Kimberly A. Williams, Community Member-at-Large (she/her) is an award-winning author, teacher, community activist, and engaging public speaker. She is Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Women’s & Gender Studies at Mount Royal University where she teaches courses on men and masculinities, feminist, critical race, and queer theories, and global gender issues, including the transnational sex industry, globalization, and health and health care policies and practices.
Her book, Imagining Russia (2012), won the SUNY Press First Book Award in Women’s Studies. Most recently, Kim completed a research project examining the people, processes, and policies of evacuating family pets during the Fort McMurray, AB wildfire in May 2016. Her current book project, currently under contract with Fernwood Publishers, explores the gendered, racialized, and settler colonial dynamics of the annual Calgary Stampede. In the summer months, Kim also offers an historical walking tour of Calgary’s consensual adult industry. Learn more at https://yycsexworkwalkingtour.weebly.com/ and http://www.kawilliamsphd.com/.
In her free time, Kim hangs out with her best girl, a mini mystery mutt named Cricket, with whom she plays agility, climbs mountains, and explores Calgary’s green spaces.
Miranda Krogstad, Community Member-at-Large(she/her) Spoken word poet meets eternal optimist, Miranda’s poetry ranges in topic from child’s play to empowerment, giving life’s obstacles a feel-good finish. A member of the 2016 national wild card team, member of the 2013 Spoken Word Program at the Banff Centre, Calgary Arts Development grant recipient, and a 2-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient, she now runs the spoken word network YYSpeak: a communal and supportive space for local spoken word artists. https://www.mirandakrogstad.com
Josephine LoRe’s words have appeared in Canadian, American, British and Japanese print and on-line publications: Asahi Haikuist, the UC Review, Haiku Canada, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Autumn Moon Haiku and Ephemerae. She is a winner of a photo-haiku contest in Japan, a Wax Poetry and Art Contest, and the Norma Epstein Prize for Poetry at the University of Toronto. She has featured at Indie YYC’s New Beat, Pitbull Poetry, Can You Hear Me Now, ShelfLife Books, Poetry at La Pâtisserie, the Flywheel Reading Series, the Single Onion’s Hear’s my Soul, Café Blanca, and Woolf’s Voices. She has read at poetic events ranging from open mics to tributes including Poetry in the Prow, Words That Move Me, the People’s Poetry Festival, ArtWalk, poetry at the Stephansson House, Unspoken, the Single Onion’s Gender-Honouring edition, and Women Echoing Women in Vancouver. Her first chapbook “Unity” was published in 2018. Her second collection of poetry, “The Cowichan Series” published in 2019, was #1 on the Calgary Herald Bestseller List. She has an MA from l’Université de Rouen, France… a pearl in this diamond worldWebsite: https://www.josephinelorepoet.com/
katie o’brien (they/them) is a community worker, queer activist, and Netflix enthusiast living and working in Mohkínstsis (Calgary). They are a recent graduate of Mount Royal University (Dip. Social Work) and the University of Calgary (B.A. in Sociology, minor in Biological Sciences). katie also writes poetry, and has been published in journals such as (parenthetical), Riddle Fence, NōD Magazine, and HYSTERIA. Their third chapbook, a peal of thunder, a moment of, was published by The Blasted Tree in June 2019.
Woolf's Voices 