
Don Gillmor
Author of the novels: To the River, Canada: A People’s History, Kanata, Mount Pleasant and Long Change. Don Gillmor’s most recent book To the River won the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. He is the author of a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and two other books of non-fiction, The Desire of Every Living Thing and I Swear by Apollo. He has written three novels – Kanata, Mount Pleasant and Long Change – as well as nine books for children, two of which were nominated for a Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at Walrus magazine, and his journalism has appeared in Walrus, The Globe and Mail, Rolling Stone, and GQ magazines. He has won eleven National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award.

Marni Jackson
For three years Marni was Rogers Chair of the Literary Journalism program at the Banff Centre, where she’s currently on faculty with the Mountain and Wilderness Program. A former senior editor at the Walrus magazine, Marni is the author of three nonfiction books that challenge conventional thinking on subjects as diverse as motherhood and the medical treatment of pain. In 2016 she published her first book of fiction, “Don’t I Know You?”, a top-twenty CBC Book of the Year which the Toronto Star called “Nothing short of brilliant”. She is the co-writer of the Soulpepper stage show “The Secret Chord: A Leonard Cohen Experience

Lindy Mechefske
Lindy Mechefske is the author of Out of Old Ontario Kitchens – Taste Canada Gold Award for Culinary Narratives 2019; Sir John’s Table – Taste Canada Gold Award for Culinary Narratives 2016; and A Taste of Wintergreen (2011). Her work has also appeared in a number of anthologies, literary journals, magazines, and newspapers. Lindy is the food columnist for the Kingston Whig-Standard, writes regularly for a variety of magazines and is a freelance editor. Earlier in her career, she was a scientific copy editor. Her love affair with food and history began in her grandfather’s ancient Yorkshire kitchen in England. You can find her blogging sporadically about her adventures in the kitchen. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.