Commission Members

Catherine Leroux was born in 1979. The author of four books (La marche en forêt, 2011, Le mur mitoyen, 2013, Madame Victoria, 2015 and L'avenir, 2020), she has been a finalist and winner of several literary prizes. She has also translated numerous novels, including Nous qui n'étions rien by Madeleine Thien, for which she won the Governor General's Award. She lives in Montreal, where she continues to work as a writer, scriptwriter, translator and editor.

Laurie D. Graham grew up in Treaty 6 territory (Sherwood Park, Alberta), and she currently lives in Nogojiwanong, in the territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg (Peterborough, Ontario), where she is a poet, an editor, and the publisher of Brick magazine. Her first book, Rove (Hagios Press, 2013), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second and third books, Settler Education (McClelland & Stewart, 2016) and Fast Commute (M&S, 2022), were both finalists for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, won the Thomas Morton Poetry Prize, and appeared in the Best Canadian Poetry anthologies. As publisher and editor of Brick, she has worked with writers from all over Turtle Island, including Michael Ondaatje, Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer, Sheila Heti, Anne Carson, Judy Fong Bates, Eden Robinson, Don DeLillo, Ocean Vuong, and Jan Zwicky.

Marc-André Audet is the CEO and founder of Éditions les Malins, one of Quebec’s major publishers of literature for young people.

He has more than 15 years of experience in publishing. He was a member of the board of the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres for many years, and has chaired several professional committees.

David Chariandy lives in Vancouver and teaches literature and creative writing at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of the award-winning novels Soucouyant and Brother, as well as the non-fiction book I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You: A Letter To My Daughter. David’s writings have been published internationally and translated into a dozen languages. In 2019, he received the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction.

Bilal Hashmi is Administrative Coordinator with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto, having previously held faculty appointments in the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga and in the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia. Additional roles at the Institute include serving as a Persian and Urdu cataloguer with Archives & Special Collections, UTM Library, and as Consulting Editor for Iran Namag, a bilingual quarterly of Iranian Studies. A translator and editor working in English, French, Hindi-Urdu, and Persian, he is a past president of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada (2020-23). “The Infernal Times of Young Ayaz,” his English rendition of Reza Baraheni’s experimental 1972 Persian novel Rūzigār-i dūzakhī-yi āqā-yi Ayāz, was awarded a translation grant by the Canada Council for the Arts and is forthcoming from Quattro Books. He is presently at work on translating, also from the Persian, Hanūz dar safarī, the 2008 collection of verse by Pakistani Hazara poet Zakia Behroze. A scholarly monograph, tentatively titled “Studies in Twentieth Century Indo-Persian Poetry,” is in its early stages of preparation.

Charles Leblanc is a poet, translator and actor who was born in Montréal in 1950.

He studied at a collège classique (Quebec classical college) where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in social sciences. He went on to study economics at university, then held several jobs before moving to Saint-Boniface, Manitoba in 1978. There he worked first as an industrial worker, then as a translation teacher, and finally as a translator.  

Since 1991, he has hosted a weekly cultural show at the community radio station Envol 91.1 FM. But theatre and literature are his true passions.

Over the years, he has co‑founded six theatre troupes, done improv with the Ligue d’improvisation du Manitoba [Manitoba improv league], taken part in problem plays with the Popular Theatre Alliance and No Frills Theatricks, and acted in productions at the Théâtre Cercle Molière, among others.

He has co-published a collection of epistolary stories and written nine books of street poetry from the heart, striking in its spectacular folly.  He is also Secretary-Treasurer of the new Association des auteur.e.s du Manitoba français [Association of French Manitoba authors].

Ruth Linka is the co-owner and co-publisher at Orca Book Publishers. Her prior roles include publisher at TouchWood Editions, co-founder of Brindle and Glass as well as other roles in trade and literary publishing. She has served as chair of the BookBC, Book Publishers of Alberta and Victoria Book Prizes boards and is currently the past-president of the Association of Canadian Publishers.

Pilar Martinez is the Chief Executive Officer of the Edmonton Public Library, where she is responsible for strategic leadership, supporting the Board of Trustees, financial and budget management and stakeholder relations. Pilar has a broad base of experience in library leadership including: advocacy, collective bargaining, strategic planning, recruitment and change leadership. She holds a MLIS from the University of Alberta, a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in English from Acadia University and recently completed the Institute of Corporate Directors, Directors Education Program. Pilar is very active in the library community, and currently serves on several boards nation-wide, including chairing the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, Vice-Chairing, OCLC’s Global Regional and Americas Regional Councils, serving on the Public Lending Rights Commission and as an Adjunct Professor for the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies where she also serves as a School Council member. In 2012, Pilar was honoured with the CLA/Ken Haycock Award for promoting librarianship, and the Library Association of Alberta’s President’s Award in 2016 for her contributions to the library field. She was presented the Distinguished Alumni Award by the Library and Information Studies Alumni Association in 2018.

Serge Patrice Thibodeau is a poet, writer of non-fiction, translator and writer of travel stories. Born in Rivière-Verte, in New Brunswick, he has lived in Moncton since 2005, after 20 years in Montréal. He has published more than 20 literary and reference works since 1990.

He has been chair of the Board of directors at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre, in Moncton; treasurer, vice-chair and chair of the executive of the Regroupement des éditeurs franco-canadiens (REFC); and co-opted member of the Board of the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (ANEL).

He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2015. On May 20, 2023, the Edmundston Campus at the University of Moncton awarded him an honorary doctorate in literature in recognition of his exceptional contribution to his profession and society at large.

He is among the Canadian writers whose literary and personal archives have been acquired by Library and Archives Canada (Fonds LMS-0250).

Serge Patrice Thibodeau is currently the director general of Éditions Perce-Neige, in Moncton, where he is still active as a poet and writer.

David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General's Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer's Union of Canada Freedom to Read award. He has received several other accolades for his work as a writer for children and adults, podcaster, public speaker, and social advocate. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters by the University of Manitoba in 2023 for outstanding contributions to the arts and distinguished achievements. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.

Since 2000, Sylvie Thibault has been the director general of the Réseau BIBLIO de l’Outaouais [Outaouais region library network], whose mission is to develop and support a regional network of libraries in the Outaouais area. Sylvie has overseen the growth, organization, development and efficient administration of the Réseau BIBLIO and now aims to maintain a solid reputation for the Réseau in terms of the quality of goods and services offered to member municipalities.

She holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Studies from the Université de Montréal. Over the years, she has sat on the board of various local and national organizations dedicated to the promotion of literature and culture. She has served as president for the Association pour l’avancement des sciences et techniques de la documentation (ASTED) [association for the advancement of information sciences and techniques], secretary general for the Réseau BIBLIO du Québec [Quebec library network], which oversees eleven similar local networks, vice-chair for the Salon du livre de l’Outaouais [Outaouais book fair] and chair for the Regroupement des bibliothèques publiques de l’Outaouais [Outaouais public libraries group]. She has sat on the board of directors of Services documentaires multimédia (SDM) [multimedia information services] since 2012 and been its vice-chair since 2016.

Sylvie believes that access to literature and culture for everyone remains a priority issue for the development and prosperity of society.

Richard Davis is the representative of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Mélanie Dumas (ex officio member, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec) has a master’s degree in library and information sciences from the Université de Montréal. She began working at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec in 2001. Between 2008 and 2010, she helped to establish the Service québécois de traitement documentaire. She has been director of access to the Collection universelle of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec since 2013.