Mona Fertig is a BC poet, publisher, editor and founder of The Literary Storefront, Canada’s first literary centre (1978-1985) and Mother Tongue Publishing. She grew up in Vancouver’s Kitsilano and Burnaby and went to the Vancouver School of Art. She has been writing poetry since she was a teenager and has given hundreds of readings in many cities and towns across Canada as well as NYC and San Francisco. Her books include many poetry chapbooks and broadsides, as well as Mouth for Music (1979), 4722 Rue Berri (1986), Sex, Death & Travel (1998) and The Unsettled (2010), well as The Life and Art of George Fertig  (2010). Fertig has edited many poetry ms as well as the anthologies Love of the Salish Sea Islands, The Summer Book, 111 West Coast Literary Portraits (2012), Rocksalt (2008). She assisted in curating the George Fertig and Jack Akroyd exhibitions at the Burnaby Art Gallery, and the Unheralded Artists of BC Exhibition at Mahon Hall. She was a founding member of the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets, The Federation of BC Writers, the BC Book Prizes, and has been the BC/Yukon Rep of The Writers’ Union of Canada and P.E.N. Canada. The Vancouver Public Library made her a Literary Landmark in 2016. She has lived on Salt Spring Island for over 30 years with her husband Peter Haase. She has a son and a daughter. Her new book of poetry, Islander, will be released in 2024.