The Team

Robin van Eck - Executive Director

Heidi Klaassen - Program Director Adult Education

Kim Firmston - Program Director Youth Education

Precious De Leon - Office Administrator

Robin has been with the AWCS in various capacities since 2003. First as a member learning to write, as a board member for several years, as office personnel and eventually, when there was more team to manage, Executive Director. 
Robin is a writer like everyone else with several short stories and personal essays published. Her first novel, Rough, came out in November 2020.

Heidi holds a BA and a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Calgary. She recently completed the Professional Editing Standards Certificate through Queen’s University. Her work has appeared in Salon, Living Hyphen, Literary Heist, Alberta Views, The Sprawl, and several anthologies. She's been with the AWCS since 2019.

Kim is a published writer of YA novels, short stories, and articles, and has plays produced worldwide. She is a writing mentor and instructor for the AWCS, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, and the Alexandra Centre Society’s DramAntics Theatre camp. Kim specializes in collaboration projects with people of all ages.

Precious is a poet and speculative fiction writer. She writes through the lens of a Filipino Canadian settler in Mohkintsis/Calgary. Following her stint as a business journalist and editor in the Middle East, her creative writing journey started with the 2019 Borderlines Writers Circle Calgary (now Own Voices Alberta), a program she now works on with the AWCS team since she joined in 2020.