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Helen Hawley was born in 1937 and grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada. After a fine arts course at Regina College studying under Ken Lochhead, Art McKay and Roy Kiyooka, she studied art history at universities in Toronto and Paris, France.

Since 1962 she has been a resident in England and is a professional artist who has exhibited widely in several countries.

As a poet, she has had several books published from which poems have been reprinted in anthologies. Some of her work tries to form bridges between Native and Non-Native Canadians, and in 1987 she was invited to send certain poems to that year’s North American Indian Conference of Elders where they were read aloud as part of the programme. The poem Concerto was published in her poetry book Gathering Fire by Thistledown Press in 1977. Although it was written before Caribou Factory was thought of, the themes are consistent. Caribou Factory was co-authored with Mary Thomas, whose contribution to the book where it regards First Nations people was invaluable.

Myrna Ann Kostash is a journalist, essayist and writer of regional and national acclaim. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1944. She attended the University of Alberta, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1965 with a major in Russian. She then pursued graduate studies in Slavic language and literature at the University of Washington and the University of Toronto where she received a Master of Arts in 1968.

Kostash is the author of several books, All of Baba’s Children, Long Way From Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada, No Kidding: Inside the Life of Teenage Girls, Bloodlines: A Journey into Eastern Europe, The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir, The Next Canada: In Search of the Future Nation, Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan River, Locating the Past/Discovering the Present, The Frog Lake Reader, Slice Me Some Truth, Prodigal Daughter, Unbound: Ukrainian-Canadians Writing Home and more recently, The Seven Oaks, a companion volume to The Frog Lake Reader.

Her articles and creative non-fiction have appeared in several anthologies, and extensively in periodicals such as Chatelaine, Maclean's, Geist, Border Crossings, Literary Review of Canada and Canadian Geographic. She has contributed radio, television, and film scripts to the CBC and the National Film Board, and has written stage plays. She has lectured widely in Canada and Europe and has taught courses, workshops, and seminars across the country. Kostash was Max Bell Professor at the School of Journalism, University of Regina for 1989 and 1990.

Kostash has recived numberous awards for her writing: in 1989 she received the Alberta Achievement Award, in 2008 the Writers Guild of Alberta presented her with the Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement. She was inducted into the City of Edmonton’s Cultural Hall of Fame in 2009 and in 2010 she was awarded the Writers' Trust Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life. Kostash accepted the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Nonfiction at the Writers Guild of Alberta awards gala in 2011, where Prodigal Daughter, won for Best Nonfiction Book. In 2012 Kostash was shortlisted for the Kobzar Literary prize.

Myrna Kostash resides in Edmonton.

Eugene Stickland was born in Regina on September 24, 1956. He is the son of Leonard and Stella (Hunter) Stickland. He earned his Bachelor of Arts Honours in English at the University of Regina in 1980 and his Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre from York University in 1984. He is the father of artist Johanna Stickland who currently resides in Europe. He currently resides in Calgary.

He was Writer-in-Residence at St. Mary’s University in Calgary from 2010 – 2016, where he continues to teach creative writing courses. From 2004 – 2009 Eugene wrote a feature weekly column for the Calgary Herald. He was Playwright-in-Residence at Alberta Theatre Projects from 1994 – 2004. He taught at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College at the University of Regina in 1990-91. Stickland was Playwright-in-Residence at Act IV Theatre Co. in Toronto from 1984 to 1987 and Communications Coordinator at Frontier College in Toronto from 1984 to 1989. He was a freelance writer for radio and television from 1989 to 1992. He was also a Resident Playwright at the National Theatre School in Montreal and as a Canadian delegate to the World Interplay Theatre Festival for Young Playwrights he traveled to Townsville, Australia.

His productions include: Appetite (2000), Closer and Closer Apart (1999), Noel de Force (Some Assembly Required French translation by Rene Gingras and produced by Campaign Jean Duceppe) (1999), The Hen House (1986), Quartet (1998), A Guide to Mourning, (1998 and 2000), Sitting on Paradise, (1996 and 1999), Excavations (1995 and 2000) and Some Assembly Required (1994 and 1999). Two plays: Sitting on Paradise and A Guide to Mourning were published at Red Deer College Press in 1999 and Some Assembly Required with Coteau Books in 1995. All Clear was written in 2004 and translated into Arabic in 2009 and another play, Queen Lear was produced in Istanbul in Turkish translation, presented by Kenter Theatre in 2009. It ran for over two years in Istanbul and throughout Turkey.

Other publications include Midlife (2002), Writer’s Block (2008) and Queen Lear (2010). His first novel, The Piano Teacher (2015) was awarded the W. O. Mitchell Award by the City of Calgary in 2016.

Awards include: the Betty Mitchell Award for the 1997-98 Season in the categories of Best New Play, Best Performance by a Supporting Actress (Val Pearson), Best Director (Bob White) and Outstanding Production of a Play for A Guide to Mourning; Governor-General’s Award Drama finalist for Some Assembly Required in 1995; and Alberta Playwriting Award for Excavations in 1995; W.O Mitchell Award for The Piano Teacher, 2016.

He is a former Board member of Frontier College in Toronto, past president of the Alberta Playwrights’ Network, a member of the Playwrights Union of Canada, as well as a Founding Member of the Auburn Theatre Practitioners Circle.

Geoffrey Ursell is an award-winning writer of drama for stage, radio, and television, as well as of fiction, poetry, and songs.

Ursell was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and grew up in Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg. He received his B.A. (Hons) and M.A. from the University of Manitoba, and his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of London (England), where he studied with the acclaimed scholar Sir Frank Kermode. He once taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the Universities of Manitoba and Regina, but he has been a full-time writer, composer, producer, publisher, and editor for over twenty-five years.

Geoffrey has written extensively for radio, including a five episode mystery-comedy series for CBC’s Morningside, as well as other mystery-comedy series for CBC Saskatchewan, and plays for Vanishing Point and Anthology. He has composed songs for stage and radio, and his songs were featured on a CBC television special, as well as being heard on Sunday Morning and As It Happens. He wrote the music and lyrics for the widely-produced Globe Theatre show, Superwheel (script by Rex Deverell), as well as for such plays as Black Powder: Estevan, 1931 (script by Rex Deverell), and Talking Back (script by Don Kerr). Ursell has also written or co-written several plays with songs for young audiences, including What Do You Wanna Bet?, The Willow Bunch Giant, and The Prairie Jungle Show.

Trap Lines, his first poetry collection, received a Commonwealth Poetry Prize Special Commendation. His second collection of poetry is The Look-Out Tower, and he also has a collection of short stories, Way Out West! His songs, poems, and stories have appeared in many Canadian periodicals and anthologies.

Ursell’s novel, Perdue, won the Books in Canada Best First Novel Award, and his stage plays have won three national playwriting awards. His first full-length play, The Running of the Deer, produced by the University of Alberta Drama Department and published by Playwrights Canada, won the Clifford E. Lee National Playwriting Award. Saskatoon Pie!, a musical comedy, published by Coteau Books, won Persephone Theatre’s National Playwriting Competition, and was later remounted twice and toured Saskatchewan with great success. It has since had many other productions.

Ursell has been Editor-in-Chief of Grain Magazine and is a founding member and publisher of Coteau Books.

Mary Filer was born in Edmonton, Alberta on New Year’s Eve in 1920 to Anne Charlotte (Grace) McLeod and Earle Leon Filer of New York City. Her brother, Roderick George McLeod Filer was born in 1931. Before Mary’s family moved from Edmonton to Regina, she attend Oliver and Glenora Schools and in Regina she attended Lakeview School for her 7th grade year. She was a gifted student and awarded ribbons at agricultural fairs and art shows, she played piano and sang soprano, designed costumes for school plays as well as acted. Mary attended high school at Central Collegiate where she contributed drawings of students and teachers to the school yearbook, Ye Flame, and to the school’s newspaper, Perroquet, Mary graduated in 1939 and went on to study commercial and fine art locally at Balfour Technical School in Regina under W. Garnet Hazard. In early 1940, Mary returned to Edmonton to help care for her grandparents and joined the Edmonton Art Club and while there mounted a solo exhibition at the University of Saskatchewan. Later that same year she returned to Regina and in September 1941 began studies in nursing at the Regina General Hospital, graduating in May 1944 and receiving her certificate in 1945.

Mary was engaged to David Hugh Plunkett Brown for two years, but broke off her engagement in 1944 and moved to Montreal where she began post graduate studies at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (MNI) with Dr. Wilder Graves Penfield and others working on a treatment for epilepsy. Mary later had her own medical illustrations published and painted the windows of the hospital for the holiday season.

In April 1945, Filer won a museum and book illustration scholarship and exhibited with the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolor and the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists in Toronto. In 1946, she became a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) and made trips to St. Anne’s Military Hospital to sketch and to provide art therapy to the patients there.

In 1946 Filer won another scholarship, the Robert Redford Scholarship for Drawing from Life. She began showing more art with the membership of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour in Toronto, the Canadian Society of Graphic Artist, and the Students Art Association of Montreal. Mary also started teaching at St. Helen’s School in Dunham, Quebec. In 1947, at an exhibition for the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolor in Toronto, her work titled Gloxinia sold for $60.00 and in an exhibition by Canadian Women Painters, Mary’s Still Life was said to be controversial “with Picasso’s ‘foreign’ influence.” In the same year, with the help of her mentor, Arthur Lismer, Mary became an assistant instructor for the Art Association of the Montreal School of Art and Design where she taught children and adults. In 1948, the Department of Education hired Mary to instruct a group of over sixty teachers during the summer. That fall, Mary was teacher-in-charge of over forty students, aged 6 to 8, at the Town of Mount Royal Community Recreation Association Children’s Art Centre using techniques influenced by Victor Lowenfeld, with whom she would later study at Pennsylvania State College. Also in 1948, Mary took courses and exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, an exhibition with all medium of her work including monotypes, wood blocks, lithographs and drawings. In 1949 she exhibited in Vancouver. In 1950, Mary was awarded McGill University’s first Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Following that, she travelled to England for an intense six week program at the Department of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of London which included field-trips, lectures, and all manner of discipline including drama, literature, architecture, visual arts, and music.

Returning to Montreal, Mary started teaching at McGill and continued to show her work in exhibitions. In September 1952 she began negotiations with Dr. Penfield to paint a mural on the board room wall at the Montreal Neurological Institute. This tempura and plaster mural, The Advance of Neurology, is an allegorical history of neurology. Over the summer, Mary painted over 40 life size personalities in a style of figurative post-impressionism while travelling back and forth between Pennsylvania State College (where she had undertaken a Master’s program in 1952) and Montreal. The mural was unveiled in September 1954. Meanwhile, as Mary continued to use all medium in her own work, she continued to teach children and create lino-cuts and prints, etchings, pen and ink drawings, monotypes, portraits and landscapes and prepared for her fourth solo exhibition in November 1953. The National Gallery purchased a lino-cut from this time and another of her pieces, Virgin and Child, was printed in Time Magazine.

In 1955 Mary became an Assistant Professor of Art Education at New York University School of Education but after an unsatisfactory personal relationship ended in 1956, Mary moved to Europe with most of her possessions. Around this time, she began to enjoy the company of the much loved ‘Natasha of Toy Time’ or ‘Tasha’, an Apricot French Miniature Poodle of Russian origins. This dog, and those who followed it, and her cats, were often subjects in her paintings. Mary had a deep affection for animals, sketching them many times over before reproducing them for murals relating to animals and their well-being.

Mary’s pen and ink drawings and lino-cuts were popular for Christmas cards. She was hired by banks and large companies to create for them. In 1957, Filer held a solo exhibit at the Red Lion Pub, and in December had a second solo show at Kinnerton Gallery. In 1958, she was commissioned to design a commemorative scarf for Queen Elizabeth’s trip across Canada.

Mary went to France in October and November 1959 to learn a new process called Crystopal, which was still a ‘secret process’ then that used fiber-glass, resins and plastics with colour. The technique was taught by Jean Pierre Fisholle’s company. While in France, Mary drew Notre Dame Cathedral and visited the Palace at Versailles where she used coloured pens to depict what she saw.

In 1959 Mary was awarded other commissions. One, to create a mural for the new Blue Cross Animal Hospital in Grimsby, she created ‘The History of Our Dumb Friends,’ measuring 7’ x 15’. In that same year she was commissioned by St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Southend-on-Sea, Essex for six windows and a painting for their ceiling. The subject was be to the life of St. Luke done in traditional fresco methods. Two of the nave windows, and the ceiling painting, were dedicated to St. Luke’s Church in October 1960.

From April to May 1961, Filer exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. In England she painted many large wet-on-wet watercolours in the parks and gardens of New Forest, Kew, Richmond Park and other locations. In 1961, Filer bought ‘Goldenhurst Manor’ located near Ashford, Kent, England and once owned by Noel Coward. She had a studio there and her brother, ‘Roddy’ and his family lived there too.

In 1962 Mary had an exhibition in London at Heal's Gallery. Her drawings, prints, and watercolors sold well. Towner Art Gallery in Sussex purchased her Oriental Poppy and Gallery Oldham in Manchester purchased a watercolour, Tiger Lily.

Not only was Mary inspired by animals, she was deeply inspired by the marsh near her property. The wetlands near Goldenhurst are the subject of many of her paintings. In August 1964, Mary opened the Romney Marsh Art Society’s 6th annual exhibition. Mary also painted personalities she was acquainted with: early in her studies, Mr. Detwiler, the principal at Wetmore School in Regina; in England, Gromille Robinson, (a journalist) visited Goldenhurst; and in London, Hon. Zamira Menhuin and Bobo were her subjects. By the mid 60’s Mary was becoming heavily involved with her work in glass and church commissions.

In 1966, St. David's Church, South-End-On-Sea, commissioned her for a work depicting St. David with a dove and staff, in the new glass art. In 1967, St. Michael's and All Angels Church in Westcliff-On-Sea commissioned her for the entire interior decoration.

Mary traveled frequently between Montreal and Victoria between 1967 and 1977. She gave talks about her work on the Neurological mural to nurses and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art bought Filer’s Storm, which she painted while in Hythe, Kent, for $200.00. She married architect and urban planner, Harold Spence-Sales, whom she had known for more than 20 years and in 1968 they teamed up to create a calendar of drawings of the buildings located on the McGill campus, a project commissioned by the Graduate’s Student Society at McGill.

In January 1969 Mary set up a space in Harold’s office on Sherbrooke Street, in Montreal to show clients her work. In October 1969, Mary taught for two months at Acadia Handicraft Guild on Prince Edward Island and in the early 1970s, Harold and Mary moved to Victoria, B.C.

In August 1970, a married couple who attended Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria commissioned Mary to commemorate the Lunar Landing of July 20, 1969. Her two windows over the doorway in the South Tower, The Moon Window ($500.00) and The Sun (donated), were soon completed. These windows were the first stained glass windows made without the use of lead but with glue and silicon. The windows were dedicated in April 1971.

While living in Victoria in the early 1970s, Mary continued to exhibit in England and paint in her Victoria studio. She had incorporated gold leaf foil with acrylic paint and worked with coloured glass designing small and large scale sculpture for exhibit for the foyers of large buildings. Cosmos, designed for Roberts House Apartments in Victoria, weighs 300 pounds and is a free standing work in an iron frame 5 feet in diameter. In the fall of 1973, Mary showed her first glass exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria which was based on a sun and lunar light theme. The gallery bought Filer’s Sunburst and she donated Counterthrust. Later, Sun Dazzle III and Clean Cold II were donated to the Gallery for auction.

In winter 1974, Mary and Harold visited England, France and Italy. The next year, Mary had a solo show of various types of glass including laminated glass, float, recycled, stained and plate glass and was also featured on the CBC program Take 30.

St. Phillip’s Anglican Church in Oak Bay, BC was one of Mary’s most extensive commissions. She worked to fill the north and south nave windows and other spaces with work representing a spiritual life; God, balanced with a temporal life; man, and the land. For St. Mark’s Anglican Church at Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, Mary was hired to make a large floral rose window. She meanwhile continued to accept commissions for decorative windows and sculptural pieces from private citizens and building owners and architects. In 1976, Mary and Harold moved to English Bay and then to an eastside warehouse / factory building on Beatty Street in Vancouver. Mary remained focused with speaking engagements, exhibiting and completing her many commissions -- so committed to her work she even sketched during a stay in hospital in 1980.

Mary was commissioned to create thirty-six memorial windows for Christ Church at Milles Isles, Quebec while both she and Harold continued to work on impressive projects as a duo. Mary also participated in several exhibitions featuring her glass work during this time and was selected to contribute her work, along with other well-respected Canadian artists, at Expo ’86. That same year she was made an honorary member of the British Columbia Landscape Architects Society and succeeded with more church commissions.

Mary, as always, continued to cultivate her relationships with societies and local art galleries; as patron, board member or simply interested party. The B.C. Glass Artists Association, Simon Fraser University, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Back Room Gallery in Oak Bay, and many others benefited from her numerous contributions. By 1990, the Mary Filer Fund was established at the Centre for Contemporary Arts and she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Simon Fraser University. In 1992 Mary was recognized as an Honourary Life Member of the BCGAA and recognized by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada for her outstanding achievement in arts with architecture.

Mary created another set of windows in a geometric pattern for St. Mary’s Church in Nanoose Bay in 1999. Years later she was invited back to create another work for them. Mary’s popularity, even in advanced age and sometimes ill health, was unwavering. She was invited back to the Montreal Neurological Hospital in Montreal and commissioned co-create The Neuroessence, for the Helen Penfield Atrium in the new building, which was installed in 2002. After Harold passed away in 2004, Mary continued make art, to exhibit and to contribute. Over the span of her career, she participated in more than 150 exhibitions and contributed to a myriad of institutions, societies and associations. Mary passed away in 2016.