Though born in Romania, Oana Avasilichioaei has lived in Canada since 1987. She has published poetry, translations, and works of non-fiction in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Oana lives in Montreal where she is a freelance editor and translator, as well as a teacher of English and Creative Writing at Dawson College.

She is the author of three collections in chapbook format: Occupational Sickness (ITP Press, 2000) (translations of Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu); The Dictator's Garden (2003); and Close Your Eyes (Delirium Press, 2005).

Her recent projects include organizing the Atwater Poetry Project, a new Montreal reading series which features poets from all over Canada, and translating ancient Romanian folktales.

In Fall 2005 her first full-length collection of poetry, Abandon, will be coming out with Wolsak & Wynn.

Al Pope's novel, Bad Latitudes, was published in July 2004 by Turnstone Press, and has recently been optioned by Smack Films of Toronto. His column, "Nordicity," appears weekly in the Yukon News, and won the 2002 Ma Murray award for Best Columnist in BC/Yukon. Al attended Sage Hill's 1998 Fiction Workshop and 2002 Novel Colloquium.

He's at work on two more novels, one old and one new, and a collection of his columns. He lives near Whitehorse, Yukon.

Mansel Robinson has been Writer-in-Residence at the Berton House in Dawson City and at the University of Windsor. His most recent plays include Spitting Slag, Ghost Trains, and Street Wheat. He has two new plays in development in 2005: Picking Up Chekhov will be presented as a Platform Play at the Enbridge Playrites Festival in Calgary in March; Greasepaint & Gasoline will be part of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre's Spring Festival of New Plays in Saskatoon in May.

Mansel is scheduled to be Writer in Residence at the Regina Public Library in 2005/06. He attended Sage Hill's 1995 Playwriting Workshop.

Brenda Schmidt's second collection of poetry, More Than Three Feet of Ice, will be published by Thistledown Press in spring 2005. An earlier version of More Than Three Feet of Ice won the 2003 Alfred G Bailey Prize and was the runner-up for the 2004 John V. Hicks Manuscript Award.

Her first book, A Haunting Sun (Thistledown Press 2001), was a finalist for the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry. Schmidt took part in Sage Hill's 2003 Fall Poetry Colloquium. She lives in Creighton, a mining town in northern Saskatchewan.

Brenda's web site: http://schevv.sasktelwebsite.net/birdart.htm
Brenda's blog: http://birdschmidt.blogspot.com