Who We Are

Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist from Hamilton. His bestselling novel, Yiddish for Pirates won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and the Hamilton Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award. His latest book is No TV for Woodpeckers. His latest collections are the visual works, Broken Light (Penteract Press, 2017) and Quantum Typography (Timglaset Editions, 2018.) He is currently Writer in Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library. garybarwin.com

Chris Pannell has published six books of poetry. His collection A Nervous City (released in 2013) won the Kerry Schooley Book Award from the Hamilton Arts Council. In 2010, his book Drive won the Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Prize and the Arts Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year. From 1993 to 2005 he ran the new writing workshop at Hamilton Artists Inc. and published two anthologies of work by that group.

He is a former treasurer and board member for the gritLIT Writers Festival and a former DARTS bus driver. He has been involved with the Lit Live reading series for more than ten years. His latest book of poetry – Love, Despite the Ache – won the 2017 Literary Award for Poetry, from the Hamilton Arts Council.

Susan Evans Shaw has been a member of the organizing committee for LiT LiVe for many years. As well she was a founding committee member of gritLIT, Hamilton's annual literary festival. She is also co-chair of Hamilton Arts Council’s Literary Arts Committee. In 1997, her essay "Simon Alexander" won the Hamilton and Region Arts Council’s Short Non-fiction Award. Heritage Treasures; The Historic homes of Ancaster, Burlington, Dundas, East Flamborough, Hamilton, Stoney Creek and Waterdown, a collaborative work with photographer, Jean Crankshaw, won the 2005 Arts Hamilton Athens Printing award for non-fiction. Discovery of her grandfather’s letters, written home during World War I, inspired her book, Canadians at War: A Guide to the Battlefields of World War I, which was published in 2011 by Goose Lane Editions. A companion volume, Canadians at War: A Guide to the Battlefields of World War II, was published by Goose Lane in 2014. Susan is a member of PEN Canada and The Writers’ Union of Canada. She lives and writes in a downtown Hamilton highrise with her two cats, Sam and Lotte.

Jennifer Tan has won the Short Works Prize for Poetry in 2016 and in 2020, and was long-listed for the Vallum Award for poetry in 2020. She has been published in the poetry anthologies of Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21^st Century, and The Beauty of Being Elsewhere: Poems of Journey and Sojourn, and on the website of The Wild Word. Her haikus have found their way to the Asahi Haikuist Network. She is a regular contributing poet and member of the Tower Poetry Society.

Christine Miscione's work has appeared in various literary journals such as This Magazine, Lemon Hound, and The Puritan. In 2012, her story "Skin, Just" won first place in the Gloria Vanderbilt/Exile Editions CVC Short Fiction Contest. In 2014, her debut short story collection, Auxiliary Skins, won the ReLit Award for short fiction. That same year her debut novel, Carafola, was shortlisted for the Hamilton Literary Awards. More recently, Christine won third place in both PRISM International's inaugural prize for short fiction and Prairie Fire's annual short fiction competition for her stories "The Water" and "Tessa", respectively. Christine is currently at work on both a novel and a short fiction collection. christinemiscione.com

Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.

Elizabeth Tessier's poetry is informed by her thirty years of work at Hamilton museums and her current life with early onset Parkinson’s. She has previously published in Evenings on Paisley Avenue: Seven Hamilton Poets. She has a self-published book, The Words They Cannot Say, edited by her friend and mentor Marilyn Gear-Pilling. Her chapbook entitled Frozen Charlotte is published by Frog Hollow Press edited by Shane Neilson as part of their Dis/Ability series. She currently has work in RAVE and the Spring 2021 H&L thanks to her friend, inspiration and editor Bernadette Rule.