Jason Schembri
Treasurer
Shaylean Gladu
Member at Large
Louise Courtemanche
Member at Large
Our returning board members are:
Anne Bailey (President)
Anna Wagner (Vice President)
Kendall Bistretzan (Secretary)
Natalie Simpson (Member at Large)
T.F. Pruden (Member at Large)
Aubrianna Snow (Member at Large, Youth Representative)
About the Board Members
Jason Schembri (Calgary)
With 20+ years in executive financial management I have excelled in budgeting, policy development & oversight, strategic planning, financial management, and all detailed level accounting positions, having retired (mostly) financial consulting work in 2024.
Louise Courtemanche (Banff)
Louise is a Toronto-born French-Canadian who grew up in Montréal. She settled in Banff on traditional Treaty 7 territory with her husband in 2006. Before returning to Canada, she lived in Luxembourg for 15 years and worked in banking, multimedia, and academia as campus director of a US university. Focussed on inclusion and belonging, she taught leadership in MBA and undergraduate programmes in Europe and Canada for 25 years. Her leadership coaching and change management work spanned nonprofits and corporations across North America. She co-owned an inn in Banff and served on the board of the YWCA, chairing its governance committee.
Louise’s publications include French and English non-fiction articles, academic and policy papers, and a fiction piece in an anthology. An active member of two workshop groups, she committed to her writing career full-time in 2022. She earned a Creative Writing certificate from The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Hull (UK). Louise writes character-driven historical thrillers that explore the intersection of trauma and identity. She is working on her debut novel, Wild Rose.
Shaylean Gladu (Fort McMurray)
Shaylean is a Nêhiyawak poet, published in Northword Magazine, Words in Motion, and Words & Birds. She won first in the 2025 Words in Motion poetry competition, received an honourable mention for the 2026 Kemosa Scholarship, and was a mentee in WGA’s 2026 Mentorship Program. Shaylean is a public speaker who has appeared at multiple ceremonies, open mics, fundraisers, and launch events. She completed a Visiting Author Tour with the Wood Buffalo Regional Library, promoting poetry in rural Indigenous schools. She will host the Q&A for the 2026 launch of Where the Mourning Gathers (Stacey Grant).
