About Face, the theme of many of the pieces in these pages, not only contains the concept of change, it covers appearance, illusion, image, and the many faces women present to the world. Claire Tacon and Lindsay Lorimer give us women who are protective of the identities they reveal. Poets Sheri-D Wilson, Michelle Barker, Madhur Anand, Christen Thomas, Jennifer Ironside, and Emilia Nielsen provide us with thoughtful visions of contemporary Canadian life. Susan McCaslin and Juliet Bates both take on reality and alter it, while Carin Makuz examines what is and is not real, and how to tell the difference. Talleen Hacikyan's two postcard stories turn their worlds upside down, and finally Mélanie Grondin's ekphrastic poems and the striking, intimate work of artists Heidi Nagtegaal and Vanessa Radunz are, quite literally, about the faces we wear, and how others view them and respond to them.
Michelle Barker is originally from Vancouver but now lives in Hatley, Quebec. She has published both fiction and non-fiction, and received a National Magazine Award for personal journalism in 2002. Her poetry has appeared in Room, Descant, Cicada, Cahoots, and The Mitre.
Carin Makuz’s essays and fiction have been published in Geist, Grimm, Kiss Machine, Quiet Feather, and produced on CBC Radio. She lives in Whitby, Ontario.
Heather Menzies is an award-winning, Ottawa-based writer and scholar, and the author of seven books, including the 1996 best-seller, Whose Brave New World? In 2006 No Time: Stress and the Crisis of Modern Life won the Ottawa Book Award. Heather is a long-time activist in the women’s movement, social justice and cultural politics, and has served on the board of the National Council of the Writers’ Union on three occasions.
Heidi Nagtegaal is a Vancouver-based artist and graduate of ECIAD. Heidi knits, crotchets and does crazy stuff with banal materials. Selected solo and group exhibitions and projects include Masks for Disappearing, CSA, 2007; Slits 2, Western Front Performance, 2006; Shift, Centre A, 2004; The Ball, 2006; Hugging, 2005; Facial Hair Studies, on-going.
