For the past three decades, Tracy has been working as an actor, teacher, and director in the field of music theatre, with a focus and passion towards new musicals and the nurturing of emerging artists. She is on the directing faculty for the Wesley Balk Institute in Minneapolis, MN, and for MTCA in New York City, both artist development programs. She was the founder and Artistic Director of Musical Works in Concert, a program that ran for six seasons in Toronto, developing and presenting twenty original Canadian musicals. She is a multiple Dora nominee and award-winner (for originating a role in Britta Johnson's Life After). This year, she was part of the Canadian cast of Kimberly Akimbo, and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbeine's production of Fiddler on the Roof in Toronto. Tracy has worked at regional theatres across Canada, off and on Broadway in NYC, and internationally in places such as Osaka, Tel Aviv, and Buenos Aires. She has been running her own coaching studio for the past fifteen years. 

Photo by Ann Baggley

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is an internationally produced playwright whose trilogy, The China Plays: Three Parables of Global Capital, is published by Methuen Drama. The plays—The World of Extreme Happiness, The King of Hell's Palace, and Snow in Midsummer—have been produced in Canada at the Shaw Festival and the National Arts Centre; in the U.K. at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampstead Theatre, and the National Theatre; in Japan at Haiyuza Theatre; and in the U.S. at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Goodman Theatre. Her latest play, The Unsinkable, premieres at PAC NYC in February 2027. Her honors include the Whiting Award, the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and a United States Artist Fellowship. Frances is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Writers Guild of America East, and a resident fellow at New Dramatists until 2032. She lives in Southern Appalachia.

Jorge Espinosa is an arts and cultural leadership professional with more than 15 years of experience in arts education, cultural programming, research, and community engagement. Before joining Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, he worked at the Canada Council for the Arts, leading national initiatives that supported artistic innovation, professional development, and sector capacity building. His experience includes arts impact research, Indigenous community-based education programs, and cultural leadership development. Jorge holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from McGill University and is passionate about the role of the arts in learning, well-being, and social change.

Jen Calleja is the author of the novel Vehicle (Prototype, 2023 / Invisible, 2027; a Granta Book of the Year), the memoirs Fair: The Life-Art of Translation (Prototype, 2025 / Invisible, 2026; a Guardian Book of the Day) and Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode (Rough Trade Books, 2024; 5-starred review, The Telegraph), the short fiction collection I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For (Prototype, 2020) and the poetry collections Dust Sucker (Makina Books, 2023 / The White Review) and Serious Justice (Test Centre, 2016). She has translated over twenty works of German-language literature into English (shortlisted, Booker International Prize 2019; Translator-in-Residence, British Library 2017-2019) and is co-founding publisher at Praspar Press, which supports Maltese literature in English and English translation. She has taught on the MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, currently teaches for the Granta Writers’ Workshop, and has previously devised and taught workshops and courses for the British Library, Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School, and for various universities and institutions internationally. She lives in Hastings, UK.

Dr. Aaron Tucker is the author of seven books, including the novels Soldiers Hunters Not Cowboys (Coach House Books, 2023) and Y: Oppenheimer, Horseman of Los Alamos (Coach House Books, 2018); Y was translated into French and published by Éditions La Peuplade in 2020. His writing and new media pieces have been published and exhibited across Canada, the United States, and Europe. In addition, his scholarly work on facial recognition technologies won the Governor General’s Gold Medal and is the subject of the forthcoming Flexible Faces: The History, Software, and Politics of Facial Recognition (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2026). He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English & Communication and Media Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, where he serves as the Program Director of the Creative Writing Diploma.

Oana Avasilichioaei (www.oanalab.com) works in the porous spaces between poetry, sound, performance, photography, and translation, exploring how language tunes and shapes voices, histories, modes of thinking and listening. Interested in polyphonic and plurilingual structures, she investigates tactile expression and the tension between the pitched and the unpitched in performance/sound works that mix electronics, ambient textures, noise, and vocal play. Avasilichioaei has published seven collections of poetry hybrids, including Chambersonic (Talonbooks, 2024), Eight Track (Talonbooks, 2019) and Limbinal (Talonbooks, 2015), and written a libretto for a one-act opera Cells of Wind (FAWN Chamber Collective, 2022). Based in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke, she performs regularly in theatres, art centres, and festivals in Quebec, Canada, USA, and Europe and has been a poet and artist in residence at the University of Calgary, Green College, UBC, Simon Fraser University, OBORO, and Rhizome, among others. She has been awarded the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry (2012), the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation (2017), the Cole Foundation Prize for Translation (2019), and the Bernard Heidsieck Centre Pompidou International Literature Prize (2025) for her intermedia work.

Steph is a filmmaker, arts administrator, and creative collaborator with a passion for storytelling and digital arts. A graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production, her creative practice is rooted in documentary filmmaking and exploring the stories that connect people and place.

Living and working in the Canadian Rockies, Steph is continually inspired by the intersection of landscape, art, and community. Working at Banff Centre allows her to engage with artists from around the world, enriching her understanding of creative practice across disciplines and holding space for artists to experiment, collaborate, and grow.

Whether behind the camera or supporting artists behind the scenes, she is driven by a belief in the power of digital storytelling to inspire curiosity, foster connection, and create meaningful cultural experiences.

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and the author of eight novels for adults and young adults. Her most recent novel, The Library of Broken Worlds, was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize. Her novel Trouble the Saints won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her debut short story collection, Reconstruction, was an Ignyte Award and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and been nominated for the Nebula, Ignyte, Locus and Sturgeon awards. She lives in Mexico.

Anuja Varghese is an award-winning writer of literary fiction, fantasy, and erotica/romance where women of color get leading roles! Anuja’s short story collection, titled Chrysalis (House of Anansi, 2023), explores South Asian diaspora experience through a feminist, queer, speculative lens. In 2023, Chrysalis won the Writer’s Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. In 2024, it was longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Fiction, among others. Anuja’s work has also been featured in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Queer Little Nightmares (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), and Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food (Dundurn Press, 2025). Anuja’s debut novel, A Kiss of Crimson Ash (Penguin Random House, 2026), is a medieval India-inspired fantasy romance, and the first book in a lush new trilogy pitched as Dungeons & Dragons quest meets Bollywood love story. Anuja holds a degree in English Literature from McGill University and a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Toronto. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario with her partner, two kids, and two cats.

Peggy Burns and Tom Devlin moved to Canada over twenty years ago to work for Drawn & Quarterly with Burns as Marketing Director and Devlin as Creative Director. Each made incisive business decisions to help D+Q grow into one of Canada's internationally renowned arts companies. Previously, Burns used to direct publicity at DC Comics and was a fashion and lifestyle publicist in NYC. Devlin was the publisher of Highwater Books, a groundbreaking art-first comic book company in the early aughts. He has also worked at Harvard University Press, Diamond Comics and the legendary Million Year Picnic in Harvard Square. In 2023, Burns and Devlin became majority owners of D+Q.