Ken Babstock is the author of Airstream Land Yacht (Anansi, 2006) winner of The Trillium Prize for Poetry, finalist for the Governor General's Award, The Griffin Prize for Poetry, and The Winterset Award. Earlier collections include Mean, winner of The Atlantic Poetry Prize and The Milton Acorn Award, and Days into Flatspin, winner of a K.M. Hunter Award and finalist for the Winterset Prize. All three books were listed in The Globe and Mail's Books of the Year. His poems have won Gold at the National Magazine Awards, appeared widely in anthologies in Canada, the US, and Ireland. He has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Serbo-Croatian and Czech. Babstock’s most recent collection, Methodist Hatchet, appeared in spring, 2011.
Kimmy Beach's fourth collection, in Cars, was published by Turnstone Press in 2007. Beach has read across Canada and in the UK; she was the 2005 International Guest Poet for the Dead Good Poets Society in Liverpool, UK, where she launched her third book, fake Paul, onstage at the Cavern Club in Mathew Street. Her second book, Alarum Within: theatre poems, has twice been adapted as a full-length stage play and was long-listed for the ReLit award. Beach has served on several literary juries including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2010. In 2008, she served as Writer-In-Residence for the Parkland Regional Library and will hold the position again in 2012. Beach has attended Sage Hill numerous times as a participant, and can't wait to come back to St. Mike's as an instructor. She's currently working on two poetry collections, as well as a nonfiction book about Crete and a collaborative young adult novel. She lives and teaches in Red Deer, Alberta.
Facilitator - Introduction to Writing Fiction and Poetry
Barry Dempster twice nominated for the Governor General’s Award, is the author of sixteen books. His collection The Burning Alphabet won the Canadian Authors’ Association Chalmers Award for Poetry in 2005. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Ontario Premiers Award for Excellence in the Arts. He is also Acquisitions Editor for Brick Books and teaches writing workshops from Banff to Santiago, Chile. His most recent books include Love Outlandish, Ivan’s Birches and Blue Wherever.
Facilitator - Spring Poetry Colloquium
John Gould is the author of the novel Seven Good Reasons Not to Be Good, and of two collections of very short stories, most recently Kilter, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize and a Globe and Mail Best Book. His fiction has appeared in literary periodicals across the country, and has been adapted for short films. Gould has written freelance nonfiction, and has worked as an environmental researcher, tree planter, and carpenter. As an arts administrator he created and coordinated writing programs for the BC Festival of the Arts and the Victoria School of Writing. He has led writing workshops in various venues, and teaches in the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria, where he also serves on the editorial board of the Malahat Review.
Facilitator - Introduction to Writing Fiction and Poetry
Lawrence Hill's third novel was published as The Book of Negroes in Canada and the UK, and as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. It won the overall Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Ontario Library Association's Evergreen Award and CBC Radio's Canada Reads. The book was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and long-listed for both the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Award. Hill is also the author of the novels Any Known Blood (William Morrow, New York, 1999 and HarperCollins Canada, 1997) and Some Great Thing (HarperCollins 2009, originally published by Turnstone Press, Winnipeg, 1992). Hill's most recently published fiction is the short story Meet You at the Door, which appeared in the January-February, 2011 issue of The Walrus magazine. His best-selling memoir Blackberry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada (HarperCollins Canada, 2001) is about growing up in the predominantly white suburb of Don Mills, Ontario in the sixties. Hill's most recent non-fiction book The Deserter's Tale: the Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq (written with Joshua Key) was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and several European countries.
Facilitator - Fiction Colloquium
Helen Humphreys is the award-winning author of five novels, four books of poetry, and one work of creative non-fiction. Her fiction has been published around the world, and her novel, Wild Dogs has been optioned for film. In 2009 she was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence. She lives in Kingston, Ontario."
Facilitator - Fiction Workshop
Spider Robinson has won 3 Hugos, a Nebula, and numerous other international awards. His 35 books are available in 10 languages. His short work has appeared in countless magazines and anthologies. His most recent novel is Very Hard Choices. In 2006 he was chosen by the estate of Robert A. Heinlein to write the novel Variable Star based on an outline by Mr. Heinlein. In 2010 he was the Writer In Residence at the Vancouver Public Library, and created the world’s first Writers’ Podshop, an online workshop in the form of a podcast. His op-ed column The Crazy Years appeared in The Globe and Mail from 1996-2001. He has also written and/or recorded original music with David Crosby, Todd Butler and Amos Garrett. Robinson collaborated with his late wife Jeanne on the award-winning novella Stardance, for which she was invited to the National Book Festival in Washington, DC.
John Vaillant is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce (Norton, 2005), was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction (Canada). His most recent book, The Tiger (Knopf, 2010), is also an award-winning bestseller. Of particular interest to Vaillant are stories that explore collisions between human ambition and the natural world.
Facilitator - Non-Fiction Workshop