Lisa de Nikolits has been hailed as “the Queen of Canadian speculative fiction”.  

Originally from South Africa, she is the award-winning author of eleven published novels (Inanna Publications). She has appeared on recommended reading lists for Open Book Toronto, 49^th Shelf, All Lit Up, The Miramichi Reader Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Hello!, the Quill & Quire, and the CBC. The Occult Persuasion and The Anarchist’s Solution was longlisted for a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of The Fantastic and The Rage Room was a finalist in the International Book Awards, 2021. Everything You Dream is Real is a sequel to The Rage Room or read it as a standalone.  

Her short fiction and poetry have been published in various international anthologies and journals including the Crime Writers of Canada’s 40^th Anniversary anthology (2022).  

No Fury Like That was published in Italian in 2019 by Edizione Le Assassine under the title Una furia dell’altro mondo.   

Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon (coming 2024), a hardboiled noir thriller, is set to be published in spring 2023 and has garnered advance praise, including this endorsement by acclaimed author Trevor Cole: “Here, finally, is a mob story from the moll’s perspective. Filled with entertaining twists and turns, and dreamers and schemers up to no good, de Nikolits’s zany new novel proves that life for a mobster’s moll may not be all fun and games, but it sure is fun reading.”   

Lisa de Nikolits has lived in Canada since 2000. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.  

Her website is: www.lisawriter.com and she has an active social media presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  

An award-winning national newspaper columnist, Lorraine Sommerfeld has been writing Motherlode for twenty years for the Hamilton Spectator and has been an automotive journalist for eighteen, currently with Driving.ca Whether she’s driving exotic cars in crazy places or telling you stories about her kids or her cats, her work is always about the people. With the release of her debut thriller novel in the summer of 2023, A Face in the Window, it’s now about scaring them, too. She began writing at 40. Before that, she got fired a lot.

Desi Di Nardo has authored several poetry collections, and her work has been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies, performed at the National Arts Centre, featured on the TTC, printed on Starbucks cups, composed into opera, and displayed in the Prime Minister’s Official Residences of Canada. 
Desi was an editor for universities, writer-in-residence, June Callwood literacy facilitator, TDSB Italian language teacher, and the first-ever TDSB poetry instructor. She was an on-air tv host and currently is an English professor at George Brown College. She contributes in curriculum development for post secondary writing courses. 
Desi hosted Poetry Parade with Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate. She conducts in-person and online writing workshops at venues like Stephen Leacock Museum, SickKids Hospital, schools, libraries, art galleries, and retirement homes across Ontario. Her writing was translated into foreign languages and is found in curriculums for schools like Vanier CHS, Michipicoten HS, and the University of Toronto. Desi’s  poetry is included in syllabi for MA English Literature programs in universities abroad such as Thiruvalluvar University and PSGR Krishnammal College for Women in India. Desi was commissioned by Desjardins to appear in commercial and to inspire and create poetry for their corporate brand advertising.

Darlene Madott 

Deb Loughead, a Toronto author, poet and workshop leader, started writing as soon as she learned how to read. She has published more than 40 books for children and young adults. In 1977 she completed her B.A. in English at U of T, then worked as a copy editor until she decided to stay home to raise her three sons, and try to squeeze in a little creative writing on the side.

From 1980 – 1995 she was an associate editor for Spires Magazine in Etobicoke, writing short stories, poetry, puzzles and articles for the children’s pages. And once upon a time when her sons were in elementary school, she wrote and directed children’s plays for the drama club. One was eventually produced by an elementary school in Sudbury. Deb also had an opportunity to coach a group of drama students in Happy Valley / Goose Bay, Labrador. During the 1990s before her first book of poems, All I Need, was published, she worked as a storyteller, visiting schools around the Toronto area with her Circletime Tales.

Having written extensively for the educational market over the years, her rhyming stories and plays, as well as middle grade novels, are used in classrooms across North America, as well as the UK and Australia. Many of Deb’s novels written for a European book club, have been translated into seven languages.

Deb has conducted workshops and held readings for children and adults at schools, festival and conferences across the country, such as the Montreal Young Authors Conference, the Labrador Creative Arts Festival, Sudbury’s Rainbow Schools Authors Week, Eastern Townships Language Arts Festival, the POW Poetry Festival in Coburg, the Eden Mills Writers Festival, and the Young Adult Stratford Writers Festival. She has also taught creative writing classes for adults in Toronto. Her award-winning adult fiction and poetry have appeared in a variety of Canadian publications. Deb is a Past President of CANSCAIP, the Canadian Society for Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers.

Deb doesn’t write as much now—her brain is tired! But never say never!

Shane Joseph is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers in Toronto, Canada. He began writing as a teenager living in Sri Lanka and has never stopped. Redemption in Paradise, his first novel, was published in 2004 and his first short story collection, Fringe Dwellers, in 2008. His novel, After the Flood, a dystopian epic set in the aftermath of global warming, was released in November 2009, and won the Canadian Christian Writers award for best Futuristic/Fantasy novel in 2010. Shane’s last collection of short stories, Crossing Limbo, was published in 2017. His latest novel, released in 2022, is Empire in the Sand, a tale of pharmaceutical scandals, robocalls electioneering, and family breakdown. His short stories and articles have appeared in several Canadian anthologies and in literary journals around the world.

His career stints include: stage and radio actor, pop musician, encyclopedia salesman, lathe machine operator, airline executive, travel agency manager, vice president of a global financial services company, software services salesperson, publishing editor, project manager and management consultant.

Self-taught, with four degrees under his belt obtained through distance education, Shane is an avid traveller and has visited one country for every year of his life and lived in four of them. He fondly recalls incidents during his travels as real lessons he could never have learned in school: husky riding in Finland with no training, trekking the Inca Trail in Peru through an unending rainstorm, hitch-hiking in Australia without a map, escaping a wild elephant in Zambia, and being stranded without money in Denmark, are some of his memories.

After immigrating (twice), raising a family, building a career, and experiencing life’s many highs and lows, Shane has carved out a niche in Cobourg, Ontario with his wife Sarah, where he continues to work, write, and play his guitar.

Shane Joseph, believes in the gift of second chances. He feels that he has lived many lives in just a single lifetime, always starting from scratch with only the lessons from the past to draw upon. His novels and stories reflect the redemptive power of acceptance and forgiveness.