The Muses’ Company is proud to expose to the light the work of five exciting young poetic talents. Alison Calder unveils the ordinary day to reveal its lyrical beauty; Sharanpal Ruprai offers a rare and honest glimpse of family love; Melanie Unrau peels back the surface of our culture to uncover the uneasy tensions below; Kerry Ryan discloses the fear and courage in the hearts of young lovers; and Chandra Mayor strips language to the bone with her startling X-ray vision. Fresh, edgy, moving, provocative, and brand spanking new, the work in Exposed lays bare the creative power of a new generation of women poets.

Catherine Hunter's last poetry collection, Latent Heat, won the McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award. Four of the poems in St. Boniface Elegies, originally published in Contemporary Verse 2, won the Manitoba Magazine Award for Best Poem or Suite of Poems and earned Honorable Mention in the National Magazine Awards. Her most recent novel, After Light (Signature), spans four generations of an Irish-American-Canadian family in a tale of love, war, trauma, and the power of art, and was a finalist for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher, and the High Plains Book Award for Best Woman Writer. She has also published several mysteries with Ravenstone/Turnstone, and recorded a spoken word CD (Rush Hour, from Cyclops Press, with a bonus track by The Weakerthans). Her writing has appeared in the literary journals The Malahat Review, Prism International, Essays on Canadian Writing, Matrix, West Coast Line, Prairie Fire, CV2, and Grain, and the anthologies The Echoing Years: Contemporary Poetry from Canada and Ireland; Post Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry; Best Canadian Poems 2013; Best Canadian Poems 2015; and (forthcoming) Best Canadian Poems 2019. She edited Exposed, an anthology of five new women poets, and Before the First Word: The Poetry of Lorna Crozier, and for ten years she was the editor of The Muses' Company poetry press. Since 1991, she has enjoyed teaching literature and creative writing at the University of Winnipeg.

Catherine Hunter's profile page

Chandra Mayor is a Winnipeg poet and editor. She has worked with dark leisure, Contemporary Verse 2, and Prairie Fire. Her work is included in the Cyclops Review. Her first collection of poetry, August Witch, was released in Fall 2002.

Chandra Mayor's profile page

Sharanpal Ruprai is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg and is currently teacheing grades seven and eight in the city. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire?s special issue entitled Race Poetry, Eh? She is one of three organizers of the monthly reading and open-mike series, "Speaking Crow." She is also on the Board of Directors of .

Sharanpal Ruprai's profile page