JAMALUDDIN ARAM is a documentary filmmaker, producer, and writer from Kabul, Afghanistan. Jamaluddin’s short story “This Hard Easy Life” was a finalist for RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in 2020. He was mentored by Michael Christie for the Writers’ Trust of Canada Mentorship program, and lives in Toronto.

Emerging Authors presented thanks to the support of RBC

CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. She has published over a dozen novels, three of which have been published by Deep Vellum in English translation. Boullosa has received numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship. Also a poet, playwright, essayist, and cultural critic, Boullosa is a Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York, and her books have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian. Other novels translated into English include Before (tr. Peter Bush, Deep Vellum, 2016), Heavens On Earth (tr. Shelby Vincent, Deep Vellum, 2017) and The Book of Anna (tr. Samantha Schnee, Coffee House Press, 2020).

MICHAEL CRUMMEY is author of the memoir Newfoundland: Journey into a Lost Nation; seven books of poetry, including Arguments with Gravity, winner of the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Poetry; and the short fiction collection Flesh and Blood. His first novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His novels The Wreckage, Galore, and Sweetland were all national bestsellers. Michael Crummey's most recent novel, The Innocents, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award. Michael Crummey lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

ELIZABETH HAY is the Giller Prize-winning author of six novels, including Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and A Student of Weather. Her memoir All Things Consoled won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction; her story collection Small Change was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. A former radio broadcaster, she spent a number of years in Mexico and New York City, and makes her home in Ottawa.

DARREL J. MCLEOD is Nehiyaw from Northern Canada, Treaty 8. He worked as an educator, chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with Assembly of First Nations. His novel A Season in Chezgh’un joins his award-winning memoirs Mamaskatch and Peyakow.

BILL RICHARDSON is the author of Last Week, an illustrated children’s book that sensitively portrays medical assistance in dying (MAiD); I Saw Three Ships, a collection of stories set in Vancouver’s West End; and Hare B&B, a picture book with illustrations by Bill Pechet.