Board Members & Staff
Board Members
Jacqueline Bedard is the president of Yukon Words Society Board of Directors and its former executive director.
She’s has had an extensive career in post-secondary education within Canada, the US, and Japan, focused primarily on international education, communications, marketing and government relations. Her volunteer work throughout the years and across borders has focused on issues related to women and girls, and the rescue of dogs.
Now, with a bit of time on her hands, she is enjoying time to build her creative writing craft, supported by BC and the Yukon’s vibrant writing community.
Passionate about building communities of like-minded people, she was one of the founding directors of 100 Women Who Care, Whitehorse and has been an active part of the Raven Recycling Board (now Raven Recentre) for 19 years – 12 as president). It’s this same passion that brought her to Yukon Words Society and BC and Yukon Book Prizes – the drive to build and support people coalescing around a shared passion.
Jacqueline, her partner Cathie and their two active dogs, live part of the year off-gird in a log cabin in Atlin, BC. Throughout the year they spend a lot of time gardening, fishing, hunting, preserving and being out on the land. It’s a significant source of Jacqueline’s writing inspiration!
Heidi Clark, B.A., B. Ed., Dip ESL, M.Ed. (UBC) has had a long term love of literature and delights in sharing her passion with her students and colleagues. Heidi has worked for the VSB for three decades within the classroom as an elementary school teacher and as well as in a district capacity as an Early Literacy Mentor. Heidi currently teaches a grade 3/4 classroom where literacy is the backbone of the classroom. Mornings start with #ClassroomBookAday – reading aloud a picture book, a poem is shared after recess, a chapter book is always read aloud in the afternoon, and wordplay is judiciously sprinkled throughout the day. Heidi loves connecting her students with others throughout the world with events such as the Global Read Aloud, Mystery Skypes, as well connecting virtually with authors and illustrators. Heidi successfully applied on behalf of her school for an Indigo Love of Reading grant. She is thrilled that over the course of the next three years she gets to go book shopping to her heart’s content for her school. She strongly believes that students need to see themselves reflected in the literature they pick up. As Dr Rudine Sims Bishop wrote, “Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror.”
Tara Sidhoo Fraser is a queer writer and creator of South Asian and Scottish ancestry. She graduated from the University of Victoria with a BA in Anthropology, and her work has been published with Autostraddle and Anathema magazine, among others. When My Ghost Sings is her first book. She lives in Vancouver.
Sarah James lives in the West Kootenay region of BC and spends as much time as possible in the mountains and under the canopy of the forest. She has worked in the post-secondary sector for almost twenty years, has an interdisciplinary background in Literary Studies and Library Science, and is currently a librarian at Selkirk College. Sarah sits on the council of the Mir Centre for Peace and is involved with advocacy work around Intellectual Freedom and Information Literacy.
Jonathan Middleton is an artist, curator, and publisher working between Vancouver and Toronto. He currently co-manages the Vancouver Art Book Fair and recently served as Interim Executive Director & Publisher of C Magazine (2024) and Executive Director of Toronto’s Art Metropole (2019–2024). His various publishing and curatorial roles have included partner at Vancouver-based design and publishing studio Information Office (2017–2019); director/curator of Or Gallery (2007–2017), and director/curator of the Western Front Exhibitions Program (1999–2005). He was a founding member of Fillip in 2004, serving on its editorial board and as its first publisher until 2008. His artwork has been exhibited, performed, and screened at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), VIVO Media Arts, Vancouver International Film Festival, Inside Out (Toronto), the Chicago International Film Festival, Tracey Lawrence Gallery (Vancouver), Dazibao (Montreal), Plaza Projects (Richmond, BC) and Konsthalle 323 (Stockholm). Middleton has served on numerous boards, including arts organizations such as Artspeak, Kokoro Dance; and advocacy organizations such as the Pacific Association of Artist-run Centres (PAARC), the Independent Film & Video Alliance (now IMAA), the Artist-run Centres and Collectives Conference (ARCA) and Artist-run Centres and Collectives of Ontario.
Rhea Tregebov is the author of eight collections of poetry. Her most recent, Talking to Strangers, was published by Véhicule Press in April 2024. She has published two novel and is the author of five children’s picture books. Tregebov served as Chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada from 2021 to 2023. Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, she now lives and writes in Vancouver, where she is Associate Professor Emerita at the School of Creative Writing at UBC.
