Bronwen Wallace Award shortlist interviews: Renato Gandia, Jeremy Audet + Rachel Robb,

For a while now, I’ve taken it upon myself to interview the shortlisted poets for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, as run by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. I mean, why not? Always good to get some new voices into the mix. See my 2025 interviews with Nicole Mae, Dora Prieto and Cicely Grace; and my 2024 interviews with Ashleigh A. Allen and Faith Paré. So much emerging! And be sure to watch for debut collections by each of these writers, I’m sure.

I’ve done other shortlist interviews over the years for further poetry-specific award shortlists, in case you weren’t aware, including the Trillium Book Awards, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award. If such intrigues, scroll through each of the links to see interviews with some very compelling contemporary (and award-nominated/winning) writers.

So here are my newly-posted interviews with this year’s Bronwen Wallace shortlist: Calgary-based Filipino-Canadian poet Renato Gandia, Montreal poet and editor Jeremy Audet and Toronto poet Rachel Robb.

Good luck to all! This year’s winner will be announced on Monday, June 1, 2026.