Artists

Rocco de Giacomo

Rocco de Giacomo lives in Toronto with his wife, Lisa Keophila, a fibre artist, and his daughters, Ava and Matilda. He is a widely published poet whose work has appeared in literary journals in Canada, Australia, England, Hong Kong and the US. The author of numerous poetry chapbooks and full-length collections, his latest, Casting Out (Guernica Editions) – on the reconciliation of the author’s secular lifestyle and their deeply Evangelical upbringing – was published in April of 2023

Tanis MacDonald

Tanis MacDonald (she/her) is the author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female and six other books. Straggle was awarded an Honourable Mention for the Alanna Bondar Prize, and for the Betsy Warland Between Genres Prize. Tanis has won the Open Seasons Award for Nonfiction in 2021, the Northern Ontario Writers Award for Nonfiction in 2023, and has twice been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Tanis serves as the General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series and hosts the podcast Watershed Writers, featuring writers in the Grand River Region.

John O’Neill

John O’Neill is the author of four poetry books (including The Photographer of Wolves and Criminal Mountains, both from Wolsak and Wynn) and was most recently first prize winner in the Prairie Fire/McNally Robinson Poetry Contest. His poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines including The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Event, Canadian Literature, Queen’s Quarterly and Prism International, and have been nominated three times for National Magazine Awards.

Rebecca Diem

The emcee will be Rebecca Diem, Owen Sound Poet Laureate for 2024-25. Rebecca writes hopeful speculative fiction and poetry. Her work can be found on Reactor and Write Magazine, and she is the author of the indie steampunk series Tales of the Captain Duke. She is currently finishing her first full-length novel and working on a postpartum poetry collection inspired by beach walks with a sleeping baby.