bios

Here are the members of the Huron Poetry Collective.
Click on their pictures for samples of their poetry.
All poems are from our books No Corners to Hide In.

Carol Casey was born and raised in Toronto and moved to Huron County in her early twenties and has never (seriously) looked back. Children now grown and gone, she lives in Blyth with her husband, dog, a multitude of books and an abundant garden. She supports her poetry habit by working as a community nurse.

Hilary Gillespie was born in Ireland and moved to Toronto when she was two. After living in cities all her life, she moved recently to Huron County. A great decision. She finds rural life a perfect fit. She worked in a children’s resource centre creating learning materials for the early years. She enjoys writing poetry for children and tries to capture some of the unique perspective of childhood in her work for the young. Hilary was awarded second prize for poetry in the 2007 Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards Contest.

Joan van der Meer grew up in Huron County and enjoys its rural charms, having spent childhood summers near Amberley. She was the second-place winner in the 2004 Alice Munro Literary Day poetry contest. Joan’s poetry has appeared in Mosaic and The Leaf. She has read on stage at Words in the Wild, the Words Aloud Spoken Word Festival, and at other venues.

John Soules was born and raised in Toronto and has lived in Thunder Bay and London, Ont. He has taught public school, driven taxi, planted trees and worked in the logging, mining and railroad industries in Northern Ontario. He currently lives in Wingham where he is service manager for a large construction company. His poetry has appeared in Mosaic, been published by the Ontario Poetry Society and has been accepted for a series of anthologies to be issued by the Canadian Federation Of Poets. He was the first prize winner of the Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Award for poetry in 2007.

Sandra Howe grew up in Bruce County, Ontario and in western Canada. She feels a strong connection with the natural and spiritual worlds; these are common themes in her writing. In primary school, Sandra wrote animal fables and received encouragement from family for her efforts. She has continued to find writing to be an important creative outlet. She also enjoys travel and languages, especially Spanish. Sandra is the proud mother of two grown sons. She lives in Huron County and likes to explore many worlds.

Peter Luke has recently developed an interest in editing a collections of poetry (and looks forward to doing more with the HPC), enjoys photography (his photos are contained in the book the HPC has published) and works as a social worker. Although born in Montreal and raised in Ottawa, he has spent almost 20 years in various parts of Huron County. You can see more of Peter's photos at his Flickr webite