canadian Literary Hunt'. He is the author of eight books including Heroes and The Mornin' The Psychedelic '60s Came Splashin' Through Tidal Pools. Before turning to writing, Bruce owned an award-winning advertising agency. The Good Hope Cannery is his first book of BC history.


Eva Maclean
Author of The Far Land

Eva MacLean left her settled, Presbyterian Ontario life behind in 1911to follow her young minister/veterinarian husband to the 'wilds' of northwestern British Columbia (Hazelton). It was during the days of the mining rush and railroad building boom in the early years of this country. Her book The Far Land, originally written as a family history, is now part of BC history.


Pam Mahon
Co-editor of Gumption and Grit

Pam Mahon immigrated from England to the Cariboo. She is a mentor for the 4-H program. She and her co-editors have worked tirelessly to preserve the history and memories of women in the region.


Len Marchand
Author of Breaking Trail

Born during the depths of the Great Depression to illiterate parents on a reserve in the then remote Okanagan Valley of BC, Len pursued education with single-minded determination. His love of learning earned him a Masters Degree in Forestry and he was on his way to a Ph.D and a satisfying career as a teacher and a research scientist. But a growing involvement in the North American Indian Brotherhood's fight for full citizenship for his people led into what should have been merely a two-year side-trip into politics. The NAIB prevailed on him to go to Ottawa as the first status Indian special assistant to federal minister responsible for Indian Affairs­a temporary job that segued into more than three decades in public life.


Barry McKinnon
Author of The Centre, Pulp Log and contributor to Four Realities

Barry McKinnon was born in Calgary, Alberta. He received his BA from Sir George Williams University, where he studied with Irving Layton, and his MA from the University of British Columbia. He currently is an English instructor at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, BC. He has been widely published. The Centre. was short-listed for the Governor Generals Award for poetry and Pulp Log won the Dorothy Livesay Prize (BC Book Awards) for 1991.


Margaret McKirdy
Author of The Colour of Gold

Active in Valemount, Margaret McKirdy has written for the local newspaper and has played an active part in writers groups. Out of personal interest, she researched the local history and discovered letters regarding the death of Alex MacCauly. She was intrigued and began research, and subsequently completed The Colour of Gold.

Eleanor Millard
Author of River Child

Rasied in Quesnel, BC, Elanor Millard moved to the Yukon where she has worked extensively with First Nations people, first as a social worker, a teacher and then as a member of the Legislative Assembly. She now works as a consultant based in Carcross, Yukon.

Nelson Miller
Author of Little Lake Saga

Nelson Miller was born in Quebec but has lived in many places in Canada, as well as overseas. Life, he says, is the best education. His interest in the natural world comes from living in Ft. St. James, a small town in Central British Columbia.


Barbara Munk
Author of Your Good Hat and contributor to Four Realities

Barbara Munk was born in Prince George, BC and raised in Quesnel, BC. Her maternal grandparents were the Hubles, a pioneering family in the Prince George area. Munk grew up with the CBC and read everything she could get her hand s on. She wrote secretly, hiding what she wrote. She credits Barry McKinnon and George Stanley for encouraging her to get her work into print.


G. Stewart Nash
Author of The Last Three Hundred Miles

Schooled in Preston, Idaho then Twin Bridges, Montana, G. Stewart Nash started surveying at age 17; he then became a licensed surveyor at the age of 30. After trying his hand at sales, services for realtors and micro computers, he kept coming back to what he knew best—surveying. He is still in the profession today.

Stewart now resides in Montana with his wife Sandy. He enjoys fishing, hunting, archery, gold panning and travelling.


Tim O'Byrne
Author of Cowboys and Dog Tales

Raised as an "army brat", Tim finished high school in Alberta. He then spent 16 years as a cowboy working on the big ranches in Alberta, British Columbia and the western United States. He now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his wife Chris and their son Mark.


Betty O'Keefe
Co-Author of Disaster on Mount Slesse

Betty O'Keefe is a journalist in Vancouver. She has collaborated on ten popular history books with Ian MacDonald including The Mulligan Affair: Top Cop on the Take and The Final Voyage of the Princess Sophia.

Arleen Paré
Author of Leaving Now and contributor to Walk Myself Home

Arleen Paré's first book, Paper Trail, won the Victoria Butler Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize in Poetry. Arleen completed an MFA in poetry at the University of Victoria and her poetry and prose have appeared in a number of Canadian literary journals. Before beginning a career in writing, she worked for two decades as a social worker in mental health housing in Vancouver. She now lives in Vancouver with her partner, and has two sons and two grandsons.

Gary Pearson
Author of The Creative Voice

Born in Saskatchewan, Gary Pearson has earned a Masters Degree from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently a professor with the Fine Arts Department of Okanagan University College. He is an artist in his own right and he has received many grants and awards. He has had solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, Europe, USA and Australia.


Sheila Peters
Author of The Taste of Ashes

Born and raised in the coastal town of Powell River, Sheila Peters went to Carleton University in Ottawa to study journalism; after graduation, a newspaper job brought her out to Smithers in Northern BC. Her work has appeared in several Canadian literary journals, including Event, Prairie Fire, Grain, the Malahat Review and Descant. She is the author of Canyon Creek: A Script (Creekstone Press 1988) and Tending the Remnant Damage, a collection of linked short stories (Beach Holme Press 2001). Sheila and her husband own and operate Creekstone Press. They have two grown sons and live in Smithers, BC.


Christian Petersen
Author of All Those Drawn to Me

Christian Petersen has lived in Williams Lake, BC, for most of the past twenty years. He grew up in Quesnel, and the Cariboo- Chilcotin is the landscape of his fiction. His first collection of stories, Let The Day Perish, was published in 1999 by Beach Holme Publishing and his novel, Outside The Line, was published in 2009 by Dundurn Press. He holds a BA in Writing from the University of Victoria, and a Master’s in Education from the University of New Brunswick.

Adam Pottle was born in Kamloops, BC, in 1984, and grew up in Ashcroft, Kitimat and Prince George. His first chapbook, Bereft, won the 2008 Barry McKinnon Chapbook Prize. He currently lives in Saskatoon, where he is pursuing a doctoral degree in English Literature. Beautiful Mutants is his first full-length book.


Don Precosky
Editor of Four Realities

Don Precosky is presently the Dean of Arts and Social Services at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. He is a nationally recognized literary critic and has written many articles for such journals as Canadian Literature in Review, Canadian Poetry, and the Web Journal of Contemporary Canadian Poetry and Poetics. He edited and wrote the introduction to Four Realities, an anthology of four northern writers-Barry McKinnion, Barbara Munk, Ken Belford, and George Stanley.


Doris Ray
Author of The Ghosts Behind Him

Doris Ray, a mother of four and a grandmother of five, lives in Fraser Lake in west-central British Columbia where she writes a column for the local newspaper. She is an active member in the Historical Society, the Writing Group and Library Board. She has published articles on mental health, travel and local history. She has published two chapbooks of poetry.


Al Rempel
Author of Understories

Al Rempel graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Education. In 2000 he attended the Victoria School of Writing where he began submitting poetry. He has since been published in The Malahat Review, Grain, and stonestone and anthologized in 4 Poets, Rocksalt, Half in the Sun, The Forestry Diversity Project and Down in the Valley. He has built a cabin, chopped his own firewood and grown a garden in the bush, but now prefers to write in coffee shops and watch his daughter grow up.


Sarah Roberts
Author of Wax Boats

Sarah Roberts is an award-winning writer and a graduate of the University of Victoria’s creative writing program. She has worked as a writer for the Ministry of Forests, Aboriginal Affairs, freelanced for newspapers and magazines and has published as a ghost writer. Her short stories have been published by literary journals in Canada, New Zealand, England and the United States. Roberts lives in Gibsons, BC, with her husband Eli, a bird and two tiny dogs. Wax Boats is her first book.


Murdoch Robertson
Author of A Touch of Murder Now & Then

Murdoch Robertson practised law in rural BC for almost 50 years. In his spare time, he can be found fly-fishing and perfecting the skill of making wine using birch sap base. Murdoch is the father of two and lives with his wife of fifty years in Terrace BC.

Janet Romain
Author of Grandpère

Janet Romain is Metis Canadian. She was born in Vancouver, but has lived most of her life in Northern BC. She worked in a variety of jobs from short-order cook to lumber grader, but eventually bought land where she and her husband built a cattle ranch. She has three grown children and currently lives with her husband near Ft. Fraser. She is surrounded by gardens and wildlife, just a stone's throw from where she grew up. Grandpère is her first book.


Andrea Routley
Editor of Walk Myself Home

Andrea Routley is the co-founder of Victoria, BC’s LoudSpeaker Festival, a festival of music, theatre and poetry in celebration of International Women’s Day. Walk Myself Home is her first anthology.


Susan Safyan
Editor of All Roads Lead to Wells

Susan Safyan moved to Wells from Los Angeles in 1980 and lived there until 1985. She returns to visit her friends in Wells every year and has dedicated herself to collecting and preserving their stories. Safyan works as an editor for Arsenal Pulp Press in Vancouver, BC, but still owns a useable pair of felt-packs and can kindle a fire in an airtight.

John Schreiber
Author of Old Lives

John Schreiber grew up in coastal logging communities and—for five formative, young years—in the North Thompson Valley north of Kamloops. He has worked extensively in the logging industry, in a mining camp, on a seine fishboat, in a pulp mill, as a parole officer and as a teacher-counselor for 27 years. Since the late '60s he has walked, driven and ridden through the Chilcotin region many times. Now retired, he lives in Victoria with his partner, Marne. His earlier collection of stories from the Chilcotin, Stranger Wycott's Place, was published in 2008 by New Star Books.

Bal Sethi
Author of Curtained Windows Lighted Rooms

Bal Sethi was born, raised and educated in India. He lived most of his life in the hills of the Himalayan mountain range. Love of nature became ingrained ingrained in him starting in his childhood.

After finishing post-secondary school in India and receiving his MA in English, Bal became the vice-principal (and later on acting principal) as well as head of the English department in a community college in India. He then worked as a real estate agent. He is now retired and focuses his time on his family and writing.

Raminder Sidhu
Author of Tears of Mehndi

Raminder Sidhu was born and raised in Mackenzie, BC, and now resides in Surrey. She holds a B.Ed. from the University of British Columbia and a BBA from the University of the Fraser Valley. Tears of Mehndi is her debut novel.

Roy Sinclair
Author of Paper Trees

Roy Sinclair now lives in Grasmere in the Kootenay region of British Columbia but grew up in the small but amazing community of Penny, BC. He has been, in his words, "bossing a logging crew for most of 45 years."


Gord Smedley
Author of Orcas Calling

A former newspaper editor and publisher, Gord Smedley earned a Journalistic Principles scholarship to Vancouver College (Langara), an Excellence in Outdoor Writing award from the BC & Yukon Community Newspaper Association, and an Honourable Mention at the BC Law Society awards in 1989. He now makes his living as a freelance writer and has written many newspaper articles including a feature interview with Noam Chomsky and a five-part series on spousal assault. Smedley also enjoys reading, fishing, cooking and politics.


Brian Smith
Author of Fly Fishing BC's Interior

Brian Smith is a freelance outdoor writer and photographer. His work has appeared in BCWF Outdoor Edge, The Canadian Fly Fisher magazine, The Art of BC Fly Fishing 2005 Calendar and Fly Fishing and Tying Journal. Smith has been fishing the waters of the BC's Central Interior, Cariboo, Kootenays and the Okanagan for more than twenty-five years. In his search for the perfect catch, Smith also targets steelhead and salmon in northwest British Columbia, but readily admits his love is for trout that come freely to the dry fly. Smith is an avid fly fisher, and an accomplished fly tier and rod builder. He was recognized as Contributor of the Year in 1997 for articles published in the BC Wildlife Federation's Outdoor Edge magazine. In 2008, Brian was awarded the Jack Shaw Fly Tying Award by the BC Federation of Fly Fishers. He credits his lifelong passion for fly tying to the pioneer work of the late master angler Jack Shaw, who was his friend and mentor during his formative fly fishing years in Kamloops. Smith has four children and lives with his wife Lois in Prince George, BC. Fly Fishing BC's Interior is his first book.

Susan Smith-Josephy
Author of Lillian Alling: The Journey Home

Susan Smith-Josephy is a writer, researcher and genealogist. She trained as a journalist at Langara College and has worked for a number of small town newspapers in BC. She has a degree in History from SFU, and is passionate about BC History. She lives in Quesnel, British Columbia. Lillian Alling: The Journey Home is her first book.

Dave Speck
Editor of North Coast Collected

Dave Speck lives in Sidney BC. A retired English teacher, he was one of the three major participants in the reformation of Caitlin Press after it moved to Prince George in 1991. As well as serving as chief editor and reader, he compiled and edited North Coast Collected, an anthology of the best writing from the NorthWest of BC.

Peter Steele
Author of Atlin's Gold

The author of several other books, Steele has received several international awards for his book on Arctic explorations. Peter Steele and his family have lived in Whitehorse since 1975. A British-born and trained plastic surgeon and opthamologist, Steele has lived, travelled and worked throughout the world, including such places as Bhutan, the Sahara and Katmandu. He was chief medical officer of the Grenfell Medical Service in Labrador. He served as team doctor to the international 1971 Everest expedition.


Jane Stevenson
Co-Author of The Railroader's Life

Jane Stevenson holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Victoria, majoring in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. She was curator of the Bulkley Valley Museum in Smithers and has been published in Geist, Connections Magazine, The Western Producer and Acreage Life. She is the regular historical writer for Northword magazine. She lives in Telkwa, BC.

Jeremy Stewart
Author of (flood basement

Jeremy Stewart is a UNBC graduate of English Literature and a past winner of the Barry McKinnon Chapbook Prize. The manuscript of (flood basement was shortlisted for the 2008 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Jeremy Stewart lives in Prince George, BC. (flood basement is his first book.


Bruce Strachan
Author of Hazardous Pursuit

Bruce is well-known on the northern BC scene. He has been, in his own words, "a bar-room piano player, a tire salesman, an education administrator and a provincial politician." In his monst recent reincarnation, he writes two columns, one on the political scene and one on cars for The Prince George Citizen. He also hosts a weekly radio show.

Wim Tewinkel
Author of Salish Elders

Born in the Netherlands, Wim Tewinkel studied forestry in Holland, spent three years in Kenya and then immigrated to Canada. As well as a forester, he is a notable photographer. He has spent the last twenty years working with the First Nations people of the Lilleoot-Pemberton area of British Columbia. From his friendships with the native elders and his interest in photgraphy came the book, Salish Elders.

David Thompson is a general building contractor who has lived in the Yukon Territory since 1962. His love for the land and its people has inspired him to write short storiesdescribing life in the Yukon. He has twice won Dawson City's "Authors on Eighth" writing contest for short fiction and has had stories published in local newspapers. David lives in Whitehorse with his wife Wendy, a Montessori teacher, two children Adam and Shawna, son-in-law Gary and two wonderful grandsons, Cameron and Jordon.


Karen Thompson
Co-editor of Gumption and Grit
Karen Thompson was born in the Cariboo and now works a ranch south of Williams Lake.


Margaret Thompson
Author of Hide and Seek

Born in England, Margaret Thompson immigrated to Canada in the mid '60s. Since then, she has lived in various parts of BC and is now settled into the tiny historic village of Fort St. James, BC. She has three grown children and has spent most of her working life teaching English. Her first book, Squaring the Circle was published in 1992.


Richard Thompson
Author of The Gas Tank of My Heart and The Ice Cream Bucket Effect

On October 8, 1977, Richard Thompson and Margaret Spicer were married in the small town of New Totem on the western edge of the Vast Northern Prairie. The next day they hitched a ride to Prince George on Cindy-Lou Pratt's tour bus. They've been there ever since. Richard now earns his living creating and telling tales­short ones and tall ones.

Betsy Trumpener
Author of The Butcher of Penetang

Well-known as the news reporter for CBC North, Trumpener is also a writer, and radio documentary producer. Her non-fiction and fiction writing have been published in the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, This Magazine, NOW Magazine, Monday Magazine, the Malahat Review, Event Magazine, the Queen Street Quarterly, Northword Magazine, and filling station. She was the first annual Writer in Residence for the CBC weekend arts show, North By Northwest, and she has been awarded a Western Magazine Award for her column, North of Unreal, a Jack Webster Award for Best Radio Feature, and a Jack Webster Africa Journalism Fellowship. The Butcher of Penetang is her first book.

Ursula Vaira's poems have been published in literary journals and in anthologies. The long poem "Frog River" was published as a chapbook and is forthcoming in the Portage Anthology. The title poem of this collection, "And See What Happens," was a finalist in the CBC Literary Competition and was published in slightly different form as a chapbook called A Thousand Miles. "Last One to Get There" was published in a chapbook titled Little Espinoza.

Ursula grew up in northern BC and taught school in the Arctic and on the northwest coast. She worked at Oolichan Books for ten years, then founded her own publishing house, Leaf Press, in 2001.

Born in 1904 at Gravesend, Kent in England T. A. (Tommy) Walker emigrated to the Bella Coola Valley in British Columbia in 1929. He was instrumental in establishing Tweedsmuir Park in 1937. In 1948 Mr. Walker and his wife Marion established a big game hunting outfit at Cold Fish Lake. The Walkers sold their outfit and property at Cold Fish Lake in 1968, but retained their trading post and sawmill at Tatogga Lake on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. Now retired, they live in Smithers, British Columbia.


Sue Ward
Author of One Gal's Army

Born in Montreal, brought up in Vancouver, Sue Ward has enjoyed a varied career—a singer with her own radio show by the time she was twenty-one, sales clerk, newspaper reporter and editor—you name it, she's done it. She now lives in Granisle.

Frances Welwood
Author of Passing Through Missing Pages

Since the age of twelve, Frances Clay Welwood's ambition has been to write a book. In 1990, she encountered Annie Garland Foster and this dream slowly became a reality. They never met, as Foster passed away in 1974 at the age of ninety-nine, but Welwood spent nearly two decades painstakingly researching and gathering the details of this enigmatic woman's life and her important contribution to Canadian history. Welwood is an accomplished historian and has written articles for BC History (previously BC Historical News), Manitoba History, Resolutions: Journal of the Maritime Museum of BC, and local news media. She has recently been awarded the 2010 Yandle Prize for best article in British Columbia History for her story about Lukin Johnston. Passing Through Missing Pages is Welwood's first book. Frances lives in Nelson, BC.

Ferdi Wenger
Author of Wild Liard Waters

Swiss-born, Ferdi Wenger is a best-selling author/researcher of several travel guides written in French, German and English. He has also written articles about his expeditions along some of the world's most impressive rivers for prominent publications such as BC Outdoors, The Canadian Geographic and The Globe and Mail.


Jan-Udo Wenzel
Author of Ginter

The late Jan-Udo Wenzel was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up on the North Sea island of Amrum. He came to Canada as a young man where he worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in Vancouver, Edmonton and Kamloops. He also worked in Oregon and Washington, in Europe and the Far East before settling in Prince George, BC. For more than a decade he worked for the Prince George Citizen, before publishing his own newspaper. He wrote for various European publications on Canadian subjects.


Dianne Whelan
Author of This Vanishing Land

Dianne Whelan is an award-winning Canadian photographer. She has studied journalism and documentary filmmaking and has a degree in political theory from McGill University. Whelan is currently working on a documentary film with the NFB about her experiences on the sovereignty patrol in the Canadian High Arctic with the Canadian Rangers. The film, This Land, will be released in fall, 2009. Dianne Whelan lives in Garden Bay, BC.


Gillian Wigmore
Author of Soft Geography

Gillian Wigmore grew up in Vanderhoof, BC, graduated from the University of Victoria in 1999, and currently lives in Prince George. She has been published in Geist , CV2, filling station, and the Inner Harbour Review,among others. Her first chapbook, home when it moves you, was published by Creekstone Press in 2005.

Eileen Williston
Author of Forests, Power & Policy: The Legacy of Ray Williston and Rainbows at Noon

Eileen Williston, the late wife of Ray Williston, was the main author and power behind Forest, Power, and Policy, the biography of her husband, who himself was responsible for changing the lives of the people in BC during his tenure as the Minister of Education, Lands and Forests. He oversaw the building of the Peace River Dam as well as negotiating the Columbia River Treaty.


Alice Wolczuk
Author of Discovering Sauerkraut

Alice Wolczuk, a long time resident of Prince George, had several careers including running a sawmill, and building and running Prince George's first greenhouse operation, Wolczuk's Nursery. Her first love was always been gardening and through her weekly column for the Prince George Citizen, was considered the foremost authority on gardening in the Central Interior of BC. Her book, Discovering Sauerkraut, is a result of both her Ukrainian background and her frustration about not being able to find any recipes for cooking with sauerkraut. It has become almost a cult book for people of Eastern European backgrounds and other sauerkraut devotees.

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