Isabel Abdai is a graphic designer and art director, who followed her dream to NYC three years after graduating from ACAD in Calgary. She spent five years as Senior Associate Art Director for Martha Stewart Living magazine, and is currently the Design Director for Woman’s Day magazine at Hearst Corporation.

Trevor J. Adams is senior editor/copy chief with Advocate Media. He edits and writes for Saltscapes magazine and has published three books. In 2023, he earned the Bronze Quill Award from News Media Canada.

Nadine Arseneault is an award-winning art director with over three decades of experience in leading design projects for Canada’s top brands and magazines. Recognized by the National Magazine Awards, SPD Award, Magnum Opus Award and Communication Arts Award. She has a Master of Design degree from York University and currently principal at Bakersfield Visual Communications Inc art directing Rotman Management magazine for the University of Toronto.

Trevor Battye is the founder of Trevor Battye Advertising Sales provides client-driven advertising and monetization strategies for print and digital publications, festivals, and events for over 15 years. Clients include The Alberta Teachers Association, Brick A Literary Journal, The Tyee, The Vancouver Writers Festival, The Vancouver Film Festival, and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. In addition he is a sessional instructor in the Publishing Program at Simon Fraser University Courses include Pub 456 Festivals and Events and Pub 458 Journalism as Publishing Problem.

Terry Bullick is a long-time Calgary writer, editor and communicator. She has contributed to countless Canadian and Alberta magazines in her career and was an ardent AMPA volunteer and director in the 2010s. More recently, focuses on helping businesses and associations use storytelling in their communications.

Wendy Burton’s debut novel Ivy’s Tree (Thistledown) was published in 2020. “Swimming in the Dark” (Folklife, October 2020) won Gold BC Story of the Year, AMPA 2021. Millicent, about her great-great-grandmother’s life in 1850s East End London, is being considered for publication. Her essay “Meditations on the Headstand” is in (Folklife, Winter 2023). She regularly reviews nonfiction for BC Review of Books.

Joyce Byrne is Alberta Magazine Publishers’ past President and an award-winning veteran of the Canadian magazine industry. She has led publishing, creative, marketing and sales teams and boards in Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary, and has worked on nearly every type of magazine, from literary to light industrial, with consumer, business, visual art, health and cannabis in between. She is the recipient of the National Media Awards Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement (2018), AMPA’s Achievement in Publishing Award (2018) as well as the NABS Honour Roll (2013) and Advertising Club of Edmonton Fellowship Award (2014). Joyce is AMPA’s curriculum consultant and the host of the Strategies for Canadian Magazines series. Her personal brand is I Love Magazines.

Scott is an Edmonton-based illustrator, concept artist, and arts educator. He spent the early part of his career in the video game industry, art-directing titles that have won awards including: “Best Gaming Experience” and “Best Character Design.” Scott enjoys mixing the old with the new, and updating the ways that rural and urban communities are visually represented. His illustration work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Alberta Magazine Awards. Scott teaches illustration and is constantly inspired by his students and the imaginative stories they create.

Ian Cockfield is the former Managing Editor of EVENT magazine, runs its Reading Service for Writers and sits on its Fiction Committee. He is a past fiction editor of PRISM international. He has been a juror for the Alberta Magazine Awards; National Magazine Awards; Digital Publishing Awards; Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (USA); and an assessor for the BC Arts Council and the Manitoba Arts Council. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, attended the Banff Wired Writing Studio, was a past president of the Magazine Association of BC, and has been a freelance editor since 2003. His fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in various Canadian journals. He has been on publishing panels at Word on the Street Vancouver, MagNet (Toronto), BC Book and Magazine Week and SFU’s The Writer’s Studio.

For more than a decade, Nancy Cope has been editor of SAIT’s award-winning alumni magazine, LINK. Prior to that, she worked in communications in post-secondary education and the arts, and as a freelance business writer.

Daniel (Dan) Donovan is the Founding Publisher and Managing Editor of Ottawa Life Magazine www.ottawalife.com (est. 1997), the largest and longest-running magazine in Canada’s national capital region. Known for his articles on politics, government, international relations, business, and travel, Dan has been published in many esteemed publications including The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Hill Times, The Ottawa Citizen, The Financial Post, Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun, Masthead Magazine, Metro Magazine, Al Jazirah, and as an op-ed writer in CGCN China. He has authored and edited influential public policy books, including True Grits New Grits and A Life Less Taxing.

Dan’s volunteer service includes roles on several boards, such as the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and the Canadian Cycling Association. He is a certified coach with Hockey Canada and a former reservist soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Kyra Droog (she/her) is a writer, fundraiser, and storyteller living on Treaty Six territory in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Kyra’s work in grant writing and fundraising for Edmonton not-for-profit arts and culture organizations has resulted in millions of dollars raised for the sector. Her list of publications spans short and book-length non-fiction, as well as short stories and poetry. Kyra is armed with a Bachelor of Communication Studies from MacEwan University and a Master of Publishing from Simon Fraser University, and has presented her academic and creative work at conferences across Canada. She has published with the Bolo Tie Collective, Ink Movement Edmonton, and Golden Meteorite Press, and has work forthcoming from Wild Skies Press and the Children’s Literature Association.

Jenn Dykstra is an accomplished photographer and graduate of the Western Academy of Photography  in Victoria, BC. She views life as a series of memorable moments and creatively and professionally captures those moments for her valued clients. Her philosophy is to beautifully compose her images and provide her clients with both the expected and unexpected. In turn, she thrills and inspires her clients and other photographers by showcasing people, places and relationships in a stunning way and precisely for who they are.

Dykstra finds sanctuary adventuring in the great outdoors. The Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains are her favourite playgrounds and she is also inspired by locations further afield. With her passport stamped on every page, she loves to travel and appreciates culture and diversity. Her life, relationships and work are all shaped by making the most out of life.

Patti Edgar is a senior lecturer of Communications at Mount Royal University. Her writing has been published in newspapers, magazines and books, including more recently in FreeFall, Blank Spaces, The Antigonish Review, and The Dalhousie Review.

Derek Eng is currently the Art Director at Dwell. Previously, he was Creative Director of Endless Vacation, Art Director at the Wall Street Journal, and Designer at Travel & Leisure. His work has been recognized by SPD, AIGA, the National Magazine Awards, and Applied Arts, and he was nominated for Art Director of the Year at the 2019 Folio Awards.

Stacey May Fowles is an award winning writer, editor, and magazine professional with over twenty years of experience in book, magazine, newspaper, and digital publishing. Her national bestseller Baseball Life Advice, was published in Spring 2017, and was selected by the Globe and Mail, The National Post, and Maisonneuve as a best book of the year. Fowles has also worked on circulation projects for a number of highly respected literary and arts publications, is the author of five books and editor of four anthologies, and her bylines include Cottage Life, Reader’s Digest, Toronto Life, Vice, Broadview, The Literary Review of Canada, Quill and Quire, Maisonneuve, Elle Canada, and many more. She recently published her first children’s book, The Invitation, with Groundwood Books.

Gary Garland is a long-time advocate of the Canadian magazine industry with broad experience in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) consultations and legislative rollouts across Canada. Over the past 14 years, Gary has been actively involved in advisory and advocacy work during the development of EPR in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and now, Alberta.

Gary’s resume includes President and Executive Director at Magazines Canada as well as senior roles in leading advertising and marketing companies. He is currently Principal at Gary Garland Consulting.

David Gibson is vice president for communications and marketing at Middlebury, where he leads public affairs, marketing, internal and crisis communications, branding, web strategy, social media, creative services, storytelling across platforms, and print and mail operations. He has three decades of experience advancing the interests of mission-driven institutions and has built programs clarifying their value in the world and bringing deeper engagement with stakeholders. He has held staff positions at Hampshire, MIT, and Dartmouth; was vice president of strategic communications for the international consulting firm Grenzebach Glier and Associates, advising clients in the cultural, health care, education, and charitable sectors; and has led creative teams specializing in campaign communications. At Cornell, he and his team won two Sibley Magazine of the Year Awards. As its former managing editor, he helped Yankee earn its first National Magazine Award nomination for reporting. He speaks widely about the profession and has served on the faculty of CASE’s Summer Institute in Communications and Marketing since 1997.

Ryan Girard has spent over 20 years in the visual arts profession, beginning in graphic design and adding photography early on in his career. He has worked in multiple creative environments, including as an art director and in-house photographer in the publishing industry for 7 years, and currently works as the Creative Services Manager and photography lead for the marketing department’s head office of an internationally reaching Alberta-headquarted company. Beyond this, he also takes on freelance projects and practices landscape photography.

photoED Magazine’s editor /publisher Rita Godlevskis has more than twenty years of experience in photography based, creative media work, in Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. She has worked across multiple platforms with a diverse range of projects in her portfolio in editorial, and creative production contexts. A passion for promoting diverse voices in Canadian photography, and great coffee keep her fuelled.

Nicola Hamilton RGD (she/her) is an award-winning editorial designer based in Toronto, Canada. For over a decade now she’s been art directing and designing magazines. She’s worked on publications like The Grid, Chatelaine, The University of Toronto Magazine, Best Health, Precedent, and Serviette to name a few. Nicola is the President of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD), where she advocates for the value of design. In July 2022, Nicola took her love of magazines to a whole new level by opening Issues Magazine Shop, a bricks-and-mortar magazine retailer with a mandate to celebrate the people and projects keeping print alive.

Michelle Kelly started her career in publishing in 1998, as the office manager at Cottage Life. Since then, she has held various positions in the editorial department at the magazine until she was named Editor in July 2015 and Vice President, Content, for Blue ant Media in September 2019. She sits on the Professional Advisory Committee for Centennial College in Toronto and is a board member for the International Regional Magazines Association. She is also the recipient of several Canadian National Magazine Awards, including Editor Grand Prix in 2021. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.

Mitch Kern is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Design at the Alberta University of the Arts whose work has received numerous awards and been featured in 150+ exhibitions and publications in Canada, the U.S. and abroad.

Lisa Kozleski spent the first half of her career working at newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Allentown Morning Call, and the second half working in post-secondary education, including seven years teaching academic writing at the University of Lethbridge and almost 13 years working as Lethbridge Polytechnic’s senior writer and editor of Wider Horizons, an award-winning alumni magazine. In 2024, she was thrilled to return to her alma mater, the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., to serve as editor of Arches. In her free time, she loves hiking, hanging out with friends and family around a crowded table, and spoiling her very good dogs.

A content strategy and media executive specializing in content solutions across social, digital, video, print, SEO, research and e-commerce, Jacquie Loch is a branded content/revenue generation expert driving engagement, results, and cultivating C-level relationships. In her current role as EVP Strategy & Revenue, AZURE Media, she works closely with clients to create innovative cross-platform content solutions that deliver on revenue goals and company EBITDA. Previously as EVP Social & Emerging Platforms and VP Group Publisher SJC Media and TC Media she oversaw media brands including FASHION, ELLE Canada, Canadian Living, and Style at Home, and was formerly VP Content Solutions Rogers Media. A recognized leader in marketing solutions and media innovation, Jacquie Chaired The Content Council (New York) and is a Board Member for the National Media Awards Foundation. A frequent speaker across North America and Europe, having created award-winning programs for a wide range of top-tier clients.

Adrianne Lovric is a communications professional who has spent the last 20 years creating content for print media, non-profits, creative agencies, start-ups and publicly-traded companies. Fuelled by caffeine and curiosity, she always says yes to dark roast and opportunities for new adventures. Adrianne lives in Calgary with her husband, Miroslav, and their two daughters.

Domenic Macri has designed and art directed for Toronto Life, FASHION magazine, Flare, What’s Cooking and GUSTO!, and is best known as art director for The Globe and Mail’s much-lauded Report on Business (ROB) magazine. Over the past decade, Macri has led ROB through several redesigns and earned recognition from the Art Directors Club of Canada and the National Magazine Awards.

Tara McCarthy has worked in print, radio, and new media for over a decade. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, where she works at CBC as the traffic, weather and community reporter on Edmonton AM. She’s also a juror for the Polaris Music Prize and the Western Canadian Music Awards. A former Yukoner, Tara was editor of the magazine Yukon, North of Ordinary for 7 years, and worked as a host and producer at CBC Yukon.

Natalie Meisner is a poet and playwright from the Mi’kma’ki /South Shore of Nova Scotia and Calgary/ Mohkinstsis 5th Poet Laureate. She combines survivor comedy with hopepunk in the service of social change. Her new collection of poems, It Begins in Salt is forthcoming with Frontenac in April, 2023. Baddie One Shoe is her book of odes to renegade women. LEGISLATING LOVE: THE EVERETT KLIPPERT STORY is a stage play based on the true story of the beloved Calgary bus driver whose plight spurred the decriminalization of homosexuality. SPEED DATING FOR SPERM DONORS is a comedy for the stage based on her family’s story, and was a hit at Neptune and Lunchbox Theatre. Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family topped non-fiction lists and My Mommy, My Mama My Brother & Me is her children’s book about a two-mom biracial family finding community. She is a wife, mom to two great boys and a Full Professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, AB.

Alanna Mitchell is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author and playwright who is as fascinated with the history of scientific thought and the evolution of quantum physics as she is with trends in 21st-century art. She has been a freelance magazine journalist for the past two decades, and has written five books and two plays. She is features editor at Broadview Magazine.  She has spent parts of the past 10 years performing a one-woman play she wrote, with help from artistic directors Franco Boni and Ravi Jain, at theatres around the world. She grew up on the prairies and now lives in Toronto.

John Montgomery is an award-winning freelance art director + graphic designer based in Toronto, providing creative direction services to corporate and editorial clients, as well as a professor with Sheridan College’s Honours Bachelor of Illustration program. He’s previously worked with ALLCAPS Content, Fiera Capital, Harbour Publishing, Reader’s Digest Canada and Sélection, Canadian Business, MoneySense, Toronto Life, Financial Post Magazine and Taddle Creek magazines.

Jacquie Moore has been a magazine editor and writer since 2004 when she started as an assistant editor at Western Living magazine in Vancouver. From there she spent many years at Calgary’s weekly Swerve magazine as executive editor and senior writer. Most recently, she re-imagined and edited the University of Calgary’s AMPA award-winning arch magazine for which she now freelance writes. She also regularly contributes to Avenue magazine.

Robert Newman is the creative director at Newmanology. He was previously the creative director for Real Simple, This Old House Ventures, and Reader’s Digest, the design director for Entertainment Weekly, Cottage Living, New York, Details, Vibe, Fortune, and The Village Voice, and has consulted for AARP, AAA, TV Guide, and more. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.

Colleen Nicholson is a Toronto-based book and magazine art director with an alarmingly ambitious coffee habit and a penchant for pithy bios.

Principal and Creative Director, Thomas Porostocky started his design career in the NYC magazine industry. After realizing he was far too independent for a cushy office job, he started his own studio, The TOM Agency, a multi-disciplinary firm focused on infographics and illustration-based design.

Thomas has a Bachelor of Design from ACAD (Calgary) and a Masters from the School of Visual Arts (NYC). He was included in Print Magazine’s Top 20 Under 30, and has had his name and work appear in numerous Design Annuals, Books and Art exhibits. When he’s not designing, he’s lusting after cars he’ll never own.

Anicka Quin is the Editorial Director of Western Living and Vancouver magazines. Under her leadership, Western Living has become a regional brand with a national reputation, winning Best Home Design and Décor magazine in Canada in 2017 at the Canadian Magazine Awards and Magazine of the Year at the Editor’s Choice Awards in 2019; Vancouver magazine has also thrived under her tenure, winning Magazine of the Year at the Canadian Editors’ Choice Awards in 2018 and best e-newsletter in 2019. Before joining Western Living and Vanmag, Anicka worked with Alternatives Journal and the alt-weekly id Magazine. She’s also decidedly become a pandemic cliché, and has spent the last year working on a YA novel, which she hopes to finish any day now.

Christina Reynolds is a freelance journalist based in Calgary, in Treaty 7 territory. She’s been the executive editor of ELLE Canada and the editor-in-chief of city magazine CalgaryInc. She has also worked at the Calgary Herald, ROBTV and CTV.

Pete Ryan was raised on a farm in the middle of nowhere. He’s a former college professor, former art director and former Ontarian who currently calls Nelson, BC home. Pete makes illustrations for Time, the New York Times and a variety of publications in Alberta. A global warming alarmist, golden retriever enthusiast and late ‘90s hardcore punk survivor, Pete can be found on a trail, in his garden or inside his studio.

Graham F. Scott is a Senior Content Designer at Shopify and a former editor at Maclean’s, Canadian Business, Precedent, and This Magazine.

Nikki Sheppy is the author of the award-winning poetry collections, Fail Safe, and Grrrrlhood: a ludic suite. She is a trauma-informed writer, editor, teacher and facilitator, with peer support training. Past selves have taught literature and language at three Canadian universities, edited filling Station literary magazine here in Alberta, and fostered dogs for the Toronto Humane Society. She lives in Calgary / Mohkinstas in Treaty 7 territory.

Stephen Smith is a writer in Toronto, a sometime contributor to The New York Times, Canadian Geographic, McSweeney’s, and Geist. He’s author of the book Puckstruck: Distracted, Delighted and Distressed by Canada’s Hockey Obsession (2014), and steers a blog at puckstruck.com that keeps an eye on hockey history and culture.

David Topping is an experienced digital media leader obsessed with delivering news better, and a fan of big swings, rolling with the punches, and occasionally mixing sports metaphors. He is currently the Newsletters Director at Torstar.

Carolynn Van de Vyvere is a former journalism instructor, writer and editor. For the past nine years, she has been the communications principal at IVY, a Calgary-based marketing agency.

Janice Van Eck, R.G.D., is a freelance designer specializing in magazine and book design. She is passionate about typography, dynamic photography and visualizing data. Her clients, who range from large corporations to young entrepreneurs, are based in Canada, the United States and the UK. They include Faith Today, Cleanfarms, The Centre for Agri-Food Benchmarking, OVMA, MBC and Westminster Seminary.

Leslie Vermeer is a professor of communication studies at MacEwan University in Edmonton and has been writing and editing professionally for 30 years. Alberta’s political economy and Alberta’s publishing history are two of her academic interests.

Chandra Vermeulen is a Calgary-based Graphic / Communication Designer and Sessional Instructor at the Alberta University of the Arts. Chandra’s work has been recognized by Communication Arts, Coupe Magazine and The Mohawk Show.

Lisa Whittington-Hill is the publisher of This Magazine. She also works as a circulation, marketing and fundraising consultant for small magazines and is an instructor in the magazine publishing program at Centennial College in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in The Walrus, Hazlitt and Longreads. She is currently writing a book for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series on Beauty and the Beat by The Go-Go’s. Girls, Interrupted, her collection of essays on how pop culture is failing women, will be published by Vehicule Press in 2023.

Cait Wills is a strategic communications professional with a degree in journalism from Thompson Rivers University. With a career spanning 20+ years, Cait has worked at a variety of publications, ranging from trade periodicals to consumer magazines, before leading the design and launch of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry’s alumni magazine and redesign and relaunch the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences’ alumni magazine. She now works with a variety of First Nations’ and settler clients to amplify their storytelling in a way that both resonates and inspires for social change.