Page 2 - News Letter

Norman Nawrocki is a Montreal author, actor, playwright and musician. He has written
seventeen books of fiction and poetry including two novels, CAZZAROLA! Anarchy,

Romani, Love, Italy (PM Press, Oakland) and Red Squared Montreal (Black Rose Books,
Montreal), a short story collection, two novellas and two dozen plays, cabarets and
musicals. His work has been translated and published in French and Italian and appears
in numerous anthologies (e.g., City Lights, San Francisco, Fernwood Press, Halifax).
Since 1985 he has recorded 69 spoken word and music albums. He performs in literary,
spoken word and theatre festivals internationally and produces cultural events in
Montreal. His series of live anti-sexist/queer positive educational sex comedy cabarets
have been seen by over a million people. When he’s not eating pierogi, he sometimes

lectures and teaches how to use the arts for 'creative resistance' and community
organizing. His newest book is a novella, Vancouvered Out (Les Pages Noires,
Montreal). https://linktr.ee/normannawrocki

James F. Olwell is an Irish American writer and retired community organizer from the
Bronx who lives in Montreal. An early organizer of the Irish Arts Center, Olwell served as
its second director and was instrumental in obtaining the Hell’s Kitchen building that
served as the Center’s home for more than thirty years. A Canadian since 1980, he
worked as a professional community organizer with the Québec Health Care system,

helping citizens create organizations and services that served their needs. In 2013, he
was made a member of the Société des Grands Citoyens of the Borough of Côtes-des-
Neiges/Notre-Dame-de Grâce. In Montréal, he co-founded an Irish theatre company,
Theatre Saoirse, and created a radio show on Irish culture, Gan Focal Ar Bith/Without a
Word. He co-founded the 2 Susans Poetry Circle and SpeakUp: The Montreal Interactive
Poetry Exchange. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Crossings (Iron Rabbit
Bindery) and Pensions (Snow Press).

Claire Sherwood is a Montreal writer, oral storyteller and creator of visual collage
poetry. Her work has been exhibited/published in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.
Her poems are inspired by the physicality of daily life, the routine, the unexpected. Her
work speaks in a combination of words and images, in curves and straight lines, in a
state of perpetual flux. Her first chapbook, Eat Your Words, was recently published by
Turret House Press.

Carolyn Marie Souaid is a Montreal-based writer, editor, and mixed media artist who
has worked extensively to build bridges between linguistic and cultural communities in
Quebec, including a decades-long involvement with the Inuit. Souaid is the author of
nine poetry collections and the acclaimed novel, Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi
Maqaittik, set in the aftermath of colonization in Nunavik. She has performed at literary