Dan Wells, bookseller and publisher, is the founder at Biblioasis. Started in 1998 as a used and rare bookstore in Windsor, Ontario, it's since gone through various manifestations, turning into a new bookstore and, in 2004, a literary press.  Since that time, Biblioasis has published over 450 titles across a wide range of genres and disciplines: poetry, fiction, literary and cultural criticism, belle lettres, history, memoir, biography, and philosophy, many of which have been nominated or won some of the leading prizes in Canada and around the world, including the Booker and International Booker, the Folio, the Giller, Governor's General, and various Writer's Trust Prizes. Quill and Quire, on their tenth anniversary, called them "the leading publisher of the unpublishable." In addition to books, Biblioasis also publishes CNQ: Canadian Notes & Queries.  Dan lives in Windsor, Ontario, with his wife and children.

Sawako Nakayasu is an artist working with language, performance, and translation – separately and combined. Recent books include Pink Waves (Omnidawn, 2023), a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker award, Some Girls Walk Into The Country They Are From (Wave Books, 2020) and the pamphlet, Say Translation Is Art (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020). Translations include The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa (Modern Library, 2020), as well as Mouth: Eats Color – Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-translations, & Originals (Rogue Factorial, 2011), a multilingual work of both original and translated poetry. Settle Her, which was written on the #1 bus line in Providence on Thanksgiving Day of 2017 on the occasion of her cutting ties with normative Thanksgiving celebrations, is forthcoming from Solid Objects. She teaches poetry, translation, and interdisciplinary art in the Literary Arts department at Brown University.

Described by the Toronto Star as “one of Toronto’s most exciting playwrights,” Michael Ross Albert is a Dora Award-nominated writer whose work has been staged across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Production credits include The Bidding War (Crow's Theatre), Beautiful Renegades (Peggy Baker Dance Projects), When I’m Gone (Mountain Movers Theatre Company), Two Minutes to Midnight (The Assembly Theatre), Miss (Unit 102), and Tough Jews (Dora Award nomination, Outstanding New Play). Michael's work has been presented in multiple Fringe festivals, including Edinburgh, Brighton, and FringeNYC. Five of his plays were staged in the Toronto Fringe Festival, including: The Huns, Anywhere (both: Patron’s Pick and Best of Fringe), and most recently, Good Old Days. He is currently working on new plays commissioned by the Stratford Festival, the Blyth Festival, and Vertigo Theatre, as well as new works supported by Soulpepper Theatre and the Vault Creation Lab. 

Photo by Shaun Benson

Jamie Ross is a newspaper journalist with the Globe and Mail, where he has served as sports editor since 2021. He joined the Globe as an assistant editor in 2015. Earlier in his career, Jamie worked as a reporter for small and mid sized dailies in New Brunswick before relocating to Toronto to cover the Blue Jays for MLB.com in 2014. As a reporter, he was a finalist for the National Newspaper Award for short feature writing in 2018, and in 2024, he was part of the team that won the NNA for breaking news for its coverage of the Canada Soccer drone scandal at the Paris Olympics. As an editor, he’s directed coverage of some of the biggest events in sports, from the Olympics to the World Cup to the Stanley Cup finals.

Dr. Daniel Scott Snelson is a writer, editor, and archivist working as an Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Design Media Arts at UCLA, where he serves as faculty for the Digital Humanities, the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies, and the UCLA Game Lab. His online editorial work can be found on PennSound, Eclipse, UbuWeb, Jacket2, and the EPC. His books include Elden Poem (Hysterically Real, 2022), Full Bleed: A Mourning Letter for the Printed Page (Sync, 2019), Apocalypse Reliquary: 1984-2000 (Monoskop, 2018), Radios (Make Now, 2016), EXE TXT (Gauss PDF, 2015), Epic Lyric Poem (Troll Thread, 2014), and Inventory Arousal (with James Hoff; Bedford Press/Architectural Association, 2011). With Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Avi Alpert, he performs as one-third of the academic performance group Research Service. His most recent book, The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), examines the networked afterlives of media-reflexive works of art and letters.

An in-demand collaborator, Christopher Bagan is celebrated for his versatility and virtuosity as a chamber musician, basso continuo specialist, and conductor. The 2024/2025 season sees Christopher perform alongside the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Chamber Choir, the Toronto Consort, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and with Early Music Alberta and the Toronto Bach Festival. He has recently conducted Opera Atelier’s Fall production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea, leading the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Christopher has performed with many of the world’s leading baroque singers, instrumentalists, and conductors in performances across the globe, including tours to Chicago’s Harris Theatre and the Royal Opera of Versailles. Recent highlights of these performances are appearances with Apollo's Fire, Les Violons du Roy, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Elora Festival, and Symphony Nova Scotia. Since 2021, he has served as the Assistant Music Director for Opera Atelier, making his mainstage conducting debut with the company in 2022 on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

“Her singing shows careful sonority, freshness and vitality”. Pro Ópera, 2023. 

Winner of the Met Laffont competition of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, Mexico district in 2022 and titular mezzo-soprano in the 2024/2025 season of the MOS Mexico Opera Studio under the direction of R. Piñero and A. Miyaki.

Her main work includes: Lead role in “Carmen” by Bizet in Medellín Colombia 2024, Anna I Die Sieben Todsünden, KurtWeill in Monterrey 2024, Orlando, Händel in Teatro Bicentenario 2023, Rosina in “Il barbiere di Siviglia” by Rossini, Dorabella in Mozart‘s “Così fan tutte“, Mabarak's “Misa deseis“, “Luisa Fernanda“ by M. Torroba, “El gato con botas” by Montsalvage, Maman, “L'enfant et les sortilegès“, Verdi's “Latraviata“. Her next engagements Carmen and Madame Butterfly in Jacksonville and New Jersey, USA.

Internationally she`s sung Rossina from Il barbiere di Sivigliaby Rossini in Daytona Beach, Jacksonville and New Jersey2024. She was soloist in Karl Jenkins's “The Armed Man” in Ireland with The Ulster Orchestra, under the baton of the renowned director of the BBC in London Neil Ferris, she`s sung concerts at Barbara Mann Hall in Florida, Loyola UniversityNew Orleans and at the Summerfest in Milwaukee, USA.

She has taken master classes with distinguished teachers such as Elīna Garanča, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Verónica Villaroel, David Gowland, Michael Sylvester, among others. Her concert repertoire includes Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Rossini's Stabat Mater and Petite messe solennelle, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.