Board of Directors

Blaine is a playwright, sketch and fiction writer, improviser and sometime engineer.

When not bragging about himself in the third person, he has written sketches for shows you’ve never seen, short stories for magazines and anthologies you’ve never read, and plays for an audience of well under a million people. This, combined with his engineering training, allows him to alter current reality by day while creating alternate realities at night.

His recent theatre productions include The Thin Grey Line, Cursive Writing Productions; Bravo, Shadow Theatre; Five Stages of Death, Cursive Writing Productions; and Oral Fixations (co-written with author Leslie Greentree), Ignition Theatre. His recent publications include the stories By the Numbers, Freefall Magazine, and Life in a Bottle, University of Bristol 2021 Anthology.

He’s a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, a past-president of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, and served two terms as president of Alberta Playwrights’ Network.

Teresa Wouters is a returning WGA board member with years of experience on a variety of boards. She is the second place winner of the 2021 Kemosa Scholarship for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Mothers Who Write. As well, Teresa hosts the Otâcimow Indigenous Writers Circle. Teresa lives in Grande Prairie as a teacher, author, musician, actress and television personality, and entrepreneur. Her goals, as an author, are to entertain, educate, and inspire.

Olga Krochak Sulkin has been a member of WGA since 2020. She received her BA in English Literature and Communication from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and MA in English Literature from University of Calgary. Olga has been writing poetry and short fiction since she was six and has published a few poems and academic articles. For over two decades Olga has been involved in the non-profit sector in various roles and is very excited to join WGA board as the new Treasurer. Currently Olga is the Director of Philanthropy for Spinal Cord Injury Alberta and is working on her first middle-grade novel.

Lori Hahnel is the author of two novels, Love Minus Zero (Oberon, 2008) and After You’ve Gone (Thistledown, 2014); and two short story collections, Nothing Sacred (Thistledown, 2009), and Vermin: Stories (Enfield & Wizenty, 2020). Her work aired on CBC Radio and appeared in The Fiddlehead, Joyland, Prairie Fire, Room, The Antigonish Review, The Saturday Evening Post and other publications in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. Lori teaches creative writing and was author-in-residence at the Calgary Public Library in 2020.

Her research program and her writing focus on family caregiving and home care using innovative and arts-based approaches. She recently retired from her fulltime role as a professor (University of Alberta) and Clinician Scientist (Alberta Health Services). Kim uses applied research to incite public conversations and inform policy for better outcomes for home care clients and family caregivers. Kim has embarked on a second career as author and recently completed her first full length book manuscript, The Accidental Caregiver, forthcoming in 2021. She does contract teaching with Athabasca University.

Kim has been active on several community boards in the past and is currently, she Vice-President of Caregivers Alberta. She is looking forward to the second year of her term on the board with WGA.

Nicole Hill is a new member of the WGA Board. She is the author and co-author of an array of academic and public-facing nonfiction works. Most recently, she co-edited Obstetric Violence: Realities and Resistance from Around the World (forthcoming 2022), in which she is also a chapter author. Nicole has a BA in sociology, an MA in integrated studies from Athabasca University and a PhD (ABD) in sociology from the University of Alberta. She served as co-editor and board member of the Journal of Integrated Studies and vice president academic of the Athabasca University Graduate Students’ Association. Nicole has a passion for storytelling and progressive works that enrich and challenge our ways of thinking and doing.

Moorea Gray is an active member of the WGA since 2004. I have participated in workshops, attended Alberta Literary Awards events and written for WestWord. The WGA has provided me with many long-lasting opportunities, and it is my turn to give back to this important writing organization. I have a great interest and involvement in Alberta literature—past and present. In 2019, I published an anthology of the works of Icelandic-Canadian writer Stephan G. Stephansson. I am vice president of the Calgary Women’s Literary Club and secretary for the Leif Eriksson Iceland Club. In 2021, I completed a two-year term as a committee member with the Calgary Distinguished Writers’ Program at the University of Calgary. I hold a BEd and an MA in English Literature. Substitute teaching for children in kindergarten to Grade six is a highlight of my school year. Teaching offers me the opportunity to read and share my love of literature with a captive audience.

Carol Parchewsky has been an active member of the WGA for over four years. She received her MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, her BSc in mechanical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, and postgraduate certificates in professional management—PEG, e-Learning, and creative writing from the University of Calgary. She is a knowledgeable senior leader with experience in government organizations, civic organizations, and the private sector. She is operations director of Legend Grafix, an all-inclusive graphic design house and wide-format printer in Calgary. Carol teaches ESL classes and writing classes, writes picture books, middle grade, adult fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. She is working on a novel and a collection of short stories.