October 12, 7 – 8 pm mdt (local Alberta time)
Alberta Stories featuring Moni Brar, Ooleepeeka Eegeesiak & Sandra Lamouche

November 2, 7 – 8 pm edt (local Ontario time)
Yukon/Ontario Stories featuring Sharada Eswar, Katherine Lawless, and Kim Melton 
Lawless and Melton will perform as a duo referencing letters they’ve been sending to each other to “write” a back-and-forth story.

Bios:

Kim Melton (she/her), @kimsmelton, is a queer naturalist of european and settler descent who thrives in the boreal forest she calls home. She resides, with gratitude, in the Traditional Territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation on the Klondike River, near Dawson City, Yukon. She spends perhaps too much time considering how to live a good life. She devotes herself to living lightly on the land at her shared off-grid river-access orchard, writing her way through the forest and hoping her work will bring others into closer, healthy relationship with the natural world. Somewhat to her surprise, some of her dearest companions of late have been Jack Russell terriers.

Sharada Eswar is a writer, storyteller, singer and arts educator, Sharada’s work spans multidisciplines and art forms. A graduate in Literature Studies, she trained to be a writer and a storyteller. Simultaneously she also immersed herself in Carnatic Music (south Indian classical music) in Chennai, India. She also took to many other styles including Hindustani Classical (Patiala Gharana) Rabindra Sangeet, Abhang and European. While maintaining her Veena studies, her interest shifted to the voice and storytelling. She was part of the team representing India at the India Abroad show in Paris and New York. She was also one of the three chosen by the Centres Culturels des Lions Clubs de Paris to present Indian culture in Normandy, France. Since moving to Toronto, she has been performing and teaching in Toronto and internationally, drawing on her South Asian ancestry and heritage. A published children’s author, Sharada was the OAC Cultural Animator for the Mississauga/Peel region and Community Activator at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. In recent years, she has exhibited work at the Peel Art Gallery and Museum and served as Assistant Director at the Shaw Festival. Sharada has been involved with Jumblies Theatre for over a decade, as guest artist, performer, cultural interpreter (Tamil), community partner (via the Art Gallery of Mississauga), Board member and chair, Assistant Artistic Director, and, as of September 2022, Incoming Artistic Director, and ongoing Lead Artist of the blue skies, red earth & tall pines multi-year community engaged project.

November 16, 7 – 8 pm est (local Ontario time)
Ontario Stories featuring David Janzen, Peter Schuler, and Ze’ev Gedalof

Ze’ev Gedalof‘s research addresses a range of problems related to forest ecosystem dynamics, climatic variability, and natural resources management. His research approach incorporates a broad spectrum of tools and techniques, but most of his ongoing projects involve the analysis of tree-rings in order to reconstruct past patterns of stand development, disturbance, and climate. Gedalof is especially interested in understanding the processes that has caused recent changes in the position of mid-latitude treelines – both in mountain environments, and in temperate savannahs.

David Janzen writes, teaches, and creates on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Attawandaron peoples. His research, writing and art spans genres and media, including poetry, sound art, music, and philosophy. Recent work includes: a poetry chapbook titled nature : nurture, which explores daily rhythms of raising an infant in the midst of climate catastrophe; Soil as a Relational Medium, a research project that examines how we can relate to soil in more sustainable ways; and rivertime a collaborative project that uses canoeing to help us rethink our relationship to colonial histories of Canadian rivers. David lives in London, Ontario, with his family and teaches at the University of Waterloo.