Authors Index

Bill Waiser is one of Canada’s foremost historians. For more than three decades, he was a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan. He is now a full-time writer and public speaker. Bill has published nineteen books, in addition to plying his trade in radio, television, and print media. He’s known for an engaging, popular style that draws on the power of stories. His most recent book, In Search of Almighty Voice: Resistance and Reconciliation, was launched at the One Arrow First Nation’s community powwow at the request of the Elders.

Jo-Ann Wallace was an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. In her younger years, her poetry appeared in several now defunct periodicals, including The Canadian Forum. Her scholarly work focused on little known progressive movements and women writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More recently, her literary nonfiction appeared in venues like the London Review of Books, the Literary Review of Canada, and Prairie Schooner. At the time of her death in June 2024, she was living in Victoria with her husband Stephen Slemon and their rambunctious dog Bodhi.

Terry Watada's previous publications include an historical work, Bukkyo Tozen: A History of Buddhism in Canada, a short fiction collection, Daruma Days, a children's biography, Seeing The Invisible, and a poetry collection, Ten Thousand Views of Rain as well as the successful, main stage play, Vincent. Watada lives in Toronto.

Tom Wayman has published more than twenty poetry collections, three essay collections, two short story collections, a collection of novellas, and a novel. He has also edited six poetry anthologies. He has been Writer-in-Residence at the universities of Windsor, Alberta, Simon Fraser, Winnipeg, and Toronto. He is a co-founder of two BC alternative post-secondary ventures: the Vancouver Centre of the Kootenay School of Writing (1984-87) and the writing department of Nelson’s Kootenay School of the Arts (1991-2002). He is currently a director of the Calgary Spoken Word Festival Society and of Nelson’s Kootenay Literary Society, where he serves on the education committee and the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival organizing committee. In March 2022 he received B.C.’s George Woodcock Award for Lifetime Achievement in the literary arts. Wayman lives in Winlaw, BC.

Joanne Weber obtained degrees in English, Library Science and Education and did graduate work at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, where she became fluent in American Sign Language. She now teaches in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at Thom Collegiate. Joanne and her husband live in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pear Orchard was her first collection of poetry; The Deaf House is her first creative non fiction.

Born in Kinistino, Saskatchewan, Marlis Wesseler attended university in Saskatoon and Regina, taught school in the North, travelled extensively and has lived and worked in Regina for over forty years. The Beech Forest is her sixth book of fiction. Award winning and often nominated, her previous books include the short story collections, Life Skills and Imitating Art, and the novels Elvis Unplugged, South of the Border, and The Last Chance Ladies’ Book Club.

Caroline Wissing has a BA in English Literature from Queen’s University as well as a diploma in Print Journalism. She became a technical editor and writer in Ottawa’s intermittently thriving software industry, where she has worked for more than 12 years. Two of her stories, “Surrender” and “Gemini”, received second and third place in Ottawa’s Audrey Jessup short crime fiction contest. Voiceless is her first novel.

P. J. Worrell has studied at St. Peter’s College (Muenster, SK), The Banff Centre, and The Munster Literature Centre (Cork, Ireland) with Sarah Selecky, Connie Gault, Jessica Grant, Seán Virgo, Lynda Monahan, and Michele Roberts as mentors. She has enjoyed modest success in the world of publication and contests. Worrell grew up on a SK farm, attended Sunday School, and has always tried to be a good girl. Social work practise in mental health and geriatrics have provided fodder for her stories. She has one foot in Swift Current, SK and the other in a cabin at a northern lake.