Join us on July 23, 2022 at 3:30 PM ET for an online launch of issue 19:1 “Bridges.” Featuring readings from Robyn Maree Pickens, Meghan Kemp-gee, Matthew James Weigel, Julie Mannell, and Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi! The reading will be approximately 1-hour and Zoom’s closed captioning will be turned on. The event is open to all and free to attend, register here!
Robyn Maree Pickens is an art writer, poet, and a critical/creative PhD candidate in ecopoetics at the University of Otago (Aotearoa New Zealand). Robyn’s poetry has appeared in the Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology (Carcanet Press), Fractured Ecologies (eyecorner press), Jacket 2 (US), Cordite (Australia), Landfall (NZ), Into the Void (Canada), Peach Mag (US), Plumwood Mountain (Australia) and at ARTSPACE, Auckland (NZ).
Meghan Kemp-Gee lives somewhere between Vancouver, BC, and Fredericton, NB. She writes poetry, comics, and scripts of all kinds. She co-created the webcomics Contested Strip and Space Heroines of El-Andoo, and her comics and short fiction have been published in numerous anthologies. Her poetry has appeared in PRISM, Copper Nickel, Rising Phoenix Review, The Shore, Stone of Madness, Altadena Poetry Review, Anomaly, Train, Dusie, and Rejection Letters. She studied at Amherst College and Chapman University and is currently a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick. She also teaches composition and plays ultimate frisbee. You can find her on Twitter @MadMollGreen.
Matthew James Weigel (he/him) is a Dene and Métis poet and artist pursuing an MA in English at the University of Alberta. His words and art have been published by people like Book*Hug and The Mamawi Project, while his first self-published chapbook “…whether they took treaty or not, they were subject to the laws of the Dominion” is held in Bruce Peel Special Collections.
Julie Mannell was the guest lecturer at the University of Nebraska’s MFA program and a Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her MFA was completed in Toronto where she was the HarperCollins scholarship recipient. In the past, In/Words Magazine named her as one of the Top 30 Poets Under 30 and her work was awarded the Lionel Shapiro Award for Excellency in Creative Writing and the Mona Adilman Poetry Prize.
Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (He/They) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize, they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize and the author of three poetry chapbooks and two translated poetry chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press. Their second book WJD is forthcoming in a double volume with the translation of Saeed Tavanaee’s The Ocean Dweller from Gordon Hill Press in fall of 2022. Their collaborative poetry manuscript with poet Klara Du Plessis is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press, fall 2023.
