Jessica is Vice President of Yukon Words, responsible for Communications.

Jessica is a passionate advocate for community engagement and the power of storytelling. With a diverse background in public relations, graphic design and project management, she has dedicated her career to fostering connections and creating platforms for voices to be heard. She is a self-professed cinephile who lives with an excessive amount of plants and believes that gardening is the best thing next to therapy.

Ben is the President of Yukon Words.

Ben Charland is a writer and creative communications consultant. He hosted the weekly podcast, What On Earth is Going On?, which featured guests such as poet and biographer Rosemary Sullivan, fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay, Canadian actor Aurora Browne and many more. Ben lives in Whitehorse with his wife and two kids. Learn more about Ben and his writing at bencharland.com.

John is a Director of Yukon Words, responsible for Fundraising and Sponsorships.

John Firth was raised in Dawson City, Yukon, where the Klondike Gold Fields were his backyard and Tr'ochëk, a traditional Hän fish camp, was just down the road past Pierre Berton's childhood home. Dick North lived a block away and Robert Service's cabin was a 10-minute walk from his front door. John graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and worked as a Whitehorse-based freelance journalist, documentary film/audiovisual scriptwriter, editor and feature writer before his first non-fiction book was published in 1990. Since then he’s published five more books and collaborated on another three.

Erin is a Director of Yukon Words, responsible for Programming and Grants.

Erin has always loved a good story. From sharing local history as a walking guide, to exploring connections between people and places in Antarctica, she has spent her life pursuing the ways we use stories to share who we are and where we have been.

After some time spent in Academia, Erin turned to organizing and running community arts projects in the different places that she have lived - Aotearoa and Yukon. These projects generally reflected her interest in storytelling, the most recent of which have been a series of self-published zines. She is now working on a book exploring the strange world of grief.

She lives in Whitehorse with her husband, three kids, dog, and cat.

Jacqueline is a Director of Yukon Words, responsible for grant writing.

Jacqueline transitioned onto the Board following a 20 month period as Yukon Words executive director, in order to pursue her writing.

She has had an extensive background in post-secondary education within Canada, Japan and the US.

She enjoys a wonderful life exploring the outdoors with her partner, Cathie, and their dogs Louie and Lola.

Jacqueline’s also passionate about the environment and has been on the Raven ReCentre Board for 18 years, 12 of which she was the president.

Jerry is the Treasurer of Yukon Words, responsible for Finance.

Jerry is a Taiwanese-Canadian writer whose work explores themes of identity, belonging, family and culture. Born in Taiwan, raised in Canada, and educated in China and Japan, he blends multiple cultural aspects with unique angles of the immigrant experience, the clash of traditions, and the search for self in a multicultural world.

Although most of his readers read Mandarin, Jerry also writes in English upon request. His works capture the complexities of diaspora and family dynamics, offering readers a window into both Taiwanese and Canadian cultures.

He manages a Facebook blog with his wife and daughter.

 Michele Genest (Miche) is a Director of Yukon Words, responsible for TBD.

Miche writes mostly non-fiction and is the author of several northern cookbooks. For several years she was a freelance reporter on culture for the Yukon News and now writes regular food and cooking columns for TheYukon Magazine, Edible Alaska, and What’s Up Yukon. She co-edited, with Dianne Homan and Jenny Charchun, two anthologies of Yukon writing, Urban Coyote (Lost Moose, 2001) and Urban Coyote, New Territory (Lost Moose, 2003). Her work has been published in national newspapers and a few literary magazines, and she’s always aspiring to more of the latter. Miche has been a fan of Words Out Loud since its online inception, and especially loves the variety of voices we get to hear, in person, every third Wednesday of the month. Yay, open mike! She’s an avid skier, hiker, and berry picker, and has a very cute dog named Skilo, who barks a lot because really, he just wants to be heard.