Lunch Poems at SFU team

Wade Compton

Wayde Compton is a Vancouver-based poet (49th Parallel Psalm, Performance Bond), anthologist (Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Orature and Literature), essayist (After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region), and short story writer (title forthcoming). With David Chariandy and Karina Vernon, he is the publisher of Western Canada’s first and only black literary press, Commodore Books. Compton is also a co-founding member of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the public memory of Vancouver’s original black community. He is the director of The Writer’s Studio and Southbank, two creative writing institutions in Continuing Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar

Renée Sarojini Saklikar writes thecanadaproject, a life-long poem chronicle that includes fiction and essays. Renée is working on an elegiac sequence about Canada and the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Notes about the project can be found at  http://thecanadaproject.wordpress.com

Kim Gilker

Kim Gilker studied English Literature at SFU where her love of words and ideas was profoundly influenced by mentors such as Jerry Zaslove, Roy Miki, Daphne Marlatt, Carl Peters, Robin Blazer, and others. kim is so very happy to be collaborating on communications, programming, and anything else that needs to be done for Lunch Poems at SFU. In her day job, Kim is currently at the International Centre of Art for Social Change (Art/Dialogue/Action at www.ICASC.ca) working for progressive change in fields such as health, social justice and human rights, environmental education and community economic empowerment, promoting the many ways that art for social change practices can be used as highly-effective tools in their work.

Robin Prest

Robin Prest manages public programming for Simon Fraser University's Centre for Dialogue and provides communications support for Lunch Poems at SFU. As a professional project manager, he is passionate about dialogue as a medium to advance public discourse on important policy issues and to achieve positive, lasting impact in our communities. As an amateur writer of fiction, Robin is excited to help grow lunch poems and explore the intersections between fine arts, public discourse and community.

Katherine McManus

Katherine McManus, Ph.D., is the Director of The Writing and Communications Program at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.  Her academic background is in English and adult education and she has national and international experience developing and facilitating courses, programs and workshops for either online or classroom delivery.