Marie Bilodeau is an Ottawa-based author and storyteller, with eight published books to her name. Her speculative fiction has won several awards and has been translated into French (Les Éditions Alire) and Chinese (SF World). Her short stories have appeared in Analog, Amazing Stories various anthologies. Marie is also a storyteller and has told stories across Canada in theatres, tea shops, at festivals and under disco balls. She’s won story slams with personal stories, has participated in epic tellings at the National Arts Centre, and has adapted classical material. Her most recent novel, Hell Born, launches a new indie YA series about a bounty-hunting devil trying to survive in a less-than-helpful world.
Marie is co-host of the Archivos Podcast Network with Dave Robison, co-chair of Ottawa’s speculative fiction literary convention Can*Con with Derek Künsken, co-chair of Ottawa ChiSeries with Nicole Lavigne and Matt Moore, and is a casual blogger at Black Gate Magazine. Learn more at
http://www.mariebilodeau.com/
Leah Bobet‘s most recent novel, An Inheritance of Ashes, won Canada’s Prix Aurora Award, Sunburst Award, and Copper Cylinder Award. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple Year’s Best anthologies and been transformed into choral work by composer Timothy C. Takach, is taught in high school and university classrooms in Canada, Australia, and the US, and appeared in multi-platform fiction serial Shadow Unit.
She is currently guest poetry editor for Reckoning: creative writing on environmental justice‘s 2020 issue, was a founding editor at Abyss & Apex and editor-in-chief at Ideomancer Speculative Fiction, and, for ten years, was a bookseller at Toronto’s Bakka Phoenix Books. She has reviewed books for Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she makes jam, builds civic engagement spaces, and has a burgeoning collection of fancy coffee. Visit her at www.leahbobet.com.
KT Bryski is a Canadian author and podcaster. Her short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, PodCastle, Augur, and Strange Horizons, among others. She’s been a Sunburst finalist, Parsec winner, and Stonecoast MFA alum. When not writing, she enjoys choral music and craft beer. She lives in Toronto with her incredibly weird cat.
E. L. Chen is the author of the YA fantasy novels The Good Brother and Summerwood/Winterwood. Her short fiction has been published in anthologies such as The Dragon and the Stars and Tesseracts Fifteen, and in magazines such as Strange Horizons and On Spec. She lives in Toronto with her son.
Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning writer of fiction, poetry, and criticism. Her stories and poems have appeared in magazines including Tor.com, Fireside Fiction, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Mythic Delirium; anthologies including The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales (2016); and in her own collection, The Honey Month (2010). Her story “Seasons of Glass and Iron” won the Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards in 2017, while her stories “The Green Book” and “Madeleine” were finalists for the Nebula Award in 2011 and 2015 respectively, and “The Truth About Owls” won the Locus Award in 2015. She is represented by DongWon Song of HMLA. Her first novella, This is How You Lose the Time War, is a collaboration with Max Gladstone and was published by Saga Press in July 2019. Amal frequents Twitter, where she is often very silly. You can also find her at amalelmohtar.com.
(Source: http://can-con.org)
While Geoff Gander likes to write horror and science fiction (but he’ll try any genre, really), he cut his creative teeth in the gaming world. He has written classic D&D adventures for Expeditious Retreat Press, Call of Cthulhu goodness for Sentinel Hill Press, TinyD6 weirdness for Fat Goblin Games, and 5E monstrosities for Hit Point Press. Who knows where the dice will lead him next?
His horror and science fiction has been published by Metahuman Press, AE SciFi, Exile Editions, Nelson Publishing, and Third Flatiron Publishing, and one of his horror pieces is being made into a short film. When he isn’t writing or working a day job, Geoff likes to read, entertain his two boys, explore abandoned buildings, and play roleplaying games. Geoff lives in South Mountain with a lovely stone-carving, bagpipe-playing witch, and her many cats.
Kate Heartfield is the author of the historical fantasy novel Armed in Her Fashion and the two Alice Payne time travel novellas. She also writes interactive fiction, including The Road to Canterbury and The Magician’s Workshop, both published by Choice of Games. Her fiction has won or been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Aurora and Crawford awards, and her journalism for a National Newspaper Award. Her novella “The Course of True Love” was published by Abaddon Books in 2016. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lackington’s, Podcastle and elsewhere. A former newspaper journalist, Kate lives in Ottawa, Canada.
Alan Neal is host of Ottawa’s favourite drive home show All in a Day, on CBC Radio One, 91.5 FM. All in a Day is music, news, current affairs, culture, theatre, movies, politics, history, humour and conversation – all wrapped up in an engaging and entertaining package. In addition to hosting All in a Day, Alan is a published author, releasing his first children’s book Ava and the Little Folk in 2012, and a past playwright. He is also a frequent host for the Ottawa International Writers Festival, particularly his regular event “Random Play.” Find Alan Neal online: @alannealottawa
(Partially taken from CBC Media Centre)
Mark Robinson is a Canadian adventurer, storm chaser, and meteorologist. Recently named as one of Canada’s Top 100 Explorers by Canadian Geographic, he is also a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. He has been intercepting hurricanes since 2005, and has documented many major storms including Katrina, Ike, and Sandy. Mark is also an on-air personality at The Weather Network and co-hosts the show “Stormhunters” with his fellow storm chaser and Weather Network meteorologist, Jaclyn Whittal. He is active on social media and you can follow him at @StormhunterTWN.
Erin Rockfort is an Ottawa-based writer, podcaster, and psychotherapist. She is currently one-half of the Brodacious Book Club podcast, and running her own reading challenge on her blog at erinrockfort.com. When not hard at work, she can be found @pineapplefury on Twitter having strong Batman opinions.