A Picnic in the Sun: Bertie and Friends Hit the Road

Marianne Ferrer was born in Venezuela and immigrated to Canada in 1998. After attending Dawson College in Montreal for illustration and design, she completed her education in graphic design at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She recently published The Invisible Garden and A Story about Cancer (With a Happy Ending). Clerel, a young emerging Cameroonian musician who studied at the University of Ohio and is now based in Montreal, was raised on church hymns and French radio. He released in 2019 a debut EP "Songs from Under a Guava Tree" and performed recently at the Pop Montreal Festival (opening for Mavis Staples) and the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Christiane Duchesne is the author of more than 60 children's books, including Kiss for Peter, The Loonies Arrive, and Memere et Ses Cinq Monstres. She is a two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award and was a finalist for the Christian Andersen Award sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Geneviève Toupin (also known as Willows) is a Manitoba-born musician with Métis heritage, currently based in Montreal. She studied piano and classical singing before launching her career as a songwriter. She has toured extensively throughout Canada and Europe over the past 12 years. Her most recent release, the EP "Two Wolves," came out in 2020. Jérôme Minière grew up in Orléans, France and settled in Montreal in 1995. As a singer-songwriter, he has released over a dozen albums, including "Le vrai le faux" (winner of the prestigious Belgian prize Le Prix Rapsat-Lelièvre) and "Petit Cosmonaute" (winner of a Felix Award, the equivalent of a Grammy in French-speaking Canada, for his songwriting). He has also created music for several theatrical productions, including La Fête de Boris, directed by Denis Marleau, which was part of the highly-respected Festival d'Avignon, held annually in the South of France.