Scott Griffin, Chair
Scott Griffin is Chairman, Director and controlling shareholder of House of Anansi Press Inc., a Canadian intermediate literary publishing company, publishing fiction, non-fiction and poetry; co-Founder, Chairman and Director of The Scott Griffin Foundation; co-Founder of Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie; and Director, Literary Review of Canada. In 2006, he published a memoir entitled My Heart is Africa about his two-year aviation adventure throughout that continent. His interests include sailing, skiing, flying, English literature and travel to remote places. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario.
Sepideh Anvar, Secretary
Sepideh Anvar helped found Poetry In Voice, led it for a time, and has sat on its board since the start. She is also a freelance translator and engaged in the fight for climate justice.
Marie-Andrée Arsenault
Teacher, children's author and writing workshop facilitator Marie-Andrée Arsenault has published five children's books, the last one being poetry: Un chemin dans la mer (2021). Her students have participated in several Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie competitions. Based on this experience, she developed a turnkey kit to integrates the recitation contest within high school poetry teaching. She serves on PIV/LVP's board of directors since 2016 because she truly believes that poetry can positively transform the lives of young and old alike.
Johanne Blais
Johanne Blais has hosted many Poetry In Voice/Les voix de la poésie National Finals since 2013 and also serves on our board. She is a trained translator and a retired professor of grammar and writing skills. Perfectly bilingual and a passionate admirer of the languages of both Shakespeare and Molière, Johanne Blais spent 17 years sharing her passion with thousands of Canadians as CBC Radio C’est la vie’s “Word Lady,” through her language segment “Word of the Week.”
Andrew Heintzman
Andrew Heintzman is a Managing Partner and co-founder of InvestEco Capital, one of Canada’s first impact investment firms. Andrew sits on a number of corporate boards, including Maple Hill Creamery and Mara Renewables. He is the author of The New Entrepreneurs: Building a Green Economy for the Future, published by The House of Anansi Press. Andrew has a BA and an MA from McGill University.
Natasha Kanapé Fontaine
Natasha Kanapé Fontaine is an Innu author, poet and interdisciplinary artist from the community of Pessamit, on the Nitassinan (North Shore, Quebec, Canada). Her poetic works and essays are recognized and acclaimed by critics, have traveled the world, been translated into several languages, and are studied at various levels in schools in Quebec and elsewhere. In 2017, she received the Prix Droits et Libertés for her poetry. At just 29 years of age, she is already one of the public figures who have contributed to the recognition of Quebec's aboriginal peoples, both here and around the world. In 2021, she published her first novel Nauetakuan : un silence pour un bruit (Éditions XYZ), with themes that are dear to her heart, such as the return to oneself, the journey to meet other Indigenous peoples, territories, dreams and art. In the same year, she was promoted to the rank of Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres de la République française. She also works as a translator, scriptwriter, Native literature consultant and sensitive reader of First Peoples content. She lives in Tio'tia:ke - known as Montreal. In 2023, she published her first collection of literary short stories, based on Innu legends, entitled Kanatuut - La Chasseresse, with Éditions Chez Stanké.
Anne Michaels
Anne Michaels is a novelist and a poet. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. She is the recipient of honorary degrees, the Guggenheim Fellowship and many other distinctions of merit. From 2015 to 2019, she served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted as a major feature film and in 2020 was selected as one of the BBC’s 100 Novels that Shaped the World.
Pierre Nepveu
Professor of literature at Université de Montréal for thirty years, poet, novelist, and essay writer Pierre Nepveu has published close to twenty books, including several collections of essays and poetry. Three of his poetry books have earned Governor General’s Literary Awards. He is also the author, along with Laurent Mailhot, of La poésie québécoise des origines à nos jours, a much-loved Quebec poetry anthology. Pierre Nepveu was involved in collecting the scattered works of poet Gaston Miron and is also the author of Miron’s biography, Gaston Miron. La vie d’un homme, published in 2011. Pierre Nepveu has received both the Athanase-David prize in Quebec and the Order of Canada for his life’s work. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Hector Ruiz
Hector Ruiz teaches literature at Collège Montmorency. In 2011, along with Dominic Marcil, he won the Prix d’innovation en enseignement de la poésie from the Festival international de la poésie de Trois-Rivières. In 2015, he received an honorable mention from the Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale. He has published four collections of poetry, directed the collective Délier les lieux and published two books written with Dominic Marcil: Lire la rue, marcher le poème in 2018 and Taverne nationale in 2019. His writing has appeared in several magazines and some has been translated into English in New American Writing and Arc Poetry Magazine.
Cooper Skjeie
Cooper Skjeie (/shay/) is a poet, educator, and consultant of German-Norwegian and Métis ancestry. He is an alumnus of the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program and is completing his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. His poetry has received national acclaim--winning the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, a 2023 Indigenous Voices Award, and a 2024 National Magazine Award. A registered citizen of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, he lives rurally north of Saskatoon.
Evan Solomon
Evan Solomon is the publisher of GZERO Media and a member of Eurasia Group’s Management Committee. Prior to joining GZERO, he was the host of CTV’s nightly political program "Power Play" and of Canada’s most-watched political TV show, the Sunday morning "Question Period." He also hosted "The Evan Solomon Show," a daily iHeartRadio/Bell Media radio program. He has also hosted the PBS series "Masters of Technology" and CBC shows such as "Power and Politics," "CBC News: Sunday," "The House," and "FutureWorld." Evan’s best-selling books include "Fueling the Future" and "Feeding the Future” He has also been a columnist for Macleans and The Globe and Mail.