Spotlight on the Frye Festival 27th Edition

Correspondents Liaison and Media Relations, Frye Festival

Traductrice de formation, Élise Pelletier détient un baccalauréat en traduction de l’Université de Moncton et une maîtrise en traductologie de l’Université d’Ottawa. Adepte de mots et de culture, elle décide d’orienter ensuite son parcours vers les communications. 

Elle a travaillé pour de grands événements culturels comme le Congrès mondial acadien 2019 et le Festival Acadie Rock. Elle occupe actuellement le poste de responsable des communications et de l’analyse politique au Regroupement féministe du Nouveau-Brunswick, qui lui permet d’œuvrer pour une cause qui la passionne et l’inspire. 

Dans ses temps libres, Élise Pelletier aime danser et faire pousser des fleurs dans chaque racoin, butte de terre et craque de pavé de son petit jardin.    

Camille Perron-Cormier is from Dieppe, New Brunswick. She completed a Bachelor of Arts and Design degree with a concentration in comics at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) in 2018. Since graduating, she has returned to New Brunswick, where she creates comics, illustrations, graphic recordings, some graphic design, and leads creative workshops. 

She has illustrated three children's books published by Bouton d'or Acadie: Adieu, Jacoby !, written by Renée Guimond-Plourde, Danielle Guimond, and Mélanie Plourde, Sous mon bateau, , written by Chantal Duguay-Maillet and very recently Dans ma boite à diner, written by Nicole Poirier. In 2023, she released her first comic book with Éditions Bouton d’or Acadie: SOS Sorcières, the first volume of the series Crapaud et RomarinThe sequel, Maude et le spectre, was published in January 2025. She is currently working on the third volume of this series.

Christophe Collard holds a doctorate in language and literature (Brussels, 2009) and has taught at universities and colleges in Belgium, Spain, China and the Philippines, as well as holding research fellowships in the USA and his second home, Canada.

Author of numerous journal articles, he has also written a monograph entitled Artist on the Make: David Mamet’s Work Across Media and Genres (2012), which was shortlisted for the 2014 biennial award from the European Society for the Study of English.

Currently a professor in the Department of Translation and Languages at the University of Moncton, he combines his academic work with writing and translation projects for the Prokopê agency, which he founded in 2019.

Drew Lavigne is the anglophone Poet Laureate of Moncton, New Brunswick. A member of the editorial board at The Fiddlehead and host of the Attic Owl reading series. Recent work has appeared in Valium, Visual Arts News, Tourniquet Magazine , and with Éditions Rhizome. He translated the collection Poems Twofold avec Georgette LeBlanc et est l’auteur de Evening Dress with Anstruther Press.

Gabriel Robichaud is a multidisciplinary artist from Moncton who began his professional artistic career in 2007. With a background in theater arts from the University of Moncton, his multidisciplinary practice has led him to work in performance, writing, and directing. His decision to incorporate a political dimension into his work, combined with his public advocacy, has also led him to address various issues related to the arts, culture, and language, particularly in the media.

Jon Claytor is a graphic novelist, painter, and writer based in Sackville, New Brunswick.

After having established himself as an oil painter, Jon has recently found his passion and true calling in graphic storytelling. He has written many illustrated interviews for the CBC since 2021 and his memoir, Take The Long Way Home was published by Conundrum Press in 2022. His latest graphic novel, Nowhere, about growing up among monsters in a small maritime town, was published by Goose Lane Editions in 2026. He is currently working on a book about the toxic drug supply affecting rural New Brunswick with harm reduction advocate, Ashley Legere. Jon has also run a number of creative workshops for a variety of audiences focusing on storytelling and comic memoirs.

Jon was born in San Francisco and has lived and worked in Moncton, Sackville, Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. He co-founded SappyFest independent music and arts festival in 2006 and opened Thunder & Lightning Ideas Ltd. in 2013. Jon holds an MFA from York University (2012), attended Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (1991), and holds a BFA Mount Allison University (1998). He was nominated for a Juno Award for the cover of Gord Downie's “Battle Of The Nudes” in 2004. His memoir, Take the Long Way Home, was shortlisted for the New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2022.

Digital Programming Manager, Frye Festival

Born in Montreal, Sarah Grenier-Millette holds a master’s degree in literary studies from the Université du Québec à Montréal and a certificate in digital information management from the Université de Montréal.

Specializing in the deployment of digital platforms dedicated to the research and promotion of multimedia archives, she joined the Frye Festival team as head of digital programming in September 2024.

She developed Discours/e : Catalogue numérique des littératures et cultures de l’Atlantique and continues to implement new features.

Since 2025, she also works as a project manager for Les Raisonnantes.

Stephanie Domet is the author of two novels, Homing and Fallsy Downsies, both published by Invisible. She has also co-authored a nonfiction book for intermediate readers titled Amazing Atlantic Canadian Women, published by Nimbus. She is a co-founder and co-executive director of the AfterWords Literary Festival and editor-in-chief of The Dalhousie Review. She teaches creative writing to adults and children from her home in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. She’s probably wearing something she sewed herself.

Sébastien Lord-Émard is an Acadian queer activist and writer. He/she resides in the unceded territory of Mi'kma'ki, where the Epetkutogoyek (Petitcodiac) River forms a bend at Panacadie Brook. Sébastien Lord-Émard has published poetry, essays on Acadian visual arts and an “Égoportrait du poète en burnout” in the collective En cas d’incendie, prière de ne pas sauver ce livre (Éditions Prise de parole, Sudbury, 2021). After seven years as project manager at Éditions Bouton d'or Acadie and three years as director of development at the Société de l'Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick, Sébastien Lord-Émard becomes coordinator of the Revue acadienne de création littéraire Ancrages in the summer of 2024.

Thandiwe McCarthy is a 7th generation African Canadian spoken word poet, writer, public speaker, and the culture correspondent for Maritime EDIT magazine, where he highlights Black community leaders and artists. Known for his unique "Vibe Harvesting" performances, he creates poetry spontaneously at events across the Maritimes.

Thandiwe has co-founded the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance and organized the provincial event Emancipation Celebration. He played a key role in having August 1st recognized as Emancipation Day in New Brunswick. Though he has stepped back from volunteer work, his contributions have left a lasting impact on the community.

The "Still Here Initiative," celebrating fifteen generational Black New Brunswick families, is gearing up for a national art exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and a globally distributed book published by Goose Lane Editions, both launching in July 2025.

Thandiwe's memoir, "Social Oblivion: Raised Black in New Brunswick," is available now.

Éloïse LeBlanc (she/her) is an author, artist, and cultural worker who cultivates hypersensitivity, shares her writing in a soft voice, and lingers over maritime coastal textures; she is interested in tiny worlds and ways of magnifying them. In 2022, she published Le hoquet en pulpes with La maison en feu. Several of her texts have found refuge in magazines (Estuaire, Nyx, Saturne, Les Éphélides). She is the founder and executive director of the Projet Borgitte in Cap-Pelé, New Brunswick.