Vancouver-based Kamal Al-Solaylee is the author of the bestseller Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, winner of the 2013 Toronto Book Award and a finalist for the CBC’s Canada Reads and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His second book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone) won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and was finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards for Nonfiction. His third book of nonfiction, Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From, was published in 2021 and was named a Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and CBC Books. His work mixes personal narrative with geopolitics and field reporting from, to date, 20 countries. He is a two-time nominee for Canada’s National Magazine Awards in the column category, winning the Gold Medal in 2019. More recently, he wrote and produced a number of documentaries for CBC’s IDEAS on subjects as diverse as the Queen of Sheba, Victorian writer Wilkie Collins and the history of port cities. He holds a PhD in English and is currently the director of the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia.

An alumnus of the 2009 Banff Centre Literary Journalism Program, Marcello Di Cintio is the author of six books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers, and, most recently, Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers. His books have been honoured with the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing, three W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prizes, and three Alberta Literary Awards – among other accolades. In addition to his books, Di Cintio has placed stories in publications such as Canadian Geographic, Afar, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and The Walrus. He has served as a writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary, the Calgary Public Library and the Palestine Writing Workshop. Di Cintio has also taught nonfiction writing to students ranging from gifted teens to former sex workers to young journalists in Gaza. He lives in Calgary.

Trained as a scientist, Dr. Monica Kidd has been an award-winning journalist for thirty years. She has worked as a staff reporter for CBC Radio and as a freelance writer, with a special emphasis on health and the environment. Her recent magazine work has appeared in The Walrus, Canadian Geographic and Alberta Views. She’s published eight books of nonfiction, fiction and fiction, has written and directed short films, including the animation The Storm, for the National Film Board in 2021, and holds graduate degrees in both biology and creative nonfiction. She lives in Calgary, where she also works as a family physician and as an associate humanities editor for The Canadian Medical Association Journal. Her ninth book, Holding Ground: The World’s Eroding Coastlines is forthcoming from Harper Collins Canada in 2027.

Jonathan Huard was generously supported by the Helen Graham Artist Award

Born in Rimouski, Qc, Jonathan Huard holds a bachelor’s degree in percussion from the Rimouski Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree with distinction from the Quebec Conservatory of Music, and an Advanced Certificate in Performance from the University of Toronto. Passionate about contemporary music, improvisation, and orchestral music, he actively pursues these interests by collaborating with several specialized ensembles in Canada, including GGRIL (Rimouski), the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and Esprit Orchestra (Toronto). Jonathan has participated in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the So Percussion Summer Institute, and several competitions, including the Prix d’Europe and the Canadian Music Competition, where he twice won first prize in percussion. In 2026, he was awarded Fourth Prize, Prix de l’Académie de musique du Québec, and Prix du Centre de musique canadienne au Québec at the Prix d’Europe Competition. In recognition of his artistic quality, advanced playing skills, and determination to pursue his career, Jonathan has received the Award of Excellence from the Quebec City Symphony Orchestra Foundation.

He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Charles Settle’s studio. His career is marked by a constant pursuit of artistic excellence, great musical versatility, and a sustained interest in contemporary composition.
 

Katy Bohinc is a poet, publisher, and data scientist. She is author of Dear Alain (Tender Buttons Press, 2014), Trinity Star Trinity (Scarlet Imprint, 2017), and Scorpio (Miami University Press, 2018). From 2013-2020 she collaborated on the esteemed Tender Buttons Press with Lee Ann Brown. Tender Buttons Press published several landmark poetry texts, from Bernadette Mayer’s Sonnets to Dodie Bellamy’s Cunt-Ups. A quarter of Tender Buttons Press authors have won Guggenheim Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Currently Katy is founder & CEO of THE RATIO, a company that studies astrology with data science. Most recently, Katy was first editor on De Kai’s RAISING AI (MIT Press, 2025), which was selected by JPMorgan as one of fourteen 2025 summer reading titles. LitHub said: “Fascinating and mercifully comprehensible to layreaders, Raising AI situates humans as the adults in the room and explores the ways in which we can and should engage with our “artificial children.” Why not give your dread a little break?”

Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short story writer and essayist. Her bestselling novels include Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, When We Lost Our Heads and Valentine in Montreal. She has won numerous prizes for her books, including Canada Reads, the Danuta Gleed Award and the Hugh Maclennan Prize. She has also been shortlisted for, among others, the Governor General Award, the Women’s Prize, and the Giller Prize. She has contributed to numerous publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Globe and Mail. Born and raised in Montreal, she lives there today.

Jonathan Yeoh is a homegrown born and raised double bassist from Calgary, and is also the Assistant Principal Double Bass of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. He has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Canadian Opera Company, while also being a previous fellow at the Music Academy of the West, winning the London Symphony Keston MAX Award in 2019.

He holds a Master’s of Music in Double Bass Performance from Boston University with Edwin Barker, and holds a Bachelor’s of Music with distinction in Performance from the University of Calgary with Charles Garrett, previous Principal Bass of the Calgary Phil. Yeoh has also worked closely with David Allen Moore, Paul Ellison, François Rabbath, and Ali Yazdanfar. When not playing the double bass, Yeoh is a voracious eater, and can often be found exercising and powerlifting to justify that habit.

Described by the New York Times as having “especially eloquent playing,” violinist Ken Hamao is a dynamic musician renowned for his sensitive interpretation, and has concertized extensively throughout the world in notable venues such as Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Melbourne Recital Centre, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, and Lincoln Center. 

As a member of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet, Ken is Professor of the Practice at Harvard University’s Department of Music. He has also held guest faculty positions at the New England Conservatory and Dartmouth College. Prior to joining the Parker Quartet, he was a member of the Ensō String Quartet from 2014 to 2018, with whom highlights include worldwide tours of Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and New Zealand. As a soloist, he has performed concertos by Giya Kancheli, Kurt Rohde, and Tan Dun, the latter of which with the composer at the podium. He also appears frequently with Argento Chamber Ensemble, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Talea Ensemble.

In addition to music, Ken’s passions include attempting to make a bowl of ramen entirely from scratch, cheering on his beloved Tottenham Hotspur while attending various live football matches around the world, and amateur woodworking.
 

Ayoun Kim was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians

Cellist Ayoun Alexandra Kim, a prize-winning performer from Korea, has been recognized by the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition and has performed at leading festivals including Music@Menlo and Kneisel Hall. She has collaborated with the Telegraph Quartet and artists such as Shai Wosner and Inon Barnatan. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School and SFCM. Her primary mentors are Natasha Brofsky, Astrid Schween, Hans Jensen, and Jennifer Culp.

claire fleming staples is a queer interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago, IL, where they teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and are co-founder of the artist-run gallery, ALMANAC. They are a long-term member of a mycelial network of underground creative communities in the United States, in which care and organizing are an important part of their practice. They regularly perform in Chicago at venues such as Co-Prosperity, The Empty Bottle, No Nation, Comfort Station, and Elastic Arts and have traveled to share work at the Raclin Museum of Art at Notre Dame University, the Museo de la Ciudad in Querétaro, México, and PS1 Iowa City. They have screened work at The Chicago Underground Film Festival, Artists Television Access and Open Signal: Video Art in Flux, and shown virtual worlds in The Wrong Biennale and the Memory Card New Art City Festival. Collaboration is an integral part of their community-grounded practice, and they have had the honor of working with artists such as Brendan Fernandes, Hunter Whittaker Morrow, Ále Campos, Odette Stout, Zekarias Musele Thompson, Hai Wen Lin, Suspended Culture, and Kyriakos Apostolodis.