SPARKS Literary Festival

Authors

Lindsay Bird (she/her)

Lindsay Bird's first poetry collection, Boom Time (Gaspereau Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the 2021 Newfoundland Book Award and the ReLit Award, and longlisted for the Winterset Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including The Fiddlehead, Riddle Fence, and Geist. Lindsay is also an award-winning journalist and documentary producer. She lives in Corner Brook with her family. www.lindsaybird.ca

Michael Crummey (he/him)

Michael Crummey has published 13 books of fiction and poetry. His most recent novel is The Adversary. He lives in St. John's with writer and marine biologist, Holly Hogan.

Allison Graves (she/her)

Allison Graves received her BA in English Literature from Dalhousie University and her MA in Creative Writing from Memorial University where she wrote this collection of short stories called Soft Serve that was published with Breakwater Books this fall. She is the current fiction editor of Riddle Fence, Newfoundland’s Journal of Arts and Culture. She is doing a PhD in Irish Literature at Memorial University and teaches in the English Department.

Santiago Gúzman (he/they)

Santiago Guzmán (he/they) is an award-winning playwright, performer, director, and dramaturge originally from Metepec, Mexico, now based in St. John’s, NL. Artistic Director of TODOS Productions & Interim Artistic Director for Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre. Santiago’s work aims to put local, under-represented narratives and characters on the frontlines, whilst inviting audiences to appreciate the vibrancy of Newfoundland and Labrador from a diverse perspective. As an immigrant, queer, and artist of colour, Santiago believes that representation matters. www.sguzman.ca

Luke Hathaway (he/him)

Luke Hathaway is a poet, librettist/lyricist, and performer, who makes his home in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. He collaborates with artists and ensembles near and far in the work of collective storytelling, bringing mythopoeic word-worlds to page, screen, and stage. He is particularly passionate about telling the trans and queer stories of that are close to his heart. His book The Affirmations: poems was recognized in The Times, London, as a best book of 2022. https://www.smu.ca/english/luke-hathaway.html

Holly Hogan (she/her)

Holly Hogan is a writer and seabird biologist. During her more than thirty years as a scientist, she has spent over a thousand days at sea conducting avian and marine mammal surveys from the Arctic to the Antarctic. She has provided expertise on seabirds and marine plastic issues for various radio and documentary series. Her book Message in a Bottle: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist was short-listed for the 2023 Governor-General’s Award for non-fiction.

Matthew Hollett (he/him)

Matthew Hollett is a writer and photographer in St. John’s, Newfoundland. His work explores landscape and memory through photography, writing and walking. Optic Nerve, a collection of poems about photography and visual perception, was published by Brick Books in 2023. Matthew won the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize, and has previously been awarded the NLCU Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers. https://www.matthewhollett.com/

Daze Jefferies (she/her)

Daze Jefferies (she/her) is a white settler artist, writer, and educator born and raised in the Bay of Exploits on the northeast coast of rural Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). She is the author of the poetry chapbook Water/Wept (Anstruther Press, 2023) and co-author, with Sonja Boon and Lesley Butler, of Autoethnography and Feminist Theory at the Water’s Edge: Unsettled Islands (Palgrave, 2018). www.dazejefferies.com

Andy Jones (he/him)

Andy Jones is an actor, writer, and storyteller who recently completed Actor Needs Restraint! a collection of three of his six one-man shows. The book includes Out of the Bin, King o’Fun, and An Evening with Uncle Val. His latest show Don’t Give Up on Me, Dad will tour the province this Fall.

Willow Kean (she/her)

Willow Kean is an actor and writer from Labrador West who now resides in St. John’s. She’s been shortlisted for the Cuffer Prize, longlisted for the NLCU Fresh Fish Award, and in 2018 she won the Percy Janes First Novel Award. Her play Supper Club recently completed an island-wide Arts and Culture Centre provincial tour, and her novel, Eyes in Front When Running, was published by Breakwater Books in June of 2023. https://thelittleredchicken.substack.com/

Larry Matthews (he/him)

Larry Mathews taught in the English Department at MUN from 1984 to 2015. His publications include two collections of short fiction and two novels: The Artificial Newfoundlander (Breakwater, 2010) and An Exile’s Perfect Letter (Breakwater, 2018).

Trudy Morgan-Cole (she/her)

Trudy Morgan-Cole is a writer and educator in St. John's. Her historical fiction includes By the Rivers of Brooklyn, Most Anything You Please, and others. She loves re-imagining the lost voices of women in history. Her Cupids trilogy, a fictional exploration of the earliest English settlements in Newfoundland, began with A Roll of the Bones (Breakwater Books, 2019), continued in Such Miracles and Mischiefs in 2021, and concluded in 2023 with A Company of Rogues. www.trudymorgancole.com

Paul David Power (he/him)

Paul David Power has spent the past 25 years working as a writer, playwright, actor and director. His formal training includes holding a BA in English with a concentration in theatre and a BAA in Journalism. Paul is an award winning playwright with five produced works to his credit including the award winning Roomies, Last Chance, The View From Down Here, In Your Eyes and his critically acclaimed play Crippled. Crippled was published in 2021 by Breakwater Books and short-listed for both the Governor General Award and the BMO Winterset Award for outstanding dramatic script. Paul is also a regular contributor to CBC online, CanLit Magazine, Newfoundland Quarterly and AllLitUp Magazine among others. Paul’s work also includes roles in over 30 stage plays across the country as well as directing and producing. His leadership positions include President of the Liffey Players Drama Society in Calgary AB for three years, Artistic Director for Hubcity Theatre in Moncton NB for five years and Artistic Associate for the Shakespeare by the Sea Festival in St. John’s NL for three years. Paul currently heads his own NL based company - Power Productions – a professional theatre company dedicated to the development of works and artists with a focus on the disabled Deaf and MAD Arts domain. www.powerproductionsnl.com

Rhea Rollman (she/her)

Rhea Rollmann is an award-winning journalist, writer and audio producer based in St. John's. She's a founding editor of The IndependentNL and her work has appeared in Briarpatch, CBC, Xtra, Chatelaine, PopMatters, Riddle Fence and elsewhere, and has garnered three Atlantic Journalism Awards. She also has a background in labour organizing and queer/trans activism, and is Program Director at CHMR-FM, a community radio station in St. John's. She’s author of ‘A Queer History of Newfoundland.’

Beth Ryan (she/her)

Beth Ryan’s novel If We Caught Fire (Breakwater Books, 2023) was a contender for the NL Public Libraries 2024 Must-Read Book of the Year and featured on best books lists from The Telegram and 49th Shelf. Her collection of short fiction, What Is Invisible (Killick Press, 2003), won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. Her stories have appeared in journals, anthologies and magazines, and won various awards, including the 2014 Cuffer Prize. https://bethryan-writer.yolasite.com/

Elder Clavin White (he/him)

Mi’kmaw, born and raised in Flat Bay, Calvin White is one of the founders of the Aboriginal revival in Newfoundland and Labrador. In the 1960s, he helped organize Aboriginal families in the province, including those in Conne River and Labrador, to form the Native Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, which later became the Federation of Newfoundland Indians (FNI). He has been awarded a Human Rights Champion Award, an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Memorial University, the Canada 150 Sesquicentennial Pin, and was appointed to The Order of Canada for his pivotal role in achieving recognition for Newfoundland Mi’kmaq and his longstanding commitment to the rights of his people. An Elder and cultural mentor to his community and to Mi’kmaq across the province, he strives to preserve and celebrate their unique identity.

ABOUT SPARKS

The SPARKS Literary Festival was founded in 2009 by poet and professor Mary Dalton, who served as the festival's director for the first 6 years. Now organized by Memorial's Department of English with ongoing support from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SPARKS continues to celebrate the literary creations of Newfoundland and Labrador and showcase writers at various stages of their creative lives. It is what Dalton has called a "word spree." The festival also makes available displays of books and journals published in Newfoundland and Labrador and a mini-bookstore featuring works by the authors reading at the festival.

WHERE ELSE CAN YOU FIND US?

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