Top Prize Award Judges
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Cass BlanchardBIO: Cass Blanchard was born in the Yukon and is part of the Selkirk First Nation. Their book Fresh Pack of Smokes won the 2020 Relit award. They live in Duncan, Vancouver Island.
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Britta BadourBIO: Britta Badour, better known as Britta B. is an award-winning artist, public speaker, and poet living in Toronto. Her debut poetry collection and audiobook, Wires that Sputter, was celebrated as a Trillium Book Award Finalist for Poetry and was shortlisted for several other awards. She’s currently serving as the Poet-in-Residence for Poems in Passage, responsible for the poems millions of people see on their daily TTC commute.
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Sanita Fejzic
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TBA
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Phloreate Award Judge
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Drew LavigneBIO: Drew Lavigne is the anglophone Poet Laureate of Moncton, New Brunswick. A member of the editorial board at The Fiddlehead and co-host of the Attic Owl reading series. Recent work has appeared in Vallum, Visual Arts News, Tourniquet Magazine, and with Éditions Rhizome. He translated the collection Poems Twofold with Georgette LeBlanc and is the author of Evening Dress with Anstruther Press.
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Mother-in-Law's Choice Award Judge
Necole Hines
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BIO: Necole Hines is a cannabis educator, chef and advocate who’s passionate about celebrating plants through food and connection. She’s the founder of Faded Living where she brings cannabis into everyday life with low-THC cooking workshops, infused dining experiences, and cookbooks. Inspired by her Jamaican roots, Necole’s dishes are full of bold flavours and highlight the wellness benefits of cannabis in a way that’s approachable. Whether she’s hosting a workshop, writing a recipe, recording a podcast, or sharing a meal, Necole focuses on breaking down stigmas and creating meaningful moments. With plans to launch culinary and spiritual retreats and a 420-friendly Villa, she invites everyone to explore a “faded” lifestyle that’s grounded, creative, and community-focused.”
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Foster-mom's Choice Award
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Isabella's foster mom is a poet and a distance runner who is allergic to cats. She was surprised to be conscripted into this particular honour, but she's always delighted to see new initiatives in the literary community.
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Raffin Award Judges
Jérôme Melançon
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BIO: Jérôme Melançon is a poet, a philosopher, and an interdisciplinary and undisciplined researcher. After having lived all over the place in Canada and somewhat in France, he settled in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, in Saskatchewan, for love and to teach there. He practices anticolonialism thanks to collaborative research projects, all the while taking care of a department of philosophy and classics. He has published two collections with Prise de Parole, En d'sous d'la langue and Prairial·es, two other collections with Éditions des Plaines, and three chapbooks with above/ground press.
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TBA
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Nix Award Judge
rob mclennan
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BIO: Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.
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