Alison Acheson's young adult novel, Mud Girl, was a finalist for the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Book of the Year. Her picturebook, Grandpa’s Music — A Story About Alzheimer’s (Albert Whitman & Company) was recently placed on the IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) list of Books for Children with Disabilities. Her work for adults, Learning to Live Indoors, is published with Porcupine’s Quill. Alison has previously taught in the creative writing program at UBC and her students have been awarded the Governor General’s Award (Fishtailing — a novel in verse) and the Ethel Wilson BC Book Prize (Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison). Learn more on her website, alisonacheson.com.

Paul Belserene has taught creative writing for more than 30 years, through various careers as a poet and short fiction writer, scriptwriter, director, producer of themed exhibitions and futurist. As a "consulting storyteller," he currently advises organizations on how to use creative elements of collaborative storytelling to help achieve their goals. Learn more on his website, consultingstoryteller.com.

Deborah Blenkhorn has a Bachelor's degree in Education and an MA in English. She has taught for UBC's English Department, Kwantlen College and the UBC Writing Centre. Two of Deb's short stories were published in Queen's Feminist Review.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, MA, is a child survivor of the Holocaust. She is an award-winning author of four novels and two books of poetry. Much of her writing is autobiographical and concentrates on how a lost childhood can affect a person's teenage and adult life.

Judy Brown, MA, is a member of UBC's English Department, where she teaches courses in Canadian and children's literature. She also leads our popular tutor training program with Ramona Montagnes. Judy received the Killam Award for Excellence in Teaching and a 3M Teaching Fellowship.

Mandy Catron received her MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from American University in Washington, DC. Her recent publications can be found in Under the Sun, The Vancouver Review, and The Fieldstone Review. She happily divides her time between writing, climbing rocks, and getting to know student writers as a lecturer in the UBC Department of English.

Greg Chan, MA, is a writer, editor, educator, and consultant. Since 1993, he has taught academic writing at UBC and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He also has taught technical writing courses for the UBC English Department and led professional development workshops for the UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies, the UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, and the Sauder School of Business. For the Writing Centre, Greg has done customized training for several off-campus organizations, including the HSBC, CGA Canada, the BC Safety Authority, Hatfield Consultants, and the BC College of Teachers.

Lisa Coulthard, PhD, teaches film studies in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC, where she specializes in contemporary world cinemas. She has published widely in the areas of film violence, sound and music, and she is currently working on a book on Quentin Tarantino.

Stefan Czernecki is an artist and writer who focuses on creating picture books for young readers. He has authored, co-authored, and illustrated over thirty picture books, including The Cricket's Cage, Lilliput 5357, and ZIGZAG. In addition to his book projects, he has worked on films and contributed illustrations to several children's magazines. See his work at stefanczernecki.com.

Don Genova is a Vancouver-based writer and broadcaster. In addition to his regular broadcasts about food for CBC Radio, he has written on food and travel for a variety of publications, including The National Post, The Globe and Mail, Western Living, MyBC.com and Northwest Palate magazine. View Don Genova's web site at dongenova.com.

Amanda Goldrick-Jones, PhD, served for two years as writing services coordinator at Simon Fraser University and has taught academic, technical, and business writing at Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, NY; the University of Winnipeg; and UBC. Amanda also designs and teaches online writing courses and creates custom workshops for professional clients. She is working on her first novel.

John Gudmundson, MA, published his first novel in 2004. His short stories and essays have appeared in the Windsor Review and The Globe and Mail. His 'Writing For Real' outreach program in Buffalo, New York was recognized at the US Council for Community and Education Partnerships National Conference in 2005. John has taught writing and literature in Vancouver, Toronto, Windsor, New York and Japan. He is currently at work on his second novel. He is also Administrative Director for the French Connection Culture Association (Bureau de Canada).

Steven Hahn, MEd, is a writer of fiction, screenwriter, and teacher. An NYU Film graduate and Warners Fellow, he began his film career in the Story Department of Warner Brothers Pictures as a script reader and long-distance story research assistant to the legendary director Stanley Kubrick. He has worked for various studios and production companies as a writer, editor, and director in feature film, documentary, and educational television productions. Currently, he is taxing the stamina of his intrepid agent who is shopping around his rather heavy manuscript for his novel, The Midnight Avenger Comes Home.

Jane Hamilton, MFA, has taught editing for over ten years in Langara College’s public relations program and has worked as an editor and writer for many more years than that. Her fiction and poetry is published under her nom de plume (Jane Silcott) in a variety of literary journals, and she has won a CBC literary award and a Room magazine award for her creative non-fiction.

Cori Howard is an award-winning journalist who has worked in newspapers, magazines, television and radio, filing stories from across the world. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent, Maclean's, Chatelaine, Canadian Geographic, Flare and Today's Parent. She is the editor of the recently published Canadian anthology, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood. Learn about her Momoir project.

Michael Katz, MEd, taught school in London, England for 20 years and has been the publisher of Tradewind Books, specializing in children's picture books, since 1994. He has also taught publishing courses at Langara College, Capilano College and Simon Fraser University.

Nancy Lee's first book, Dead Girls, hailed by The Globe and Mail as "a masterwork of revelation,” was named Book of the Year by NOW Magazine and has been translated into five languages. Her novel Born Slippy is forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart.

Richard Somerset Mackie, PhD, is a freelance historian and biographer who lives in Vancouver. Two of his books, Trading Beyond the Mountains (1997) and Island Timber (2000), won the Lieutenant-Governor's Prize, and Island Timber was short-listed for the Haig-Brown Prize in 2001. His most recent book, Mountain Timber (2009), was on the BC Bestseller list for 32 weeks. Mackie is now working on a personal memoir set in the 1970s, a biography of Comox environmentalist Melda Buchanan, and the third in his series of logging and social history books for Sono Nis, Pacific Timber. View his website at rsmackie.com.

Robert Mackwood owns the Seventh Avenue Literary Agency. With over 25 years experience in publishing including Stanton & MacDougall/Raincoast Books and Bantam/Doubleday, he now represents over 50 award-winning and diverse non-fiction writers in Canada, the US, and the UK, with sales in over 15 countries.

Stephanie Maricevic, MFA, has had her work published in the Antigonish Review, Grain, Event and Descant. Her poetry collection, Republic of Parts, won the Poets’ Corner Award for best Canadian-authored manuscript and was released by Broken Jaw Press.

Kim McMechan is an award-winning singer-songwriter and poet who has had songs recorded and distributed all over the world. She has been teaching workshops on the creative process for over ten years and is known and loved for her unconventional and open methods. She currently writes for Roadmap Music Publishing in Kelowna. Read her blog.

Ramona Montagnes, MA, has been the UBC Writing Centre’s Director since 1992 and is responsible for the development of new courses and programs at the Writing Centre. She recently published The Canadian Writer’s Handbook and is working on a book on technical writing.

Angela Murrills, a full-time freelance journalist and author for over 25 years, was a weekly columnist for the Georgia Straight and published editorial features in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia. Angela and her husband moved permanently to the Languedoc region of France this year. She continues to write, as a contributing editor to Nuvo magazine and as a monthly columnist for the Georgia Straight. Angela is the author of four non-fiction books on food and travel. Read her blog.

Ira B. Nadel, PhD, is a Professor of English at UBC, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and the winner of several academic awards. He is also the author of the biographies Various Positions, A Life of Leonard Cohen; Double Act, A Life of Tom Stoppard; Ezra Pound, A Literary Life; and David Mamet, A Life in Theatre.

Paul Ostrowski, MA, has spent many years teaching English at Kwantlen College and the UBC Continuing Studies Writing Centre. However, the thousands of essays he has marked and classes he has taught have not diminished his passion for teaching. Paul won a Teaching Excellence award at Kwantlen in 2010.

Elise Partridge’s poems have appeared in journals including The New Yorker, The Walrus, Poetry, The Fiddlehead and The Yale Review. She is the author of Fielder's Choice (shortlisted for the Lampert Award for best first book of poems in Canada) and Chameleon Hours (shortlisted for the BC Book Prize and winner of the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award). Educated at Harvard, Cambridge, Boston University, and UBC, Elise has taught and edited for many years; recently she was poet-in-residence for Arc Magazine, where she mentored writers from across Canada.

Katharine Bassett Patterson, PhD, is the Director of Arts Studies in Research and Writing at UBC, and she has taught writing at all levels from first year to post-doctoral and beyond. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto for her study of the epistolary discourse of 19th century women writers. She joined UBC’s English Department in 1999. Her current research investigates the interconnections in the acquisition of academic and information literacies.

Maureen Phillips is a UBC alumna and has worked for many years as a freelance editor and writing coach to private clients. She also edits and writes for the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada). For the Writing Centre, Maureen administers outside contracts and facilitates business-writing workshops for corporations.

Janice Pulley has an MA in English from UBC and began teaching for the English Department in 1989. She has taught for the UBC Continuing Studies Writing Centre since 1993 and develops seminars for departments on campus on behalf of the Writing Centre. She won the Fairclough Prize for her teaching.

Herbert Rosengarten, PhD, taught for many years in the UBC English Department, specializing in 19th century fiction and the history of the book. His graduate work was on the Brontës, and their writings have been the focus of much of his research and publication.

Hartaj Sanghara received her MA in English from Queen's University and her Diploma in Education, Counselling Psychology, from UBC. She has worked as a professional writer and communications specialist for over 10 years with the BC Ministry of Health and other organizations, mainly in the area of print and web publishing. She has also been an English instructor and facilitator for five years, and she teaches academic writing at the UBC Continuing Studies Writing Centre.

Marlene Schiwy, PhD, author of A Voice of Her Own: Women and the Journal Writing Journey and Simple Days: A Journal on What Really Matters, taught English, Creative Writing and Women's Studies for many years in London and New York. Marlene completed a leadership training program with Marion Woodman and her team, which focuses on bringing the inner imagery of the soul's journey to consciousness and expression.

R. David Stephens, MA, is the Senior Editor for Tradewind Books and a freelance editor for Granville Island Publishing. He also teaches at SFU and has taught at the University of San Francisco, Tufts University and Shoreline Community College. His children's book My Animal Friends was chosen by the BC Ministry of Education to go to 40,000 pre-school children as part of their Ready, Set, Learn program.

Kevin Stewart, MA, is a Senior Lecturer in Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Business Administration and teaches Report and Business Writing for the UBC Continuing Studies Writing Centre. He is a senior partner with the Ethos Business Communications Group.

Eric Tung has an MA in English from UBC and has been teaching at the Writing Centre since 2004. He has over eleven years of corporate experience in change management and in technical, business and corporate communications. He was a Senior Business Strategy Advisor with BC Hydro and has also worked at Business Objects (now SAP), a world-wide software company.

Karen X. Tulchinsky is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her recent historical novel, The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, was the recipient of the 2008 One Book One Vancouver Prize and was a Toronto Book Award finalist. Her short fiction collection In Her Nature was the winner of the 1996 Vancity Book Prize. A graduate of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre, Tulchinsky has also worked as a writer and story editor on feature films and television series. BC Bookworld says “Tulchinsky does for Toronto what Mordecai Richler did for Montreal.”

Karen has written and story-edited for numerous television series, including, The Guard, Robson Arms, Kink, Glutton For Punishment and The Opener. She has written several feature-length screenplays, which are currently in development. She directed a short film, Ms. Thing, which has screened at over 20 film festivals internationally, including Frameline in San Francisco, Cork Film Festival in Ireland, Festival Del Mar in Spain, and QueerFruits in Australia (where it won the Audience Choice Award).

Jennifer Van Evra has been working as a Vancouver-based freelance writer for over a decade. Her work has appeared in many publications, including The Globe and Mail, Equinox, Mother Jones, Elm Street, Canadian Wildlife, The Georgia Straight, Vancouver magazine and The Vancouver Sun. She also works as a producer, reporter and broadcaster with CBC Radio.