a chapbook about mental health and resiliency (Two Volumes)

Edited by Rayanne Haines

April 2021

Contributors:

Volume one: Jessica Coles, Lorne Daniel, griffin epstein, Clara A. B. Joseph, Dan MacIsaac, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Antigone Oreopoulos, Julia Sorensen, Andrea Thompson and Erin Wilson.

Volume two: Moni Brar, Franco Cortese, Catherine Grahame, Samantha Jones, Karen Klassen, Kelly B. Madden, Kim Mannix, Anna Quon, Greg Santos, Lauren Seal, Catherine St. Denis, Amy Willans, and Anna Yin.

From the introduction

The poems in this collection weave and jolt through the human condition. They are raw and determined. They are haunting, and in some cases, haunted. They are intentional. They interrogate. They remember. They clap back. In this collection, resilience resonates as both boulder or a tulip. 

About the Editor

Rayanne Haines (she/her) is a pushcart nominated poet and an award-winning hybrid author as well as a cultural producer of intersectional films, stage shows, and panels. In addition to hosting the literary podcast, Crow Reads, she recently completed a year as the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries. Rayanne is currently an Assistant Professor in the Arts and Cultural Management Program at MacEwan University and is the President for the League of Canadian Poets.

Rayanne has penned three poetry collections – The Stories in My Skin (2013), Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2017), and Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac, 2021) which won the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson, Alberta Literary Award for Poetry as well as being shortlisted for both the Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry, and the National ReLit Award for Poetry. Her essay, This is Normal, published in Impact: Women Writing After Concussion (UofA Press), was shortlisted for the John Whyte Memorial Essay Alberta Literary Award. She is a 2019 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award recipient.

Rayanne Haines’s writing has appeared or will appear in The Globe and Mail, Grain Magazine, Minola Review, Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, Impact: The Lives of Women After Concussion Anthology, Voicing Suicide Anthology, The Selkie Resiliency Anthology, Freefall,  and Funicular among others. She is also the author of a commercial market, four-part urban fantasy romance series.

Rayanne was  the Executive Director for the Edmonton Poetry Festival from 2012 to 2019 and has taught or mentored with the Writers Guild of Alberta, The Alexander Writers Centre, Poetry in Voice, and the University of Alberta Extension. She was a previous WIR for Audreys Books.

Rayanne holds a Masters of Arts Degree in Arts, Festival and Cultural Management from Queen Margaret University.