Eleanor Wachtel, CM is a Canadian writer and broadcaster. For over thirty years she hosted the weekly literary show Writers and Company on CBC Radio One. She was born and raised in Montreal, where she took a B.A. in English literature at McGill University. Wachtel lived for a time in the United States and Kenya, and then in the mid-'70s worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster in Vancouver. She has co-edited two books: The Expo Story (1986), and Language in Her Eye (1990), and is the co-author of A Feminist Guide to the Canadian Constitution (1992). In 1993, Knopf Canada published a selection of interviews called Writers and Company; More Writers and Company was published in the fall of 1996. In spring 2003, HarperCollins brought out another selection, Original Minds. Wachtel is a contributor to the best-seller, Dropped Threads (2001), co-edited by Carol Shields, and Lost Classics (2000), co-edited by Michael Ondaatje et al. In 2007, she published Random Illuminations: Conversations With Carol Shields. For five years she was Adjunct Professor of Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University. In the fall of 1987, Wachtel moved to Toronto to work full-time as Literary Commentator on CBC Stereo's State of the Arts, and then as writer-broadcaster for The Arts Tonight, and Toronto reporter for The Arts Report. She was host of The Arts Tonight from 1996 to 2007, and has been host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company since its inception in 1990. In 1995 and again in 2003, Writers & Company won the CBC Award for Programming Excellence for the best weekly show broadcast nationally In 2002, Eleanor Wachtel was named winner of the Jack Award for the promotion of Canadian books. Wachtel has received six honorary degrees. In 2005, Wachtel was named a member of the Order of Canada.

Gene Waddell holds an MA in architectural history from UCLA. His written numerous articles, which have appeared in professional journals such as the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians; Architectural History: Journal of Architectural Historians of Great Britain; and Against the Grain. He served as Director of the Florence Museum from 1969-1975, Director of the South Carolina Historical Society from 1976-1984, Associate Archivist at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities from 1985-1993, Head of Collections Development for the Library of the Canadian Centre for Architecture from 1993-1996, and College Archivist and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Art History at the College of Charleston from 1999-2009.

Miriam Waddington (ne Dworkin, 23 December 1917 - 3 March 2004) was a Canadian poet, short story writer and translator. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she studied English at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1939) and social work the University of Pennsylvania (M.A.). She worked for many years as a social worker in Montreal. She later relocated to the then Toronto suburb of North York, where she worked for North York Family Services. In 1964, she joined the English department at York University. She retired in 1983. Waddington was part of a Montreal circle that included F.R. Scott, Irving Layton and Louis Dudek. Her poem "Jacques Cartier in Toronto" is featured on the back of the Canadian $100 bill released in 2004. She died in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Fred Wah (born January 23, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and scholar involved in the post-modern literary scene in Canada, both as teacher and writer. He was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, but raised in the interior of British Columbia. His father was a Canadian-born but raised in China, who was born to a Chinese father and an English mother, while his mother a Swedish-born Canadian who came to Canada at age 6. His diverse ethnic makeup figures significantly in his writings. In 1962, Wah married Pauline Butling, a teacher, writer, and literary critic. Wah studied Music and English at the University of British Columbia (BA 1963), did some graduate work in English Literature at the University of New Mexico from 1963-1964, and completed an MA in English at the State University of New York Buffalo in 1967.

Wah is primarily known as a poet and has published numerous books of poetry, including “Lardeau” (1965), “Breathin' My Name with a Sigh” (1981); “Waiting for Saskatchewan” (1985), winner of the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, “Music at the Heart of Thinking” (1987); “Alley Alley Homefree” (1992); and “is a door” (2009), winner of the Dorothy Livesay Prize for Poetry. He is the author of the bio-fiction “Diamond Grill” (1996), winner of the Howard O'Hagan prize for short fiction. He has also written many works of nonfiction. His collection of critical essays “Faking it: Poetics and Hybridity” (2000), winner of the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Criticism, represents fifteen years of his writings in various forms.

Wah has worked as an instructor of English composition and literature at various academic institutions. From 1967-1989, he taught writing at Selkirk College in Castlegar, British Columbia, while living in South Slocan. He also taught at David Thompson University Centre in Nelson, British Columbia, until the school’s closing in 1984. When the David Thompson University Centre closed in 1984, Wah was involved in establishing the Kootenay School of Writing in its place, and from 1995-1999, Wah served as an electronic writing advisor for the Kootenay School of Art. In 1989, he was appointed professor of English at the University of Calgary, a position he held until 2003, when he retired and became professor emeritus. He taught courses in English composition and literature. In 1995, Wah taught a graduate seminar on bpNichol’s “The Martyrology” at the University of Calgary in conjunction with Roy Miki, who taught a section of the same seminar at Simon Fraser University.

Wah has also worked extensively as an editor, both for literary periodicals, and as editor for the poetry manuscripts of friends, colleagues, and peers. While at the University of British Columbia, he was a founding editor and contributor to the poetry newsletter “TISH,” and served as Associate Editor from 1961 to 1963. Well known for his work on literary journals and small-press, Wah has been a contributing editor to the journal “Open Letter” since its beginning in 1970, involved in the editing of “West Coast Line,” and, along with Frank Davey, he co-edited the world's first online literary magazine, SwiftCurrent in 1986. From 1992-1993, he was part of the editorial collective of “Appropriate Voice,” the newsletter for the Racial Minorities Committee of the Writers’ Union of Canada, and also worked to organize a conference of the same name held in May 1992 in Orilla, Ontario. From 2003 to 2008 Wah served as poetry editor for “The Literary Review of Canada.”

Wah has been a member of various committees, both academic and non-academic. At the University of Calgary, he served on the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Authors Programme Steering Committee 1993-1994, 1996-1997, and 2000-2001. A long-time member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Wah served on the National Council Executive from 1996-1997, on the National Executive from 2000-2001, and was Chair of the Union from 2001-2002. From 1990-1994, he served on the Racial Minorities Committee of the union.

Wah served as the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada from 2012-2013, and in 2013 was appointed to the Order of Canada.

Anne Waldman, born April 2, 1945, in Millville, New Jersey, graduated from Bennington College in 1966. In 1966 she founded Angel Hair Magazine, with Lewis Warsh. Later that same year, she began working for the Poetry Project in New York City. She was a founding member of the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, a section of the Naropa Institute at Boulder, Colorado, where she taught and directed the Summer Writing Program. Waldman is the author of over 40 publications of poetry. She is a recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry and has been deemed a “counter-cultural” giant by Publisher’s Weekly. She is recipient of the 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Judge Carl Ian Walker worked as a lawyer, magistrate and provincial court judge in Squamish, B.C. from 1958 until his retirement in 1997. He was a bagpiper and a prominent member of the B.C. Pipers' Association.

Susan Walsh received a Master's degree from SFU in 1984 for her thesis entitled "Equality, Emancipation and a More Just World: Leading Women in the British Columbia Cooperative Commonwealth Federation." In the abstract to her thesis, Walsh writes, "In the wake of suffrage victories, many early twentieth century Canadian women worked hard to make that equality meaningful and to extend it to all areas of women's lives. For those who predicted great changes, however, too few took their hard-earned rights further than the polling station. Most expressed their concerns and goals within the more familiar world of women's organizations. Helena Gutteridge, Laura Jamieson, Dorothy Steeves and Grace MacInnis were among the notable exceptions. While maintaining important ties with women's groups, they sought and won public office, pioneering important paths for generations of Canadian women to follow. These political trail blazers stand out for another important reason. They chose to establish their careers and test their political rights in a socialist party -- the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation -- pledged to sexual emancipation and equal opportunities for women. They were, in short, dual rebels -- as feminists and socialists -- in a sex and class-ordered world."