MEET THE ARTISTS

1. RAYANNE HAINES is a producer, podcaster, educator and award-winning author of eight books. Her third collection, Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac House), won the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson, Alberta Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for both the BPAA Robert Kroetsch Award, and the ReLit Award. Her poetic memoir, What Kind of Daughter? (Frontenac House, 2024) was shortlisted for the 2024 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Rayanne is the creator and host of the Crow Reads podcast, is the President of the League of Canadian Poets, and an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University. A previous Writer in Residence for the Edmonton Region of Public Libraries, and Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award winner, Rayanne has performed at and hosted events across Canada.

2. DANIEL POITRAS is a half-breed poet from the Paul First Nation writing vicious Native poetry while residing in Beaver Hills House. He has been published in the Home and Away anthology (House of Blue Skies, 2009), The Malahat Review, Grain Magazine, Poets Re-Imagine Canada, a Primer for a Land beyond Acknowledgments anthology, and featured in the Poetry Pause with the League of Canadian Poets. A featured reader in the Olive Reading series and included in the Edmonton Poetry Festival’s Poetry Moves on Transit program, he is a contributor to the Polyglot Magazine: issues niteh and Aniskoverbaration. Participant of “Human Library,” in the LitFest 2024, and curator of the Dapper Dan’s Indian & Outlaw Extravaganza show featured in the Roxy Theatre for the Edmonton Poetry Festival 2025.

3. JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE'S new poetry collection is Stock (2025), a response to stock photography. Her book of lyric essays, Micrographia (2023) won the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize and the Writers Guild of Alberta Memoir Award. She is also the author of Deriving, a collection of poetry (2021) and The Bosun Chair, a lyric family memoir (2017). She is on the board of NeWest Press and lives in Edmonton on Treaty 6 territory.

4. MEDGINE MATHURIN is a Haitian-born multilingual poet and patient advocate. She is Edmonton’s current Poet Laureate. Medgine participated in the 2022 Mentorship Program with the Writers' Guild of Alberta and became a mentor in the 2022 Horizon Writers Circle, a mentorship program for underrepresented writers living in Edmonton. She is the recipient of the 2023 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund award. In 2025, she attended the Banff Centre for Creativity 2025 Summer Writers Program where she received mentorship from award-winning American poet and performer Douglas Kearney.

She is the author of the multilingual chapbook Waiting in the Land of the Living / Attendre dans le monde des vivants published by The Polyglot. Follow her at @medginespeaks.

5. RUSSELL COMRIE is an award-winning South African magician currently based in Edmonton. Known for his skillful and elegant presentations of classic and original magic and mind-reading, Russell's performances weave philosophy, psychology, and prestidigitation into a charming tapestry that, in the words of one reviewer, “makes you believe in the magic of magic!”