HOLLY BRICKLEY studied English at UC Berkeley and received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Originally from Hope, British Columbia, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two daughters. Deep Cuts is her first novel.

CLAIRE CAMERON’s most recent novel, The Last Neanderthal, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It sold in eleven territories. Her second novel, The Bear, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, sold in ten territories, and was a #1 national bestseller. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service, which her first novel, The Line Painter, also won. Claire has led canoe trips in Algonquin Park and worked as an instructor for Outward Bound, teaching mountaineering, climbing, and whitewater rafting in Oregon and beyond. She lives in Toronto.

MARCELLO DI CINTIO is the author of four books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades which won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize, and Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense—also a W. O. Mitchell Prize winner. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Walrus, Canadian Geographic and Afar.

ANTONIO MICHAEL DOWNING is the author of the acclaimed memoir Saga Boy and children’s book, Stars in My Crown. Antonio Michael is the current host of the CBC Radio program The Next Chapter. Black Cherokee is his debut novel.

TERRY FALLIS, a Toronto native and McMaster engineering graduate, is a celebrated author. His debut novel, The Best Laid Plans, won the Stephen Leacock Medal and CBC’s Canada Reads. Other notable works include No Relation, Poles Apart, and Albatross. He blogs at terryfallis.com.

JILL YONIT GOLDBERG is a Prairie-born former Montrealer living in Vancouver on unceded Coast Salish territories. Recent work has been included in Room Magazine, The London Reader, and subTerrain among others. She is co-author on The Fire Still Burns: Life In and After Residential School (Purich Books/UBC Press, 2023). She teaches literature and creative writing at Langara College.

YIMING MA grew up in Toronto and spent a decade across New York, London, Berlin, and South Africa. He went to Stanford and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, where he was a Carol Houck Smith Scholar. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub and elsewhere. His story Swimmer of Yangtze won the 2018 Guardian 4th Estate Story Prize.

HALEY MLOTEK is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others. She’s a founding member of the Freelance Solidarity Project in the National Writers Union, teaches English and Journalism at Concordia University, and is the editorial lead at Feeld.

DAVID A. ROBERTSON is the bestselling author of the ongoing Misewa Saga, the forthcoming picture book Little Shoes, and new adult titles All the Little Monsters and 52 Ways to Reconcile, and the two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award. Dave is a member of the Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.

A former journalist and current pediatrician, BINDU SURESH studied literature at Columbia University and medicine at McGill University. Born in Wales, she grew up in Canada and has spent equal parts of her life in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. She currently lives in Montreal.

EDDY BOUDEL TAN has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for his novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide. He was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His short stories can be found in Joyland, Yolk, and various literary journals and anthologies.

GEORGIA TOEWS is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel Hey, Good Luck Out There. She is also a writer for film and television. Born and raised in Winnipeg, she now lives in Toronto.