Rock ‘n Roll singer in the 1950s/60s. High school drop out. PhD in English Literature. University/College professor. College Dean. World Traveller. Singer. songwriter, storyteller. Recording artist (3 CDs). Now in my mid-80s devoted to writing poetry, creative non-fiction, and social commentary. Not a Renaissance Man -- just an old-fashioned dilettante and loving every minute. No plans to go “gently into that good night.”

Allison Fradkin is delighted to return for her second year as a playwright in the Ryga Arts Festival. Scriptly speaking, she creates satirically scintillating stories that (sur)pass the Bechdel Test and enlist their characters in a caricature of the idiocies and intricacies of insidious isms. Elsewhere in Canada, her work has been presented by Windsor Feminist Theatre, Guelph Little Theatre, Paris Performers' Theatre, Grand River Arts Festival, ScriptWorks Toronto, and McGill University.

I worked in the local public schools for a time, sharing Syilx Okanagan culture. In 2019 I began my language-learning journey and decided to take some classes at the En’owkin Centre to learn more. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I would be part of the first cohort in “Canada” to earn my degree in my Indigenous language. I stepped away from my work since I was now a full-time student. Our teachers were all Elders and learning from them was a gift. Eight of us, all women, graduated in June 2023 at the University of British Columbia Okanagan with a degree in our Okanagan language called nsyilxcn. It is called the Bachelor of Nsyilxcn Language Fluency or BNLF.

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Brian was born in 1950 on the Okanagan Indian Reserve near Vernon, BC. After completing grade eight, he found work in the oil fields and in construction, and eventually retired as a bricklayer. At the age of fifty, without any formal training, he began to write and fifteen years later, he completed his first novel, All the Quiet Places. His bestselling debut won the 2022 Indigenous Voices Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads. He was also a member of the jury for the 2023 Scotia Bank Giller prize. Brian and his wife live in West Kelowna where he enjoys time with his three grandchildren and is currently working on his third book.

Born and raised on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver), C.E. Gatchalian (he/him) is a Filipinx queer author, playwright and editor who has authored six books and co-edited three anthologies. His memoir, Double Melancholy, was published in Spring 2019 by Arsenal Pulp Press. In 2022 he was one of the recipients of the one-time only British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Arts and Music Awards for his contribution to the arts in BC. He currently lives in Tkaronto (Toronto).

Reading: Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man

In this intimate reading, acclaimed writer CE Gatchalian shares excerpts from his memoir Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man—a lyrical and provocative exploration of race, desire, and artistic identity. Blending cultural criticism with personal reflection, the memoir traces the formation of a brown queer sensibility through encounters with literature, film, and family history. This reading will offer a glimpse into a richly textured inner world shaped by both beauty and marginalization.

Workshop: Writing the Unraveling Self

What if your writing didn’t have to “make sense”? What if you could let it stutter, fragment, contradict, or fall apart? In this hour-long workshop, participants will explore what it means to write from a place of emotional rawness and formal disruption. Through short, guided prompts and group reflection, we’ll challenge the idea that good writing must be polished or coherent—and embrace the mess, confusion, and vulnerability that often lead us closer to truth.

Caitlin Jaime, a current Capilano University acting student, is extremely grateful to have the chance to bring Isobel Rondeau's dreams to life through this play. She has been on the stage since secondary school, continually pursuing all aspects of performance, specifically acting, and refining her vocalist skills. The arts, particularly film and writing, have always enthralled her. Paired with her unwavering passion for language learning, her dream is to travel while doing art, eventually becoming a polyglot performer.

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There is a pureness to Claire's voice that can silence a room. A moving songwriter and compelling guitarist, Claire combines smooth folk finger picking, jazz influenced progressions and a powerful yet vocal tender delivery. Her music delivers carefully crafted and vulnerable reckonings of self worth, escaping abuse, painful goodbyes, fragile family dynamics and ultimate hope for the future. Music publications around the world laud her lyricism, deft guitar playing and rich vocals. Claire Coupland brings a graceful contemporary feel to indie folk music.

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Cole is a non-binary author, poet, and philosopher who blends the truths of the world—obscure and not—with raw, and visceral emotion. Remaining unpublished, Cole continues to build their impressing repertoire of poems and short stories, exposing the unreal worlds between our own and sharing with all those curious what it is to know.

Danielle Krysa (Canada) has a BFA in Visual Arts, and a post-grad in graphic design. She is the writer behind the contemporary art site, (est.2009), and has curated art shows all over North America. Danielle is also an artist herself, and her mixed media collage work is held in private collections worldwide. She is the author of several art books, including “Creative Block”, “Your Inner Critic Is A Big Jerk”, “A Big Important Art Book - Now with Women”, and two children’s books; “How To Spot An Artist” and “Art and Joy”. Danielle has had the great pleasure of speaking at TEDx, PIXAR, Creative Mornings, and was interviewed in series of video segments on Oprah.com about breaking through creative blocks and self-doubt.

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A graduate of Studio 58 and SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts, Dawn considers herself a "Jill of all trades" in the theatre world, having performed, directed or stage managed for Many Hats Theatre, The Ryga Arts Festival, Summerland Singers and Players, Showtime Theatre Company, Tempest Theatre and Cat's Paw Productions.

Dawn enjoys building relationships in the arts and rolling up her sleeves to help out wherever needed, so don't be surprised if you see her in multiple places throughout the festival.

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Don Gayton is a consulting ecologist and the author of seven books of creative non-fiction, including The Sky and the Patio: An Ecology of Home. His current passion is collecting—and creating—regional stories, for an upcoming book.

Eric has been involved in the Arts in the South Okanagan for over 20 years now.He was a founding member of Many Hats Theatre Company and served as head of the company for 14 years. Over the years he has served as President of the Board for  the Penticton Arts Council, as well as for the Penticton Art Gallery. He has stepped back from all of these and was happy, when asked, to help out the Ryga Arts Festival, now that he has more free time.

Erick Thompson

Communications professional

Erick Thompson oversees communications and engagement initiatives at the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS). He also supports intergovernmental relations and serves as the information section lead in the RDOS Emergency Operations Centre. Erick previously owned and operated a communications company specializing in video production and was a television and radio broadcaster. He has produced and directed several short films and television segments ranging from trekking in Nepal to running the Fat Dog 100k ultramarathon.

Georgia Goerz is a Fine Arts student studying at the University of British Columbia in the beautiful Okanagan. Her work often takes an abstract twist, with pops of colour intertwined into a realistic setting. She has maintained a lifelong passion for art and has focused on creating her signature style and developing her skills in school in the past few years.

My name is Georgia Goerz, and I am a multidisciplinary artist practicing in the beautiful Okanagan. I am currently working towards completing my Bachelor of Fine Arts at UBCO, but I am originally from Edmonton, Alberta, where I started refining my skills as an artist. From a young age, I’ve engaged in many different art forms, from dance performances, fibre arts, and painting, to sculpture making, backstage theatre coordination and mural making. Although I tend to stick to painting, fibre arts, and sculpting, I very much enjoy trying new creative mediums and methods which has been such a gift through my education. I work in themes regarding self-reflection, and I am massively influenced by film/ theatre props and set pieces. I look at my art and see a practical use of materials, and each piece is a jigsaw piece in a puzzle of a larger story.

Greta Papageorgiu (she/her) has over 25 years’ experience in the arts working as an actingcoach, performer, director and playwright. She taught Meisner Technique in Toronto, Montreal,Munich and Amsterdam. Her play Scenes from Plays I Never Wrote premiered at the TorontoFringe Festival in 2016. Her bilingual children’s play Karius and Baktus toured in Quebec,Ontario and New Brunswick. Film and TV credits include Another Person’s Wedding withKathleen Turner, and the CBC Gem sketch comedy shows Milenders and Absofreakinglutely.Greta is disabled and works to give the disabled community positive representation. She is excited to be part of the Ryga Festival and looks forward to further developing her show for the Unfiltered Festival at Tempest Theatre (tempest.ca)  this November.

Harsh and his family are fortunate to be settlers on the traditional and unceded lands of the Okanagan Syilk peoples in Kelowna. Harsh first appeared on stage in Kelowna as a cult leader in New Vintage Theatre’s Dead Serious in his 59^th year of orbiting our sun. Five revolutions later and he has appeared in 17 plays and had seven plays produced. Four Seventeen; his eighth, is his first to be presented at Ryga Fest. It was inspired by his love of science fiction and his children and his wife, M, who are all very special to him. He hopes you enjoy Four Seventeen and take some time to contemplate the advice you would give your younger self, if you could. In October, Harsh will be appearing in Kelowna as the eccentric Chief Inspector Hubbard in New Vintage Theatre’s Dial M for Murder. Tempus fugit!

Author, Isobel Rondeau was born and raised in Edmonton Alberta and eventually settled in northern Alberta where she and her husband raised their two children. Currently residing in beautiful British Columbia, Isobel finds peace and tranquility while writing close to nature. Fiction stories about everyday people are what she enjoys writing about. Isobel also writes under the pen name Belle Rondeau.

NOVELS:
“Wings Of An Angel”

The life after residential school is not an easy one. Follow Mark Whitestone as his life unfolds before your eyes, laugh at his stories, cry at his heartbreak, love who he is and watch as his wings open.

“Absence Of Breath”

Walk with Sahtu as he meets various people in the afterlife and why they are important to him and his future self.

“Ava’s Curse”

Travel the country as young witch, Ava, and her friends try to break the curse that follows her family from generation to generation. Along the way you meet several characters who help or hinder their progress, in the end her magic must prevail. Book one. ‍

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Arborist by trade, her focus is on balancing safety for the humans and more-than humans through community.

Her latest relationship navigation is through poetry and learning to grow food.

Guided by Farrah Schwab at the Medicine Poetry Circle, Jeanette has been encouraged to speak out loud and will be debuting some of her poetry at this event.

Jill Fey has been making people laugh ever since she realized it was easier than explaining her life choices. She’s back for her second year in Outspoken. She loves bringing characters to life in plays like Birthday Club, Murder on the Rails, and Love or Best Offer, Jill thrives on connecting with an audience. She believes laughter is the best escape, and her mission is to make people forget their cares — at least until the lights come back up.

Joanna Cockerline is a CBC Literary Awards prizewinner, Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of the novel Still (Porcupine’s Quill, Autumn 2025). Her work has been published in Room, The Fiddlehead, En Route, and International Human Rights Arts, among other national and international publications. She is the co-author of the international short story collection Seeing Our Sisters (2024). She lives in unceded, traditional Syilx Okanagan Territory of Kelowna, BC, where she co-founded and runs a street outreach organization and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Still is the story of Kayla, who is living and working on the streets of Kelowna, BC, Canada, and of Little Zoe, a woman in the sex trade who is missing. Set in a vibrant and diverse community of people living on the streets, the novel explores sex work, living unhoused, the opioid crisis, friendship, what it means to survive, and what it means to find a home—especially within one’s self. Ultimately, Still is a story of community, friendship, resilience, and hope.

Johanna Nutter (she, they) is a Montreal-based performance maker and facilitator devoted to authentic storytelling. Her award-winning work has toured bilingually across Canada and Internationally. In 2016, she formed creature/creature, consolidating her passion for negotiating the delicate spaces between people, subjectivities, and artistic practices. Nutter is also devoted to advancing creative, active pedagogy, producing interactive educational programming in various African countries.

Kate Twa(she/her) is an award-winning writer and director and Artistic Director of Tempest Theatre and Film Society in Penticton, BC. She has delivered two narrative feature films, and three documentaries for broadcast. Kate has written and directed six theatrical plays/immersive events for Tempest Theatre and beyond.Her portfolio is a conscious effort to incite conversations and catalyze change. She is fully immersed in storytelling and has worked as an instructor to actors and directors for many years. She is passionate about connecting fresh narratives with people and learning about and sharing culture in an inclusive and uplifting manner.

Kevin Andrew Heslop (b. 1992, Canada) released poetry, curatorial, film, screenwriting, and non-fiction debuts with Gordon Hill Press, McIntosh Gallery, Astoria Pictures, Rose Garden Press, and The Porcupine’s Quill from 2021 through 2025. During this period, he documented his life at artist residencies in Serbia, Finland, France, Brazil, Denmark, and Japan through long-form dialogues forthcoming with Guernica Editions as Craft, Consciousness: Dialogues about the Arts. At point of writing, with his fifth collaborative art exhibition installed in Canada, he is artist in residence with Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, Brazil, writing his debut feature film.

Kevin’s latest book, The Writing on the Wind’s Wall, consists of in-depth dialogues, conducted in his hometown, about Medical Assistance in Dying, with a medium, a politician, a psychiatrist, a prospective recipient, administering physicians, a media-studies scholar, a death doula, a religious leader, and relatives of the deceased. A chorus heard separately and brought together between its covers, the book is a testament of fled music to how a community felt, and what they believed, about living and dying here together now.

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Krystal Withakay (spaxwawlm/ Northern Lights) is of the syilx nation and is from Westbank, BC. She is a devoted syilx artist and  knowledge keeper. With over 20 years experience, Krystal continues her advocacy within syilx language and culture as a lifelong learner. Krystal's artistic abilities and wealth of knowledge are a reflection of syilx mentorship and continued support within her traditional territory.

Lila is a 12-year-old performer who has been singing and dancing for as long as she can remember. She trains in competitive dance and studies acting and voice, nurturing her passion for the arts and embracing every opportunity to perform and grow. Lila is excited to join the Theatre Trail at the Ryga Arts Festival.

Michael V. Smith works across many creative genres, as a writer, filmmaker and performer. Smith is also a full professor at UBCO in Kelowna, where he teaches Creative Writing. As an artist who relies heavily on improv, Smith is known for his quick wit, bizarre costume choices, and his delicious invitations to play with the audience.

Nathalie Boisvert holds an M.A. in Dramatic Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal, and is the author of both poetry and theatre. Her fifteen plays include L’histoire sordide de Conrad B. (produced in Belgium and France) and L’été des Martiens (produced in Quebec, Toronto, France and Belgium, as well as in two different German translations in Dusseldorf and Berlin).  Her work has received several major awards: the Prix Journées de Lyon des auteurs du théâtre for her play Vie et mort d’un village in 2006, and the Prix Gratien-Gélinas for Buffet chinois, produced at Espace Go in Montreal in 2010. Her latest work, Antigone au printemps (Antigone in the Spring), won the Prix Émilie Augier from the Académie Française and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Theatre in French.

Taking inspiration from both Dr Dre and Dr Seuss, Ollie weaves words into lines that rhyme with the times. He is co-founder and director of the United Humans Foundation, a non-profit that advocates for collective decision-making based on love, fairness and science. As a writer, poet and performer, he challenges the conventional wisdom that exploitation, greed and inequality are inevitable and strives to inspire audiences with the potential for an inclusive, fair and sustainable future.

Pascal Archambault is the artistic director of Showtime! Theatre Company in Penticton, British Columbia. He began his foray into theatre in 2011 with Another Elfing Musical as part of The Broadway Chorus in Vancouver, where he quickly fell in love with storytelling through song, satire, and stagecraft.

By day, Pascal works as a Prevention Officer with WorkSafeBC, specializing in workplace health and safety. By night (and many weekends), he writes, directs, and mentors within the world of community theatre. His dual careers are more connected than they seem; both demand clarity, empathy, and a sharp eye for human behaviour.

Pascal’s work is known for its emotional honesty, wry humour, and character-driven narratives. His plays explore real-life tensions with both compassion and bite. Whether tackling difficult subjects like dementia (Postcards from Yesterday), identity and inclusion (Second Glances), or the friction between care and conflict (Just Loud Enough), his writing remains grounded in truth.

He blends practicality with passion, often turning ordinary situations into compelling theatre. When he is not writing, you’ll find him on a motorcycle, at a rehearsal, or dreaming up his next project somewhere between workplace policy and wild imagination.

Just Loud Enough marks another step in Pascal’s ongoing mission: to tell stories that matter, quietly at first, then just loud enough.

Petra Höller is an artist, poet, and curator. They live and work in Summerland. Their most recent work is about motherhood.

Pink Hat Art is a part-time wizard conjuring creations from whatever happens to be nearby! Bits of cardboard? Yes. Forgotten magazines? Of course. A broken computer? If it fits, it sits. Their practice is powered by curiosity, chaos, and lots of snacks.

Working across collage, sculpture, illustration, poetry, and the mysterious fifth thing they always forget to mention (oops!), Pink Hat Art invites others to slow down and notice the strange little stories hiding in everyday objects. No fancy tools required, just a glue stick and a bit of wonder.

They believe art should be a joyful mess! Accessible! A little weird! A spark of inspiration for the folks who thought they couldn’t make things.

Currently an Artist in Residence with PDCAC, Pink Hat Art remains deeply suspicious of blank pages and is known to hoard googly eyes.

Quanah Daniels (he/him) is an Indigenous actor of Plains Cree descent (Nehiyaw) based in Saskatoon, SK. Quanah has worked in over 50 projects across film, theater, and tv since 2011. Recently, Quanah has worked internationally this past summer in Seoul, South Korea in collaboration with Hanyang University. Additionally, Quanah has started taking Korean language classes, singing classes, and dance classes to continue to learn and grow as a performer.

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I am a retired Environmental Protection Officer and spent the last years of my career in Williams Lake - right in the middle of Cowboy Country.

After listening to a friend recite some cowboy poetry, I figured I would try the same, hoping it might just delay the onset of dementia. Got to keep our brains active.

I have managed to memorize a few humorous cowboy poems and also some not cowboy poems and have enjoyed sharing them.

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“way̓ x̌ast sx̌lx̌aʕlt iʔ p snaqsilxw. iʔ sqilxw skwist nq̓ aq̓ aml̓s uł iʔ sumaʔ
skwist Serenity Baptiste. kən təl snpinktn”. Translation: “Hello, good day
everyone. My Okanagan name means ‘to be calm and serene’ and my
English name is Serenity Baptiste. I was born and raised in Penticton, BC”.
I’m a proud member of the Penticton Indian Band located in the unceded
territory of the Syilx Okanagan people. I had the honours of being raised
around fluent speakers of nsyilxcən (Okanagan) and I’m currently slowly
becoming a fluent speaker myself. I’m also a 23 year old two-spirited young
woman actively involved in language and culture, and currently getting
back in touch with my artistic side. I've been creating art since I was little,
but it was only recently that I started to get 'out of my shell' by starting to
share some of my poetry I’ve written over the years through local
exhibitions.

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Taylor Williams (they/them) is an American-Canadian Poet, born in Los Angeles California. Their poems stem from complex relations of loved ones struggling with addiction, finding and recovering from love, and breaking the cycles of generational trauma . The journey is bittersweet, but promising. Taylor currently resides on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Syilx People of the Okanagan Nation ⁠— always writing, and redefining their world.

Identical twins, The Cramer brothers, have been performing together since they were teenagers. They’ve played various styles of music for audiences as far away as Taiwan, The UK, The Netherlands, Estonia and Brazil. At home in Canada they’ve performed for two Prime Ministers and several provincial Premiers. Their upbeat jazz sounds were a fan favourite at this year’s Ignite The Arts Festival and they can be seen at various wineries and festivals this summer throughout Alberta and B.C.

Yanti Sharples is a lifelong learner with a powerful love for life. Her lifelong aspiration has been to build strength, joy and community through the shared human experience of music. Through writing, singing, playing instruments and teaching Yanti shares her unique frequency with everyone. Yanti believes that the vibrations we emit from our bodies are the best medicine for what ails us. She aims to keep encouraging positive change in her environment by leading by example, as she is driven to make a difference in the world. Yanti plays the ukulele, cello and shaker. She is a seasoned vocalist and has fronted numerous bands in various genres including jazz, and blues. Yanti volunteers extensively in and around the small unincorporated village of Naramata in British Columbia that she is fortunate enough to call home.