Rencontre : Ce qui émerge de l'invisible

Originally from Saint-Henri-de-Lévis, Mélissa Labonté is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She holds a master's degree in literary studies from UQAM, with a thesis on the poetry of the militant magazine Fermaille, leading to the publication of Faire maille (L’instant même, 2017) and contributions to Enjeux du contemporain en poésie au Québec (PUM, 2022, winner of the Gabrielle-Roy Prize). She currently heads the Bibliothèque québécoise publishing house and co-directs the literary section of Le Noroît with Charlotte Francoeur.

Ouanessa Younsi is an author and psychiatrist. She has published five poetry collections with Mémoire d’encrier, the most recent being *Nous ne sommes pas des fées* (co-written with Louise Dupré) and *Quand je vis*. She has also published two literary essays that explore the theme of care: *Soigner, aimer* (Mémoire d’encrier) and *Soigner écrire* (Presses de l’Université de Montréal). For the latter book, she received the 2024 Études françaises Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award in the Essay category. She also co-edited the anthology *Femmes rapaillées*. Between patients, she writes; between books, she cares for others.

A poet and visual artist, Frédéric Dumond writes poetic narratives about fragments of the world, exploring the relationships between humans and the world in which they live. He also lives among indigenous peoples, learning their languages in order to write poems, and works on creating audio and video archives of these languages in their natural environments. Publications: “kjrr partition,” Véhicule magazine, No. 7, 2024; “moment saramaka,” Dock(s) magazine, 2023; “unventer,” Voix éditions; “erre, cosmographies,” a collection in over 70 languages, Art&Fiction, Lausanne, 2020.

A novelist, short-story writer, and poet, Mireille Gagné was born in Isle-aux-Grues and lives in Quebec City, Canada. She is the author of several collections of poetry and short stories, as well as two novels, *Le lièvre d’Amérique* and *Frappabord*, published by La Peuplade. Her writing explores the tensions between nature and society, animality and transhumanism, in a language imbued with an insular sensibility, where symbolism, magical realism, and a keen awareness of ecology and the land converge.