TWUC Town Hall

Kim Fahner lives, writes, and teaches in Sudbury, Ontario. Her latest book of poetry is Emptying the Ocean (Frontenac House, 2022), and a new chapbook of poems, Fault Lines and Shatter Cones, was published in September 2023 (Emergency Flash Mob Press). Kim was the fourth poet laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury from 2016-18. Her first novel, The Donoghue Girl, was published in 2024 by Latitude 46. Kim is the First Vice-Chair of TWUC (2023-25), a member of The League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of The Playwrights Guild of Canada.

Photo: Gerry Kingsley.

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and LGBTQ-refugees advocate. His novels, The Clothesline Swing (Nightwood - 2017) and The Foghorn Echoes (Penguin - 2022) continue to receive accolades. His award-winning children’s series The Salma Books is released by AnnickPress. It includes picture book Salma the Syrian Chef (2020), and early chapters books Salma Makes a Home and Salma Writes a Book (2023). His memoir Crooked Teeth was released in 2024. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications across North America and Europe. Since his arrival to Canada, Ramadan has raised over $300,000 for LGBTQ+ identifying refugees.

John Degen is Chief Executive Officer of The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), and Chair of the International Authors Forum (IAF) in the UK – serving and representing over 700,000 authors worldwide. He is a poet and novelist with three published books. John has worked for many years as an arts administrator, arts funder and policy advocate on cultural issues. He is the previous Literature Officer at the Ontario Arts Council, where he administered funding for Ontario’s writers, publishers and literary presenters, and was active in expanding the granting reach for that office into Ontario’s northern and indigenous communities. His essays and opinions have been published widely throughout Canada, including in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, THIS Magazine, The Hill Times, Canadian Notes and Queries, and the Literary Review of Canada. He has served on many boards and advisories in the literary and arts sector.