Authors & Speakers

Alicia Ellis decided to write books about ten minutes before graduating from law school. Now, she’s an Atlanta attorney moonlighting as an author, electronics junkie, and secret superhero. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, she loves creative problem-solving, especially as it relates to high-tech things.

Alicia writes mysteries, sometimes in fantasy or science fiction settings and sometimes in the real world. Her debut novel, Girl of Flesh and Metal, was the first self-published book ever to make the American Library Association’s LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists.

Dr. Amal Elsana Alhjooj, an Indigenous Bedouin Palestinian academic and activist, is an Associate Professor at McGill University’s School of Social Work and Founding Executive Director of PLEDJ (Promoting Leadership for Empowerment, Development, and Justice). For over 30 years, she has championed feminist, Indigenous community organizing, and policy advocacy in the Middle East and Canada. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee (2006), she has received numerous awards, including the Genius 100 Visionaries (2017). Dr. Elsana is the author of Hope is a Woman’s Name, a memoir exploring her activism and intersectional identity.

Amanda Leduc is a Canadian writer and disability rights advocate. She is the author of DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction. She is also the author of the novels THE CENTAUR’S WIFE and THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN. Her newest novel, WILD LIFE, will be published by Random House Canada in spring 2025.

Andrea Currie’s debut book Finding Otipemisiwak The People Who Own Themselves is a weaving of memoir, essay and poetry that illustrates the depth and breadth of the impact of the Sixties Scoop, the love between a brother and a sister, the challenges of living with profound cultural loss, and the healing that is sometimes possible. The pieces range from bluntly honest critique of the colonial practices that permeate child welfare agencies to tender accounts of two children’s vulnerability in childhoods defined by that system. In this timely work of narrative non-fiction, Currie asks as many questions as she answers.

Anita Chong is the Editorial Director of Fiction at McClelland & Stewart, where she edits literary fiction and memoir, and champions writers from traditionally underrepresented communities. Some of the highly acclaimed books she has edited include Sharon Bala’s The Boat People, Shashi Bhat’s Death by a Thousand Cuts, Michael Christie’s Greenwood, Tsering Yangzom Lama’s We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies, Jen Sookfong Lee’s Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart, Janika Oza’s A History of Burning, and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife.

Anna Sortino is the award-winning author of On the Bright Side and Give Me a Sign. She writes stories about disabled characters living their lives and falling in love. She has a master’s degree in Writing & Publishing from DePaul University and lives in Chicago with her dog.

Bianca Marais cohosts the popular podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, which is aimed at helping emerging writers get published. She teaches creative writing through the podcast and was named winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Creative Writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She’s the author of Hum If You Don’t Know the Words, If You Want to Make God Laugh, The Witches of Moonshyne Manor and the forthcoming A Most Puzzling Murder.

Carly Watters is a Senior Literary Agent at P.S. Literary and VP of the Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents. She’s been an agent for 15 years and represents award-winners and bestsellers in a variety of categories. Clients have been translated into 40 languages, optioned for TV and film, and have been on every bestseller list including the NYT and Globe and Mail. Carly co-hosts The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing podcast. She has a Masters in Publishing Studies from City University London and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports program.

CeCe Lyra is a literary agent representing adult fiction and non-fiction. She is drawn to books with strong hooks and smooth writing, told with originality, nuance, and authenticity.

As a mixed race Latinx immigrant, CeCe understands the power of seeing oneself reflected in books, hence her passion for championing under or misrepresented voices and narratives that contribute to a larger cultural conversation. CeCe is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA). The popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, for which CeCe is a co-host, has over three million downloads.

Coltrane Seesequasis is a young fantasy writer of Willow Cree heritage who grew up in Gatineau, Quebec. His debut novel, Secrets of Stone, is the first book of a planned series that follows the gripping tale of a young wolf called Silversong, in a fantasy world similar to our own. Inspired by a love of nature as well as myths and folklore that challenge the limits of creativity, Coltrane joins a new generation of writers, adding his voice to the immersive genre of fantasy.

Daniel Maluka is a self-taught, Toronto-based artist and writer originally from South Africa. He merges Afrocentric influences with surrealist elements to explore the depths of the subconscious in his art. Daniel’s visually captivating pieces have gained international recognition, being featured in galleries worldwide.

In addition to visual art, Daniel has made notable contributions to literature. His works have been published in various magazines, and he has led numerous poetry workshops. His debut poetry collection, Unwashed, published by Mawenzi House, was featured in CBC’s “37 Most Anticipated Poetry Books for Spring 2024.” The collection is known for its visceral, image-rich poetry.

David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer’s Union of Canada Freedom to Read award. He has received several other accolades for his work as a writer for children and adults, podcaster, public speaker, and social advocate. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters by the University of Manitoba in 2023 for outstanding contributions to the arts and distinguished achievements. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.

David Chariandy is a writer and critic. Author of the novels Soucouyant and Brother, and the epistolary memoir I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You: A Letter To My Daughter, he has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Toronto Book Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Windham-Campbell Prize for a body of fiction. His books have been widely discussed and translated into a dozen languages. He is Professor of English at the University of Toronto and a member of the editorial board of Brick: a literary journal.

Denise Da Costa is a Canadian, Toronto-based writer whose work explores the complexities of love, mental health, and intersectional identity. She studies Creative Writing as an MFA student at UBC and is an alumnus of the Humber School of Writers. Her publishing credits include an essay in the anthology, Subdivided: City-Building in an Age of Hyper-Diversity (Coach House Books 2016).

Her debut novel And the Walls Came Down (Dundurn 2023), was longlisted for the 2024 Toronto Book Award. She’s currently working on her next novel.

Derek Mascarenhas is a graduate of the University of Toronto SCS Creative Writing Program, a finalist for the Penguin Random House of Canada Student Award for Fiction, and a nominee for the Marina Nemat Award. His short story collection, Coconut Dreams, was called a “stunning debut” in Quill and Quire’s starred review and The Globe and Mail named it one of the best reads from Canadian small presses. Derek’s first picture book, 100 Chapatis, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as “warm and reassuring,” and his second, The Mango Monster, was a CBC Books top pick for Canadian kids.

Iryn Tushabe is a Ugandan-Canadian writer and journalist. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Adda, The Walrus, and in the trace press anthology river in an ocean: essays on translation. Her short fiction has twice been included in The Journey Prize Stories: The best of Canada’s New Writers. She was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021, and a 2023 winner of the Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. She won City of Regina writing Award in 2020 and 2024. Everything is Fine Here (House of Anansi, 2025) is her debut novel.

John Elizabeth Stintzi (they/she) is an award-winning writer, cartoonist, and editor who grew up on a cattle farm in northwestern Ontario. JES is the author of the novels My Volcano (longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library’s Book Prize for fiction, and named a book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and the New York Public Library) and Vanishing Monuments, the poetry collection Junebat, the new collection of stories Bad Houses, and the comic The Children of Gulga-Krü.

Scarborough born poet and arts educator, Joshua “Scribe” Watkis, has devoted himself to extracting the essence of his experiences; turning them into words worth their weight in feeling. The Canadian Poetry Slam Champion has authored two chapbooks (Tethered and Black Blossom/Harsh North); and collaborated with The FOLD on Audible’s first Spoken Word Audiobook: Power In Poetry; Moods That Move. Beyond the contribution of his own poetry, Scribe co-curated and hosted ‘The Old Black Maple’, for the NAC’s debut Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. Recently, he collaborated with The Goldfarb Gallery for Charles Campbell’s exhibit: An Ocean to Livity.

Judy I. Lin, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of the Book of Tea duology (A Magic Steeped in Poison and A Venom Dark and Sweet), was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Canada with her family at a young age. She grew up with her nose in a book and loved to escape to imaginary worlds. She now works as an occupational therapist and still spends her nights dreaming up imaginary worlds of her own. She lives on the Canadian prairies with her husband and daughters.

Jumata Emill is a journalist who has covered crime and local politics in Mississippi and parts of Louisiana. He earned his BA in mass communications from Southern University and A&M College. He’s a Pitch Wars alum and a member of the Crime Writers of Color. When he’s not writing about murderous teens, he’s watching and obsessively tweeting about every franchise of the Real Housewives. Jumata lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is the author of The Black Queen and Wander in the Dark.

KJ Aiello is a mentally ill, award-winning writer based in Toronto. Their work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Chatelaine, The Walrus and This Magazine. They are still waiting for their very own dragon. Sadly, this has not happened, so their cats will have to suffice.

K.D. Richards was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs just outside of Washington, D.C. A writer since a young age, after college K.D. earned a law degree and worked as an attorney and legal instructor for fifteen years but never stopped writing fiction. She currently splits her time between Toronto and Maryland with her husband and two sons.

South African-Canadian novelist of four award-winning novels. Teacher of creative writing currently at U of Ottawa. Next novel in January of 2026 with Maclelland and Stewart.

Kamal Al-Solaylee is the author of three nonfiction books: Intolerable (2012), Brown (2016), and Return (2021). He holds a PhD in English and is a the director of the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at UBC, Vancouver.

Kate Gies is a writer and educator living in Toronto. She teaches creative nonfiction and expressive arts at George Brown College. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, The Humber Literary Review, Hobart, Minola Review, and the Best Canadian Essays 2024 Anthology. She is the author of IT MUST BE BEAUTIFUL TO BE FINISHED, a memoir about her childhood medical experiences related to a missing ear.

katherena vermette (she/her/hers) is a Michif writer from Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 2013, her first book, North End Love Songs (Muses’ Company) won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Since then, her work has garnered awards and critical accolades across genres.
She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, and an honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba.
katherena lives with her kids – fur and human – in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.

Katia Rose loves to write romances that make her readers laugh, cry, and swoon (preferably in that order). She’s rarely found without a cup of tea nearby, and she’s more than a little obsessed with tiny plants. Katia is proudly bisexual and has a passion for writing about love in all its forms.

Kyo Lee is a Korean Canadian student and the author of the poetry collection i cut my tongue on a broken country (Arsenal Pulp Press). She is the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize and youngest finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award. Her literature also appears in Narrative, Nimrod, Prism, The Forge, and This Magazine, among others. She loves colourful skies, summer peaches, and oceans. You can visit her online @kyolee.me.

Léonicka Valcius is a 2024 graduate from the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and a Literary Agent at Transatlantic Agency. She represents books for children and adults with a focus on commercial and genre fiction by writers of color. Books she has worked on include THE WORLD SO WIDE by Zilla Jones, WAIT LIKE A SEED by Erin Alladin, THE MOONLIGHT BLADE by Tessa Barbosa.

Lisa Shen is a writer and spoken word artist, and the 2023-2025 Youth Poet Laureate of the City of Mississauga. She is the winner of the 2024 Lillian Allen Emerging Artist Prize and the 2022 Buddies Queer Emerging Artists Award, and was shortlisted for the 2023 League of Canadian Poets Spoken Word Award. Lisa has toured across North America, from California to New York. Her work has appeared on CBC Radio, TEDx, and Write About Now. Her first chapbook A Story Ending in Redwoods was recently published with Anstruther Press.

I am Anishinaabekwe from Lac Seul First Nation, coming from a family known to be artists. Ever since I learnt how to read, I have wanted to be an author. Never would I have thought (although I definitely wished!) that I would be an author as young as I am. When I’m not writing, I can also be found beading or painting.

Marin Takikawa is an agent and foreign rights director at The Friedrich Agency. Born in Tokyo and raised in Singapore and NYC, she joined TFA in early 2021 and now handles selling international rights for authors like Alison Espach, Jane Smiley, the Estate of Frank McCourt, in addition to representing her own list. She’s looking for subversive, genre-bending literary fiction, intersectional narrative nonfiction, and voice-driven and literary-leaning YA. Her clients include National Endowment for the Arts, We Need Diverse Books, Tin House, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellows.

MORGAN CAMPBELL is an award-winning journalist, currently a senior contributor at CBC Sports and a contributor to The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and ESPN+. For over 18 years, he worked at the Toronto Star and established himself as one of Canada’s finest sports writers, displaying both a range and depth of knowledge, finding original stories and telling them with flair and nuance. Morgan’s best work highlighted where sport intersected with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. He is the winner of the 2024 Randy Starkman Award for Leadership in Sports Journalism.

Ozoz Sokoh is a food explorer, former geologist, educator, budding curator, and Traveler By Plate, for whom “Food Is More Than Eating”. In 2009, she began journaling about food on her blog, Kitchen Butterfly. In 2013, she created the #NewNigerianKitchen, developing her philosophy and practice with Nigerian food. Her research and documentation explore the roots of Nigerian and West African cuisine, the impact of West African intellectual contributions to global development across the world. Also central to her work is connectedness through food, from food sovereignty, to cultural identity, reclamation of the food system and importantly, the joy of eating.

Patrick de Belen is a poet, filmmaker, educator and storyteller of many other mediums. His poetry, films and other projects often explore themes of mental illness, the Filipino-Canadian experience, liberation, grief and healing.

When he isn’t onstage, or writing, he is an educator and community builder, partnering with many institutions like addiction centres, mental health focused organizations, libraries, schools, jails and more – advocating for social change and storytelling platforms in as many spaces as possible. Follow his storytelling journey at @patrick_debelen

Rebecca F. Kuang is the award-winning, #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, and Katabasis (forthcoming). She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.

Ruby Barrett writes steamy romances about big feelings, featuring but not limited to: soft boys, angry girls who are secretly soft, and hot sex. Mutual pleasure, pining, and healing are common themes in her romances.

Before she was a romance author, Ruby worked as a groom on a horse farm, a cigarette package warning label researcher for the Canadian Cancer Society, an essayist for a millennial parenting website, and a matchmaker where she was really good at meeting new clients but terrible at creating matches.

She is a bi woman who lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Saleema Nawaz’s most recent novel is Songs for the End of the World, which was an instant national bestseller. She is also the author of the novel Bone and Bread (a finalist for Canada Reads and winner of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction), the short-story collection Mother Superior, and she is a winner of the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. A former columnist at the Montreal Gazette, Saleema is currently writing a musical and working in a TV writers’ room.

Samantha Jones is a poet, editor, and earth scientist based in Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary, Alberta). Sam describes herself as a mixed-race woman or as both Black Canadian and white settler with roots in Nova Scotia, Québec, and Ontario. She is a journal and magazine enthusiast with words in CV2, Room, GeoHumanities, the Capilano Review, the Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. Sam has two experimental chapbooks that explore living with OCD—Site Orientation (The Blasted Tree) and wallpaper (Model Press). Her debut full-length poetry collection, Attic Rain, was published by NeWest Press in September 2024.

Shade Lapite is British-Nigerian and lives in Canada. Her debut novel, Goddess Crown, is a YA fantasy adventure about a girl raised in secret who discovers her royal heritage and must leave her sheltered home for the subtle dangers of the royal court. Shade works in digital marketing. She blogs regularly at Coffeebookshelves.com, highlighting and celebrating genre books by authors of colour. Find her online at shadelapite.com and on Instagram @Shadelapite.

Shashi Bhat is the author of Death by a Thousand Cuts (McClelland & Stewart), longlisted for the Giller Prize; The Most Precious Substance on Earth (M&S, Grand Central), a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction; and The Family Took Shape (Cormorant), a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Her fiction won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and has appeared in publications across North America. Shashi is the editor of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

Sheung-King’s debut novel, You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked (Book*hug Press, 2020), is a finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Award, a finalist for the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads 2021, named one of the best book debuts of 2020 by the Globe and Mail, selected for the 2020 Writers’ Trust Amplified Voices, and optioned for film adaptation by Fluent Films, Montreal. His second novel, BATSHIT SEVEN, published by Penguin Random House Canada in 2024, won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

Recipient of the 2020 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Prize for nonfiction, Simone holds an MFA from the University of Guelph. Her work is anthologized in ARC Poetry Magazine; Watch Your Head; Black Writers Matter; The Unpublished City: Volume I. Simone lives in Toronto and is working on her first book.

Spitty is an Indian rapper and community leader from Brampton, Canada (just outside Toronto). His music carries a thoughtful yet energetic nature as he strives to inspire listeners through his songs. South Asian samples and instruments blend with North American influence to birth his cultured approach to hip hop. Spitty draws inspiration from artists like Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, & J. Cole.

In 2024, Spitty sold out his biggest headline concert at The Drake Underground in Toronto (October) & released his 2nd album Motherland. In May 2023, he was named “1 of 15 Asian Canadian Artists To Watch Right Now” by Entertainment Tonight Canada.

Suzan Palumbo is a Trinidadian – Canadian, dark speculative fiction writer and editor. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Aurora, World Fantasy and Locus awards. She also cofounded the Ignyte Awards with L.D. Lewis and coedited the special Caribbean issue of Strange Horizons Magazine. Her debut dark fantasy/horror short story collection “Skin Thief: Stories” was published in 2023 by Neon Hemlock. Her novella “Countess” was published by ECW Press on September 10th 2024 and was one of Reactor’s reviewer’s choice best books of 2024. Her full bibliography can be found at suzanpalumbo.carrd.co

TANYA BOTEJU lives on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC). Part-time, she teaches English to clever and sassy young people. The rest of her time, she uses writing as an excuse to eat pastries. Her debut novel, Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens, was named a Top Ten Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Her second novel, Bruised, was selected as a Gold Standard book by the Junior Library Guild. Look for another YA novel, Messy Perfect, and a middle grade nonfiction book about allyship in 2025. Visit her at tanyaboteju.com.

Tanya Talaga is of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and a proud member of Fort William First Nation.

As a journalist, Talaga spent more than twenty years at the Toronto Star and is now a columnist at the Globe and Mail. Acclaimed author of national bestseller Seven Fallen Feathers, she recently released The Knowing, based on her family’s experience in residential schools, and the focus of a four-part documentary series for the CBC.

Talaga is the founder of Makwa Creative, a production company elevating Indigenous voices and stories through documentary films, including the Canadian Screen Award nominated War For The Woods.

Tao Wong is a full-time author in the scifi and fantasy genres, writing predominantly in the LitRPG and xianxia sub-genres. A multiple times international Amazon bestseller, he is best known for the System Apocalypse and A Thousand Li universes, with over 40 full-length novels and numerous shorter works published. Tao was a finalist for the Kindle Storyteller UK Award in 2021.

Rooted in her intersections as Black, woman, and queer, award-winning spoken word artist, The Wild Woman uses poetry, spirituality, and sensual self-introspection to instigate waves of change.

Uzma Jalaluddin is the author of five bestselling novels, most recently her mystery debut, DETECTIVE AUNTY. Her debut novel, AYESHA AT LAST was a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2019. Her second novel, HANA KHAN CARRIES ON (2021) was named Best Romance Novel by the Washington Post. The New York Times described her third novel MUCH ADO ABOUT NADA (2023) as, “in a word, brilliant.” A prolific public speaker, Uzma has participated in book clubs and literary festivals around the world, and appeared on NPR, Good Morning America, and the CBC. She lives in the GTA with her family.

Wali Shah is the voice of a generation of youth. From hundreds of schools and colleges across North America, to performing at WeDay, Wali uses his poetry for a purpose. Thousands of youth follow him on social media, as he sparks honest and authentic conversations and raises awareness on social issues using his art and his platform.