Yuri Arajs – Visual art expert

Yuri Arajs is the Director and Curator of Outsiders and Others, a Vancouver nonprofit art society and gallery that brings nontraditional and underserved artists to the forefront. Yuri is a practising artist who has dedicated much of his practice to advocating for fellow artists, including artists who live with a disability. He is the former Director of Kickstart Disability Arts & Culture in Vancouver. His advocacy in the arts community focuses on working with, showing, and facilitating public exposure and financial compensation for self-taught and non-traditional artists. 

Yuri has been recognized by the press and received numerous awards for his arts advocacy and promotion, as well as for his curatorial work as a gallerist. He was named most influential curator by Minnesota Monthly in 2008. Yuri has mentored and provided consultations for several artists over the past two decades. An accomplished artist, Yuri holds three degrees, including a Masters of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art. His work is in both private and public collections.

www.outsidersandothers.com
www.yuriarajs.com

Betsy Warland – Writing expert

Betsy Warland is the author of fourteen books of creative nonfiction, memoir, and poetry, and has also been a manuscript consultant and editor for more than 30 years. A leading mixed-genre writer, teacher, and manuscript mentor/editor in Canada, her collection of essays on writing, Breathing the Page—Reading the Act of Writing, became a bestseller in 2010. A second edition, with new material, was published in 2023. Writers who have worked with Betsy have gone on to publish books and be included in the BC Book Prizes, the Griffin Prize, and the Governor General’s Award.

Deeply committed to community and collaboration, Betsy has been dedicated to emerging writers throughout her career. She founded and was the previous Director of The Writers Studio at SFU and the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, and continues to teach and serve as a mentor in both programs. She has also been on faculty at Sage Hill Writing Experience (SK), as well at U.B.C.’s Booming Ground, among other places. In 2011, she received Pandora’s Literary Festival BC Writer Mentor Award. And in 2016, she received the City of Vancouver Mayor’s Award for Literary Excellence in 2016.

www.betsywarland.com

Seema Shah – Peer Expert / Visual Art & Writing

Seema Shah is a  self-taught visual artist and writer with lived experience of mental health issues. She is the founder and project organizer of Professional Artistic Growth Made Accessible.

Since 2017, Seema’s art has been shown and collected nationally and internationally. She was a recipient of The Beaumont Studios’ Artist To Watch Award 2022 and a highly commended artist in the 2022 & 2023 Contemporary Collage Magazine Awards. Her first solo show was in April 2023 at The Beaumont Studios in Vancouver, and her second solo show is taking place Feb-Mar 2024 at The Smallhouse Gallery in the UK.

Seema’s writing has been published in literary journals and anthologies, and she has been shortlisted in writing contests, including the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives’ Narrative Essay Contest 2008, and she was longlisted for the Susan Crean Award for Nonfiction 2023.

www.seemashahart.com