2026 WGA Mentorship Participants

Theresa Shea‘s third novel, Dog Days of Planet Earth, is forthcoming with ECW Press in fall 2026. Her debut, The Unfinished Child (Brindle & Glass, 2013), was a finalist for the Georges Bugnet Award and the EPL Readers’ Choice Award. Her second, The Shade Tree (Guernica Editions, 2021), won the 2020 Guernica Prize (for best unpublished literary manuscript by a Canadian) and the 2022 Georges Bugnet Award. Shea lives and writes in Edmonton.

Patti Lott is a retired rancher and therapist. She lives in the foothills of southern Alberta with her poet husband, Nash. Patti’s poetry appears in CV2; she has poems upcoming in PRISM International and Prairie Fire. She is the winner of Alberta Views magazine’s 2025 short fiction contest.

Paul Fischer is the author of the non-fiction books A Kim Jong-Il Production, a nominee for the Crime Writers’ Association Best Non-Fiction Book award and a Best Book of the Year selection for NPR, Amazon, and the Library Journal, and The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures, a New York Times selection for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2022. He also wrote the horror film The Body for Blumhouse Television and Hulu. His short writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Independent, Guardian, and the Narwhal.

Monica Kidd is a multidisciplinary writer and award-winning journalist specializing in science and health reporting. Her work has appeared in The Walrus, Canadian Geographic and Alberta Views, and on CBC Radio. She has written eight books of poetry, non-fiction and fiction, most recently the novel The Crane (Breakwater Books, 2025). She is at work on a reported creative nonfiction book called Holding Ground: The World’s Eroding Coastlines. She lives in Calgary where she also works as a medical doctor.

I (Aldona Dziedziejko) am an educator, writer and mom currently living in Clearwater County/Wabaska Thîŋa Wacipi. My work explores ambiguous loss and grief: what’s talked about and what’s not talked about, and the grey areas that shape us. My poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in CV2, subTerrain, Poetry is Dead, The Capilano Review, Fiction Southeast, Pulp Literature and PRISM international, among several others. My work was recognized through the Lina Chartrand Poetry Award (CV2), Magpie Poetry Contest and the Hummingbird Flash Fiction contest (Pulp Literature), Lush Triumphant Literary Prize (subTerrain), Off Topic Poetry contest, Room Magazine’s Short Forms Contest and Arc Poetry Magazine’s Award of Awesomeness. I am the 2024 winner of the CBC/Radio-Canada Non-fiction Contest.

Kiran Fatima is an Indigenous human rights lawyer based in Calgary. Her writing centres Muslim stories and the nuances of the diasporic, third-culture-kid experience. When she’s not at her keyboard, she can be found on her yoga mat.

R.E. Pierson is an author and teacher who lives in Calgary. His fiction and essays have been published in The Dalhousie Review, The River Oak Review, and The Funambulist, and he has various scholarly publications to his credit.

After giving up on her childhood dream career of cryptozoology, Keri Halfacre set her sights instead on theatre. Making props for theatre eventually led to film and television, where Keri spent nearly a decade decorating sets for everything from lean-tos on The Revenant to murder scenes on Under the Banner of Heaven. Her love of the paranormal emerged as a side project writing the hit web novel Natalie’s Diary on Wattpad. In the aftermath of quarantine, Keri decided to pursue the perfect combination of these two worlds and formally studied writing for film, television, and games. Her fantasy job is writing ghost stories for teens.

Jane Jacques is the managing editor of NorthWord, a small literary journal that has been publishing in Fort McMurray since 2009. She takes great pleasure in encouraging writers, especially those who are finding their voice for the first time. After teaching University English at Keyano College for over thirty years, Jane retired in 2022 to focus on her own fiction. 

Shaylean Gladu is a multifaceted artist of the Nêhiyawak people. As a poet and writer, she explores intergenerational trauma, indigenous worldviews, and resilience. Shaylean was awarded First Place in the regional poetry competition, Words in Motion (2025) with her poem, ‘Drymeat’. Her work has been published in Northword Magazine, and Words & Birds Wood Buffalo. As an artistic contributor, her design was printed on orange t-shirts by Bee Creative for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, proceeds donated to Nistawoyou Association Friendship Center. Currently, she is looking forward to a public speaking tour, organized by the Wood Buffalo Regional Library, promoting the literary arts to children and youth in rural indigenous communities. Shaylean presently lives (and freezes) in Fort McMurray, Alberta with her loving family.

Kelly Kaur is a writer, author, and speaker. She was recognized at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton for her writing and for honoring Punjabi Sikh heritage in her children’s book, Howdy, I’m Singh Hari. She was awarded the 2025 South Asian Inspiration Award for Achievement in Arts and Culture (SAIA) and was a recipient of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award in 2024. She has a novel, Letters to Singapore, and an upcoming poetry collection with the University of Calgary Press. Kelly’s works have appeared on beer cans, danced to on stage, travelled round North Dakota, landed on the moon, and published in anthologies and journals around the world. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won Honourable Mention in the Creators of Justice Literary Awards, New York. She presented two TEDx talks at Western University and McMaster University in 2025. She is a reader and judge for the International Human Rights Art Movement, New York.

Betty Jane Hegerat is the author of six books: three novels, a work of creative non-fiction, and two collections of short stories, the most recent one released in November 2025. In an earlier career she was a social worker and her writing reflects an ongoing need to make sense of conflict and chaos in relationships, and to find moments of laughter and even glimmers of redemption. She has taught creative writing for the Alexandra Writers’ Centre, Continuing Education at the University of Calgary, and the Fernie Writers’ Conference. She was Writer in Residence for the Calgary Public Library.  In 2015 she was honoured to receive the Writers Guild of Alberta Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement in writing. When she’s asked for the most important advice she would offer to new writers and students of creative writing it is always the same; find a community of writers– these are people who help us celebrate our successes and share the disappointments of rejection. She is ever grateful to the Calgary writing community, and the Writers Guild of Alberta.

Anna Veprinska has published the poetry collections Bonememory (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and Sew with Butterflies (Steel Bananas, 2014). Her third poetry collection, Wound Archive, is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press in 2026. She has been twice shortlisted for the Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence, was a finalist for the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, and won the Chinook Poetry Contest. She works as an Assistant Professor of English and creative writing at the University of Calgary.

My (Vivian Hansen) work has been published as nonfiction, fiction, and poetry in Canadian journals.  I have published four books of poetry: A Bitter Mood of Clouds (Frontenac House 2013)  A Tincture of Sunlight (2017), Leylines of My Flesh and crawlSpace (Touchwood 2002 and 2023).  My chapbooks include Never Call It Bird: the Melodies of Aids, Angel Alley: the Victims of Jack the Ripper, and Design Charette for Blakiston Park.  I teach creative writing at the University of Calgary in the Creative Writing Certificate Program.  My nonfiction appears in Coming Here, Being Here (Guernica 2016), (M)othering (Innana 2022), and You Look Good For Your Age, University of Alberta Press, 2022.