Discipline Category: Writing and Publishing

Gillian Crawford is a self-described creative and grief walker of Métis and settler ancestry, living on Treaty One Territory. She is the creator of The Connection Desk, a small participatory public art installation in Winnipeg’s North End that explores grief and invites meaningful engagement.

Her eclectic and ever-evolving practice spans multiple mediums including poetry, photography, and installation. Her work is deeply rooted in the landscapes of home, exploring identity and uncovering the sacred in everyday life. Since the death of her father in 2024, Crawford has been transmuting a grief larger than her physical form into art, connection, and community—meeting herself anew along the way and discovering what each evolving self has to offer the world.

I have an eclectic mix of interests reflected both in my personality and work. From Japanese pop culture and history, folklore, gaming, to gothic/cute street fashion and more! If I find it engaging and fun, I want a piece of it; I want my creative practices to be centered on joy!

I was raised on books and visual arts in all their myriad forms. So, of course, that's where my creative outlets flourished! From as early as grade one I was writing and illustrating, surprisingly tragic and dramatic, stories to share with my classmates and teachers.

I have one novel self-published, with more on the way, and several small pieces published in local libraries and such. My inspiration derives from whatever emerges from my head, be it in the form of dreams, random thoughts, or unexpected eureka moments.

Natalie Mark 麥月明 is a local Winnipeg/Treaty 1 illustrator and cartoonist.

In 2023-4, Natalie received an award for emerging cartoonists and made a comic for CAKE Chicago. They have also facilitated various community and public art projects for Winnipeg’s Chinatown, and run many art and comics workshops in Winnipeg and beyond including the Snoopy and the Red Baron traveling exhibit from the Charles M. Schulz Museum, at VanCAF in Vancouver, and MICE in Boston.

Natalie’s comics are somewhere between a reflection of life and small curiosities. Their work plays with myth-making and whimsical fantasies projected onto social realism. Storytelling is Natalie's primary tool for understanding themselves and exploring the world around them.

When they are not drawing, Natalie loves going to their local library, playing TTRPGs, and going on picnics! Visit their site: https://nataliemark.ca or follow along with their art journey @floodkiss across the internet.

Claire Johnston is a Red River Métis and settler visual artist based in Winnipeg/Treaty 1 Territory. As a Two-Spirit Piitoshi-iteeyihtam (one who thinks differently), Claire engages in creating slow meticulous floral beadwork that responds relationally to the past and present.

Claire is an artist and team member with the Re*Storying Autism project (Queen's University), which works to combat Western, colonial, capitalist, and biomedical understandings of Autism through Autistic storytelling and narratives that affirm difference as desirable and needed.

As part of Canada’s official entry to the 2025 Venice Biennale, Claire was selected as a fellow to engage in research on Venetian seed beads and their connection to Métis beadworkers past and present. Their artwork has been acquired by permanent collections at the University of Manitoba (2024) and has exhibited at Urban Shaman (Winnipeg 25’), Rosemary Gallery (Winnipeg 24’), Tangled Arts (Toronto 22’, 24’), Festival du Voyageur (Winnipeg 24’), Venice Biennale of Architecture (Venice 23’) and The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art (Vancouver 22’).

Claire is a Sundancer, a step-parent, an auntie, and an MMF citizen with membership with the Two-Spirit Michif Local.

I am Charles- a student leader, writer, and aspiring filmmaker who cares deeply about people, stories, and the impact we leave behind.

I currently serve as President of the Brandon University Students’ Union, where I’ve had the privilege of representing student voices and working to build a more inclusive and supportive campus community. I’m also in my third year studying Computer Science, with a growing interest in the intersection between technology and storytelling

I’m a poet and writer. My first poetry book, “How You Feel” is set to go live on Amazon on the 25th of August 2025 and set to have a book launch at Brandon University on September 25th 2025.

I’ve always believed that my calling is to bring people together and that is what I have set out to do in my first poetry collection. How You Feel’s purpose is to let its reader realize that someone out there- perhaps unknown to them- feels they way that they do.

I am really passionate about writing and acting and directing. Last year I served as a Script Supervisor, and Assistant Stage Manager in a live theatre play titled “Life is Wonderful” at Brandon University. This play was directed by a drama professor and it was a great experience for me. I also played a character named “Charlie” in the play (it was funny because I’m Charles)

I’m also working on a screenplay that explores the complexities of family dynamics. I am looking at the impact on a family whose mother is an alcoholic.

I am looking to be mentored as I believe I have so much to learn. I believe I have the potential to tell powerful stories through poetry, public speaking, film, and screenwriting. I also want to collaborate with others so I can learn more and contribute to their projects as well