Calliope Conference Presenters

Kimberly Cathers
Life Story Coming Soon

Hélène Day Fraser
Hélène Day Fraser holds a BAA in Fashion from Ryerson University, Toronto. She is
currently pursuing a MAA in Design at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver.
Hélène’s work is situated between the boundaries of Art and Design and deals primarily with
clothing and household objects. She is a partner of the Vancouver based design group Intelligent
Forms Design Inc. and a team member of GRASSP; a MAGIC (Media and Graphics
Interdisciplinary Center) research project out of the University of British Columbia.

Michelle Kuen Suet Fung
Art at snow (a a snow) is a young and dynamic company based in Vancouver. "Where art
becomes life" is artist Michelle Kuen Suet Fung's philosophical approach to transform some
everyday rituals (opening the fridge and writing birthday cards) into artistic
experiences. Michelle creates a line of exquisite paper products featuring images from her
drawing and photographic practice. Her artwork is informed by wide range of artistic skills. The
ongoing series, Food for Thought, consists of meticulous ink and pencil crayon drawings
(10x10") featuring intricately detailed renderings of food items in a sensual, chromatic palette
transforming everyday food items into shimmering mirages hovering somewhere between a
realistic image of food and a Tibetan Mandala.

Eleri Glass
Eleri has been writing for years and uses her writing to bridge the distance between
herself and others and to feel more deeply connected to herself. Her poem "the Red
Shoes" is currently being published by Simply Read press. She is working on a full-length
novel that explores class and privilege under the guise of an innocent children's story.

Kyla Harris
Kyla Harris turned her passion into a business, and her life into a work of art. Life before
and after her accident in 2000, at age 15, when she broke her neck diving into a river, are quite
different. Her priorities changed. Since then, her focus has been art including graphic design,
painting and most recently a photography collaboration on sexuality and disability. Kyla is now
partners in Main Artery Gallery as well as an internationally exhibiting artist.

Lisa Jean Helps
Lisa Jean Helps is a poet, actress, singer, surfer and criminal defence lawyer who is
actively involved in Charter defences. She has litigated murder trials, won awards for
synchronized swimming, been a singer on the London stage and believes in the power of
possibility.

Abby Wener Herlin
Abby Wener Herlin has been writing and performing her poetry since the age of fifteen. Pink Flamingo Works and Motif Press and have published collectively four chapbooks of her
poetry the most recent "To the root" (2004). Her poems have appeared in literary journals
including Fireweed, Grain, Zygote, and the Antingonish Review. She is in her second year of a
Ph.D in Women's Studies and braids her academic work with her poetry. She completed her MA
from the concentration of Feminist Approaches to Social Justice in the Department of
Educational Studies. Her thesis titled "Don't tell me who I am: Narratives of young women who
are mothers", looked at how young women respond to the various stigmas commonly associated
with being a "young" or "teen mom". She successfully defended this in 2001, and it incorporated
the weaving of her participant's poetry with traditional research methods.

Nina Munteanu
Nina Munteanu is an environmental scientist and internationally published Science
Fiction writer. Her short stories have been published in North America, translated, and reprinted
abroad. Several of her stories have appeared in "Best of" Anthologies and were nominated for
the Aurora Prix Award and the Speculative Literary Fiction Fountain Award. Her SF romantic
thriller, "Collision with Paradise" published through Liquid Silver Books in 2005 was nominated
for the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. Her novelette, "The Cypol" (October, 2006) through eXtasy
Books was nominated for the eCata Reviewers Choice Award. "Darwin's Paradox" by Dragon
Moon Press (on sale November 15, 2007) is set in Canada's near future Ontario and Quebec.
Nina regularly writes critical essays and reviews for various online and print magazines,
including Strange Horizons, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Gotta Write Network.
She served for a short time as assistant editor-in-chief of Imagikon, an avant-garde webzine of
speculative literature and art run out of Romania. Nina resides with her family and very fat cat in
Ladner, BC.

Chelsea McPeake
Chelsea McPeake is the Artistic Coordinator at the Playhouse Theatre Company and has
worked as an administrator in theatre, arts and special events since 1999 in Vancouver, Burnaby,
New Westminster and Fort St. John. She has acted and directed for the Walking Fish Festival,
Vagabond Players and Stage North Players. She currently sits on the New Westminter Arts
Strategy Task Force.

Emily Pearlman
Originally from Ottawa, Emily now calls Vancouver home as she works on her MFA at
Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts. Her solo theatre shows Swimming
Lessons with Paisley Kite, Radio Collar and Free Range have toured across the country on the
Canadian Fringe circuit. She has produced art festivals in Montreal and Ottawa, created a radio
documentary, Schnartzenhoeller, for CBC's Outfront, hooked up a golden bicycle to an amplifier
so that when you pedal, it plays stories about cycling, and made theatre across the country as an
actor, writer, director and dramaturge.

Ahava Shira
Ahava Shira has been performing her spoken word poetry for over 12 years, across
Canada and internationally. She self-published her first book of poems, Womb: Weaving of My
Being in December 1998 and performed her first one-woman-show, Chelo at UBC’s Frederic
Wood Theatre in the summer of 1999. Since the fall of 2000, Ahava has been facilitating
interactive workshops with youth about healthy relationships, while continuing to write, perform
and study clown, stand-up comedy, expressive dance, storytelling & improvisation. She is
currently doing her PhD with a focus on integrating her passions of poetry, performance &
violence prevention education.