Adam Shoalts – 2023

Declared one of the “greatest living explorers” by Canadian Geographic, and named “Canada’s Indiana Jones” by the Toronto Star, Adam Shoalts is a professional adventurer and the author of four national bestselling books.

His career has included mapping rivers, leading expeditions sponsored by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Mountain Equipment Co-op, archaeological digs, tracking endangered species, and completing a nearly 4,000 km solo journey across Canada’s Arctic. On his expeditions he sometimes goes months without seeing another person. In 2022, he canoed and hiked from southern Canada to the Arctic.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger – 2022

Botanist, medical biochemist and author DIANA BERESFORD-KROEGER possesses a unique combination of western scientific training and an understanding of the knowledge and methods of a wide variety of traditional and alternative sources. She works to bring a better understanding and appreciation of the scientific complexities of nature to the general public. Beresford-Kroeger’s concept of bioplanning challenges ordinary people to develop a new relationship with the natural world, to view the environment as a biological system and to perform the ecological task of replanting the global forest. 

Karen McBride – 2020

KAREN McBRIDE is an Algonquin Anishinaabe writer from the Timiskaming First Nation in the territory that is now Quebec. She holds a bachelor of arts in music and English, a bachelor of education from the University of Ottawa and a master of arts in creative writing from the University of Toronto. Karen works as an elementary school teacher on her home reserve. Crow Winter is her first novel.

Andrew Forbes – 2020

ANDREW FORBES was the 2019 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University. The story collection What You Need, was a runner-up for the 2016 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Trillium Book Award. His second book, The Utility of Boredom Baseball Essays, is currently in its fourth printing. Lands and Forests is Andrew’s latest short story collection. Born in Ottawa, he spent much of his childhood in Atlantic Canada, lived in Oxford Mills, Ontario, and currently resides in Peterborough, Ontario with his wife and three children. Find him at andrewgforbes.com

Kim Fahner – 2020

KIM FAHNER lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. She was the city’s fourth poet laureate, and the first woman appointed to that role (2016-18). Kim’s latest book of poems is These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019). She is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Writers’ Union of Canada, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She blogs fairly regularly at The Republic of Poetry (www.kimfahner.wordpress.com) and she may be reached via her website at www.kimfahner.com

Terry A. Campbell – 2020/2019

TERRY A. CAMPBELL is currently a professor of education in language and literacy at Nipissing University. A storyteller and elementary school teacher before joining the department of teacher education, Terry’s practice and research interests have long been centred around the dynamics of storytelling, story writing, and story reading. Terry has travelled and published widely, presenting workshops on the central role of talk in learning and living. A storyteller at heart, Terry spins various yarns from three-minute folk tales to chapters from Homer’s Odyssey, in spaces such as classrooms, libraries, on CBC radio, and at outdoor festivals.

Waubgeshig Rice – 2019

WAUBGESHIG RICE is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. He currently works as a multi-platform journalist for CBC in Sudbury. In 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. Waubgeshig now splits his time between Sudbury and Wasauksing.

Helen Humphreys – 2019

HELEN HUMPHREYS’ most recent acclaimed work of non-fiction is The Ghost Orchard. Her previous novel, The Evening Chorus, was nominated for a Governor General’s Award and was a national bestseller. Her memoir, Nocturne, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Previous novels include Coventry, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award; Afterimage, which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; Leaving Earth, which won the Toronto Book Award; and The Lost Garden, which was a Canada Reads selection. The recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence, Humphreys lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Kelly Hill – 2019

KELLY HILL, whose middle name is Ann-with-an-E, is an award-winning book designer. During her 20 years in book publishing she has designed books for many Canadian authors, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Miriam Toews, Ami McKay, as well as international authors Kate Atkinson and Deborah Levy. Drawing on Kelly’s interest in all kinds of crafting and her love of Anne of Green Gables she created an Anne-inspired series of board books for children. Kelly uses fabrics, sewing and embroidery to create the illustrations for these books, which include Anne’s Colors, Anne’s Numbers and two brand new titles, Anne’s Alphabet and Anne’s Feelings (May 2019). Kelly lives near Eugenia, Ontario with her husband, two daughters and their yellow lab, Jack.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer – 2019/2018

KATHRYN WALSH KUITENBROUWER is the bestselling author of the novels All The Broken Things, Perfecting, and The Nette Spinner, as well as, the short story collection, Way Up. Her work has appeared in Maclean’s, The Walrus, Granta Magazine and other notable national and international journals. She teaches creative writing at Colorado College, The University of Toronto, and The University of Guelph.

Kate Harris – 2018

KATE HARRIS is a writer with a knack for getting lost. Her essays, journalism, and poetry have featured or are forthcoming in Outside, The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Arc Poetry Magazine, and The Georgia Review, among others, with citations in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. A former Rhodes and Morehead-Cain scholar, and past student of science and the history of science, she has received the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award and the Banff Mountain Book Award for Adventure Travel, and is a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize. Canadian Geographic named her one of “Canada’s greatest modern women explorers” for journeys edging the limits of nations and prudence, such as a bike ride on the Silk Road and a ski traverse of the Pamir mountains chasing after Marco Polo sheep, but writing is her preferred mode of exploration. Kate lives off-grid in a log cabin with her wife and dog on the border of British Columbia and the Yukon, with stints in Ontario for family visits and hot showers. Lands of Lost Borders is her first book.

Christine Fischer Guy – 2018

CHRISTINE FISCHER GUY’s short fiction has appeared in Descant, Prairie Fire, and The Austin Review, and has been nominated for the Journey and Pushcart Prizes. Her novel The Umbrella Mender debuted in September 2014 and was excerpted in Descant and Ars Medica. She is also an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Eighteen Bridges, Toronto Life, and Reader’s Digest, among others. She’s a fiction critic at The Globe and Mail and is currently a contributor at the LA Review of Books, The Millions, Hazlitt, The Hamilton Review of Books, The Puritan, and Ryeberg.com. She teaches creative writing for the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. She has lived and worked in London, England and now lives in Toronto.

Anne Laurel Carter – 2018

ANNE LAUREL CARTER grew up in Don Mills. She’s been a librarian, an ESL and FSL teacher, and has inspired kids and adults to read and write stories across Canada. The ideas for her 19 books came from her experiences or from interviews of other people or from the dreamscape of her imagination. She divides her time between Toronto and Nova Scotia.

Roy MacGregor – 2018

ROY MACGREGOR is the acclaimed and bestselling author of Home Team Father, Sons and Hockey, A Life in the Bush and Canadians – A Portrait of a Country and its People, as well as two novels, Canoe Lake and The Last Season, and the popular Screech Owls mystery series for young readers. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and was described in the citation as one of Canada’s “most gifted storytellers.”

Diana Beresford-Kroeger – 2017

DIANA BERESFORD-KROEGER is a world-recognized botanist, medical biochemist and author, whose work uniquely combines western scientific knowledge and the traditional concepts of the ancient world. Her books include The Sweetness of a Simple Life, The Global Forest, Arboretum Borealis, Arboretum America–which won the National Arbor Day Foundation Award for exemplary educational work on trees and forests–Time Will Tell, and A Garden for Life. Among many honours, Beresford-Kroeger was inducted as a Wings Worldquest fellow in 2010 and elected as a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2011. More recently, in 2016, the Society named her one of 25 women explorers of Canada. Her work has inspired artists and writers, as well as leading scientists. She is the author and presenter of a feature documentary, Call of the Forest, and is also at the heart of an upcoming three-part series airing on PBS called The Truth about Trees. Currently she is advocating on behalf of an ambitious global “bioplan” encouraging ordinary people to develop a new relationship with nature and join together to restore the global forest.

Kateri Akiwensie-Damm – 2017

KATERI AKIWENZIE-DAMM is Anishinaabek from the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, Saugeen Ojibway Nation, and is raising two boys in the community of Neyaashiinigmiing on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. She is an internationally-acclaimed writer, poet, spoken word artist, Indigenous commentator, and the founder and managing editor of Kegedonce Press, an Indigenous publishing house that has been producing compelling books for twenty-five years. Her recent book, The Stone Collection, was celebrated for its “luminescent prose” and was a finalist for the Sarton Literary Award. Kateri is a passionate advocate for Indigenous arts and cultures, and has recently judged both the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award for emerging writers.

Alexandra Risen – 2017

ALEXANDRA RISEN is the best-selling author of Unearthed, a meditation on love, family and cultural legacy, and our interconnectedness with nature. In the memoir, Alexandra restores a historic garden while she examines her parents’ history through their war years, and as part of the Ukrainian diaspora of Canada. Unearthed garnered excellent US literary reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal and Booklist (starred review), and spent four weeks on the Canadian national non-fiction bestseller list. She is one of three co-founding editors of the not-for-profit online literary magazine donttalktomeaboutlove.org, which explores love in literary and art forms. Devoted to nature and a closet geologist, Alexandra lives with her husband, son, and rescued dog, Hunter.

Ketha Newman – 2017

KETHA NEWMAN lives off-grid with her husband and two children in a log cabin overlooking the forested hills south of Algonquin Park, Ontario. Since graduating with a Fine Art degree from the University of Toronto in 1996, she has devoted herself to painting primarily with watercolour. This is her first book.

Adam Shoalts – 2016

ADAM SHOALTS has been called one of Canada’s greatest living explorers and in 2017 completed a nearly 4,000 km solo journey across Canada’s arctic. He’s also an historian, archaeologist, and geographer. Shoalts’ doctoral research at McMaster University examined the influence indigenous oral traditions had on European explorers in Canada’s subarctic and West Coast. He has done archaeology in four countries and enjoys long walks in the woods.

Hilary Cunningham Scharper – 2016

HILARY CUNNINGHAM SCHARPER’s current writing project is a two-volume tale unfolding in the haunted (and haunting) landscapes of the Great Lakes and their remote, 19th-century lighthouses. The first novel, “Perdita,” takes place on the northern Bruce Peninsula at a lighthouse on Georgian Bay (Lake Huron), and tells the tale of a woman purported to be the world’s oldest living person. A ghostly, gothic-hybrid—a child seemingly drowned in an 1898 shipwreck—shadows the boundary between life and death, and impedes the allegedly 134-year-old Marged Brice from passing on. A second novel, “Lonely Island,” is forthcoming. Much of Hilary’s fiction falls within the “Ecogothic,” a newly-minted sub genre of the Gothic tradition. Ecogothic literature embraces the wide range of feelings humans have toward the natural world, including emotions of love and awe as well as fear, alienation, and ambivalence.

Dr. Stephen Scharper – 2016

Dr. Stephen Scharper is associate professor at the School of the Environment and the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He is also cross-appointed in the department of anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, and is associate faculty with the Toronto School of Theology. Dr. Scharper’s research and teaching are in the areas of environmental ethics, worldviews and ecology, liberation theology, as well as nature and the city. His most recent book, For Earth’s Sake-Toward a Compassionate Ecology (Novalis 2013), explores the notion of how we are being called to develop an affective relationship with the natural world in light of contemporary ecological challenges. His other books include The Natural City-Re-envisioning Human Settlements (co-editor, University of Toronto Press), The Green Bible, co-written with his spouse, Hilary Cunningham, and Redeeming the Time-A Political Theology of the Environment (Continuum).