Commission Members

Russell Wangersky is a writer and columnist. His latest book, Same Ground: Chasing Family Down the California Gold Rush Trail, was released in Fall 2022. 

His seven books also include the memoir Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself, a memoir of his eight years as a volunteer firefighter, two novels (The Glass Harmonica and Walt), and three short story collections, Whirl Away, The Hour of Bad Decisions and The Path of Most Resistance. After more than 30 years in St. John's, NL, he moved to Saskatoon, where he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He is a seven-time National Newspaper Awards finalist and a Scotiabank-Giller finalist. 

Mélikah Abdelmoumen is a writer and editor born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She holds a PhD in literature from the Université de Montréal and has published numerous articles and short stories, as well as several novels and essays, including Les désastrées (2013) and Douze ans en France (2018)—she lived in Lyon from 2005 to 2017. From June 2019 to 2021, she worked as an editor at Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature, in Montréal, and she is currently the editor-in-chief at the journal Lettres québécoises. Her next book, Baldwin, Styron et moi, will be published by Mémoire d’encrier in February 2022. 

Semareh Al-Hillal is the president of House of Anansi Press and Groundwood Books. Her prior roles include publisher at Groundwood Books, associate publisher and managing editor at Kids Can Press, as well as roles in educational publishing. She served on the board of the Association of Canadian Publishers for six years and is currently serving on the board of Livres Canada Books as chair.

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.

The spiritual granddaughter of Jack Monoloy, Maya Cousineau Mollen is a politically engaged Innu author and poet. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science and Indigenous studies from Université Laval. In 2007, she participated in a writers’ residency in Banff, Alberta, and was named the Mellon Writer-in-Residence at McGill University for winter 2022. She has done community work over 20 years, including with the First Nations youth council of Quebec and Labrador, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Wolfpack Street Patrol. Her first collection of poetry, Bréviaire du Matricule 082, with a preface by Ariane Mnouchkine, was published in 2019. Her meeting and friendship with Ariane Mnouchkine have influenced her understanding of the world and her writing.

Laurie D. Graham comes from Treaty 6 territory (Sherwood Park, Alberta) and currently lives in Haldimand Treaty territory (Kitchener, Ontario). She is a poet, an editor, the publisher of Brick magazine, and a member of the advisory board for the University of Regina Press’s Oskana Poetry & Poetics series. Her first book, Rove, was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second book, Settler Education, came out in 2016 and was nominated for the Trillium Award for Poetry. Poems from that book were also shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, won the Thomas Morton Poetry Prize, and appeared in the Best Canadian Poetry anthology. Laurie holds degrees in English and creative writing from the universities of Alberta, Victoria, and Guelph. She has taught writing at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario in London, and at Humber and Fanshawe colleges. As publisher and editor of Brick, she has worked with writers from all over Turtle Island, including Madeleine Thien, Sheila Heti, Sharon Olds, Yasuko Thanh, Paul Seesequasis, Don DeLillo and Jan Zwicky.

Bilal Hashmi is Executive Director and Publisher of Quattro Books. He has served as Membership Secretary of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada/Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada, and now heads its committee on international translation. In 2019 he organized the French to English & English to French workshop for the British Centre for Literary Translation’s International Literary Translation & Creative Writing Summer School in Norwich, UK. He currently holds the title of Lecturer in Urdu at the University of Toronto and has recently been named one of the editors of the literary translation magazine ellipse. His translation of Flight, ʻAzīz Aḥmad’s 1945 modernist Urdu novel, is due out with McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2020.

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].

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.

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.