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Meet the Board

Sandy Brown
Interim Chair

Sandy Brown is a retired English teacher and school administrator who worked at ten different Calgary schools during her thirty year career. She has enthusiastically attended Wordfest events since its inception and is proud to be a supporter of the Wordfest team. In her free time, Sandy likes looking for adventure.

Leslie Gavel
Director

Leslie Gavel, a long time Calgarian from Regina, is an avid reader and enthusiastic patron of Wordfest. She was thrilled to be asked to serve on the Board of Directors. One of her favourite board activities is acting as an ambassador for Wordfest when out and about and at all of our inspiring events. She misses the great conversations with patrons, but joining our live streaming of brilliant authors has buoyed her during the long days of the pandemic. Books, wine, and dresses—not necessarily in that order–make her very happy and soon she will be ditching the active wear and donning those dresses to once again attend live events.

Malcolm McKay
Treasurer

Malcolm is thrilled to be part of Wordfest. He was smitten at an early age by both CanLit and contemporary jazz, and is an avid reader of gritty contemporary novels and short fiction; as a “semi-professional” musician he has played saxophone and flute in multiple professional settings. Malcolm believes strongly that art, music, and literature can change lives, build communities, and make the world a better place. Malcolm’s commitment to cultural and other non-profit organizations stretches back over 30 years. He has been a director and “doer” in non-profit activities at local, regional, and national levels in theatre, music, the accounting profession, and with people with disabilities. He has won awards for financial communication and reporting in his career as a professional accountant and has advised dozens of charities and non-profit organizations in finance, accounting, organizational and tax aspects of their operations.

Jennifer Keene
Secretary

Jennifer is now entering her third decade (!) with CBC Radio. As a journalist, she’s written about everything from the Teck Frontier mine to “Fraggle Rock”. Her career with CBC took her from Edmonton to Toronto, before finally settling in Calgary where she produced the Eyeopener for 7 years. Today, she currently oversees the program, Cost of Living, heard across Canada. A lifelong reader (and book buyer, sorry Brett), she blames her worst attributes on reading George MacDonald Fraser’s “Flashman” series at an early age. Jennifer’s married with two daughters and a dog of dubious origin.