Sarah McNeil / Sainte-Anne-des-Monts

Having arrived in the Haute-Gaspésie region three years ago, Sarah McNeil is a healthcare professional who is committed to her community. She is particularly interested in mental health issues, diversity and those affecting 2ELGBTQI+ populations.
She seeks to promote an inclusive and enlightened approach in her work and writing, a passion that has come to the fore in recent years. She recently completed a first manuscript that explores the links between the pragmatism of healthcare and the fragility of the human condition. In this autofiction, the narrative adopts the point of view of both the caregiver and the cared-for.
This project represents a fusion of her professional and personal interests, and she nourishes the hope of seeing it published to contribute to reflection on these essential themes. For her, writing about vulnerability is a tool for healing and social transformation.

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Sandrine Gaulin / Montréal

With a master’s degree in architecture from Université Laval, Sandrine Gaulin first learned to design physical spaces. Having worked for several years as a designer and project manager at Atelier Pierre Thibault, her interest in transdisciplinarity, design and architecture led her to co-found the artistic trio legaga, then to accept a position as designer-editor at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Currently working on her first novel as part of a literary arts mentoring grant offered by the City of Quebec, and having signed the illustrations for the children’s album Les Jumelles (2024, Minimo Éditions), Sandrine is quietly migrating towards a career where words that make images and images worth a thousand words are her primary building materials.

She lives in Montreal and Quebec City.

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Raÿla Corbeil / Montréal

Raÿla fled to Gaspésie before she was old enough to frequent bars, then fell in love with winter beaches, poetry and large flat-shares. Inspired by the writing of the women around her and by the soothing horizon, she developed a taste for the process of writing and artistic sharing.

It’s through the nights spent sleeping outdoors, the friends who become family, the words spoken and the tears shed together that Raÿla (re)builds herself and gently tames adult life.

Back in Montreal after her outdoor studies, she works in cross-country skiing and climbing, while quietly pursuing her studies in sexology.

She occasionally publishes in literary magazines such as Le Culte and Le Pied, and seizes every opportunity to escape the city once again.

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Michelle Gauthier / Eastman

My name is Michelle Gauthier. I live in Eastman in the Eastern Townships, a region chosen for its well-being. I was born in Montreal in the Rosemont district. I loved living there. My family lived on two floors of a duplex, as there were nine of us children.

I taught because I always thought it was the best job in the world. I’ve always had a passion for reading and writing. As I wandered around Montreal for ten years, I wrote about various subjects: in restaurants, in parks, in cafés, on buses, in my bedroom. I’ve never limited myself to a particular place or time.

I love words, I love learning and discovering. I hope my creative experience will blaze a trail for those close to me. I’d like them to know that everyone has something inside them to express, to tell, to pass on.

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Line Richard / Caplan

Line Richard lives in Baie des Chaleurs. She completed a bachelor’s degree in literature at Université Laval in 1999. Since then, she has participated in numerous literary evenings as a storyteller, slammer and poet, and also offers occasional writing workshops.

In 2018, she published a collection of short stories, Soudain, le paysage with Éditions 3 Sista, and her most recent book, La rumeur du ressac, published by VLB éditeurs, won the Prix Robert Cliche du premier roman 2023. Line’s writing is atmospheric, rooted in matter and the sensory world. Her writing explores loss, self-transformation and the encounter with the other. Never short of ideas, she is currently working on a second novel.

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Kharoll-Ann Souffrant / Kingston

Born in Montreal of Haitian parents, Kharoll-Ann Souffrant is a social worker, researcher, university lecturer, speaker and writer. She is completing a thesis on the Quebec declination of the #MeToo movement from the perspective of Afrodescendant activists who have been involved in feminist struggles against sexual violence. She writes a column every other Monday for Noovo Info and a feminist column for the social and political magazine À Bâbord!

In 2022, she published her first book, Le Privilège de dénoncer – Justice pour toutes les victimes de violences sexuelles, (Jury selection for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal 2023, Finalist Auteure de l’Année – Gala Dynastie 2024). She was a finalist in the “Voix de la relève – Télé-Québec” category at the Prix d’excellence de la SODEP in 2022. She is currently writing her next book under contract with Les éditions du remue-ménage.

 

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Katy Collet / Gaspé

Habitante de la Gaspésie, Katy Collet (Trace d’encre) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist whose approach is inseparable from her collective and social commitment. In the context of socio-community and artistic projects, her practice in the printed arts leads her to create a dialogue between the visual and literary arts, and to make these disciplines accessible. She is co-founder of La Griffe, an independent publication based on the Gaspé Peninsula, launched in 2022 to encourage the sharing of ideas, thoughts, struggles and dreams based on emancipatory values.
At the same time, she has embarked on a co-writing project on living in an intentional community in a remote region, where she reflects on the inconsistencies that run through us and the difficulties to be overcome by choosing such a way of life from a feminist, decolonial and community perspective. The residency will be an opportunity for her to explore in writing the resonant links between art, community and territory.

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Jowi / Rimouski

Jowi writes. Because he needs space to imagine a better future. He writes because it’s the only way he’s found to stop being angry all the time. Jowi writes, reads, erases, shouts, rewrites to resist dystopia, but also utopia.

A seasoned romantic, he believes that art has the power to change the world. Jowi loves aliens, erotic poetry, skinny-dipping and dancing barefoot in mush pits.

He hates morality tales, always being angry, Tinder dates and crime novels.

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Joëlle Gauvin-Racine / L’Islet

Joëlle Gauvin-Racine lives in the L’Islet region, on Wolastokuk, an unceded Wolastoqey territory.

She is a poet and anthropologist. Her poems have appeared in the magazines Exit and Caminando, on the Fabrique culturelle and on the poetry bulletin board at Quebec City’s Maison de la littérature.

Her approach to writing is rooted in a posture of listening to the world around her and an intimate familiarity with the territory. Involved in the cultural and literary life of her adopted region, she is also a regular contributor to Caminando, a magazine of engagement and reflection on human rights in Latin America. Joëlle likes to write near a window, read near her lover and live near the trees.

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Gaëlle Dupuis / Montréal 

Throughout her academic career, Gaëlle has been interested in the intersection of philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, literature and semiotics. In her creative practice, Gaëlle uses prose and essayistic form to translate her philosophical or political concerns into artistic form. She likes to play on the ambiguities of language and sees writing as an act of resistance. Her last few months of wandering took her to the capes of the Magdalen Islands and the villages of the Gaspé Peninsula, before reterritorializing in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. She divides her time between birdwatching, studying, preparing food for her roommates, writing and reading. Over the past few years, Gaëlle has become a keen participant in discussion circles, micro-open spaces and writing workshops, all of which provide a forum for exchanging ideas and co-constructing knowledge. These forums feed her artistic practice.

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Gabrielle Huot-Foch / Montréal

A lifelong writer who has worked in a variety of contexts and jobs, Gabrielle has made reinventing herself a veritable art of living.

In addition to being inhabited by (almost) constant self-doubt, she has completed a master’s degree in research-creation on the relationship between care, spaces and self-narratives.

She has also published two zines in collaboration with Atelier universel and texts in the magazines Les Écrits and Mœbius. She is currently working on putting metamorphosis into words.

 

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Claire Moeder /  Maria

Claire Moeder is an author. She links texts and photographs where the territory also becomes a character. Born in France and based in Gaspésie since 2017, she initiates literary projects in the form of readings, experimental walks, writing workshops and micro-publications.
In Quebec, she has participated in several residencies linking writing to the visual arts. Involved with a number of artists as an art critic and curator, she has published in specialized magazines before recently delving into poetry. Her first collection will be published in 2024 by Noroît.
A creator and walker on the move, she collects human and non-human stories in singular landscapes: coasts, primeval forests or islands, where the threat of extinction is present. She is also open to new feminist approaches to writing about the place of the living, maternity and the sovereignty of the body.

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Catherine-Alexandre Briand / Montréal

Catherine-Alexandre Briand loves plants, poetry and anything that resists. In the midst of an existential crisis in a world that is itself in crisis, she wants first and foremost to nourish her relationships and learn to listen.

With a master’s degree in creative writing, she has published several texts in magazines and on the street.

She was also a member of the collective La Filée and co-edited the collection Interconnecté.e.s. Her writing is inspired by ritual practices, autofiction and the links between body and environment.

 

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Jess Roy / Montréal

Jess Roy is no stranger to wandering, jumping from rooster to donkey and cracking jokes. She’s one of the humans behind Coup d’Griffe, l’Attaque, Hochelaga Mon Amour, Zine de zines and a host of other projects.
Founder of Nœuds éditions – an alternative, feminist, punk and subversive micro-publishing house – Jess is busy bringing to the world stories and voices she’s been searching for too long.
She mixes genres in her own way, always using art and literature as unifying and transformative tools.

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Joé·e Dufresne / Montréal
A bimbo camouflaged in a teenager’s body and parent to a toddler raised in a proto-commune, Joé-e Dufresne is also co-founder of l’Euguélionne, a feminist bookshop, and has been working there since it opened in 2016. From 2012 to 2023, she worked with the micro-publishing and printmaking collective Possibles éditions.
Her writing veins meander along the lines of autotheory, subversive maternity and the archaeology of hidden queer histories of female icons in popular culture.
Joé-e lives in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang, with her queer family of four adults, one child and a German shepherd.