The InArms Project Team
smsteele
An award-winning poet/writer and one of five artists nationwide to participate as a war artist in the 2008-2009 Canadian Forces Artist Program (CFAP). She is the first poet ever chosen for the program. In the course of research for her “deployment” smsteele has spent thousands of hours interviewing military personnel, visiting military bases and training centres, armouries and military functions. She went on Ex (exercise) with the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal 22e Régiment several times over the past 18 months and visited them at the front in Afghanistan in November, 2009.
michael gravel
Michael Gravel is a writer, expert speaker, and web designer based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He’s the frontman of The Raving Poets, E-Town’s longest-running open-mic poetry series. He’s the author of StreetRag: An Urban Notebook and The Fast Places, published in 2008 by Red Nettle Press. He runs a small web design and writing shop called MG Creative. In December 2007 he was nearly killed by a blood clot in his heart. Cherishing the gift of continued breath, he writes with a renewed sense of hope and empathy. He lives with his wife, stepdaughter, and two incorrigible hounds.
Alice Major
A nationally recognized poet, she was appointed the first poet laureate for the City of Edmonton (2005-7). Alice has published nine collections of poetry and in 2009 she received the Pat Lowther award, given each year for the best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. Her father, who also wrote poems, was a veteran of the Merchant Marines in World War II.
