Authors & Speakers

Sadiya Ansari (she/her) is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist based in London. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Irish Times, among other publications. Sadiya’s work has been supported by the Pulitzer Center, Canada Council for the Arts and Berlin Senate Department for Culture. She was a 2021 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellow and the 2023-4 Asper Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of British Columbia.

Ryad Assani-Razaki (he/him) was born in 1981 in Cotonou in the West African state of Benin. In 2009, his short story collection Deux cercles was awarded the Trillium Book Award. His debut novel, The Hand of Iman (La main d’Iman), won the Prix Robert-Cliche in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction in 2012.

Sharon Bala’s (she/her) second novel, Good Guys, was published in January. Publishers Weekly calls it “quietly profound” and a “blackly comic tale.” Her best-selling debut novel, The Boat People, won a Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was shortlisted for several awards and is in translation in four languages. Sharon is the Creative Non-Fiction editor at Riddle Fence and a member of The Port Authority, a St. John’s writing group.

Billy-Ray Belcourt (he/him) is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in northwest Alberta, Treaty 8 territory. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta. He is the author of This Wound is a World, NDN Coping Mechanisms, A History of My Brief Body, A Minor Chorus, Coexistence, and, most recently, The Idea of an Entire Life. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He lives in Vancouver.

Chantal Braganza (she/her) is a writer and editor living in Toronto. She is currently a deputy editor at Chatelaine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Hazlitt, The Hairpin, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Fashion Magazine, and Maisonneuve, among others. Story of Your Mother is her first book.

Leilei Chen 莫译(muo-yee) (she/her) is the author of Re-orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-cultural Understanding; the Mandarin translator (both simplified and traditional Chinese) of Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction and MA Hui’s contemporary Chinese poetry, I Have Forsaken Heaven and Earth, but Never Forsaken You. Her translations of Chinese women’s fiction and ecological writings are anthologized in Virginia’s Sisters: An Anthology of Women’s Writing and Environmental Futures: An International Literary Anthology. She recently published her poetry chapbook, i give birth to my body. Her Mandarin version of Margaret Laurence’s A Bird in the House is forthcoming in 2026.

Annahid Dashtgard (she/her) is the CEO of Anima Leadership, an award-winning company revolutionizing how equity and racial justice work is advanced in organizations centering compassion and avoiding the traps of shame and blame. A sought-after speaker and advisor, she has inspired, educated, and coached thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations, guiding them toward deeper, more meaningful cultures of belonging. She is the author of previous books Breaking the Ocean and Bones of Belonging. She lives in Toronto.

Sunny Dhillon (he/him) is a former news reporter whose viral essay “Journalism While Brown and When to Walk Away” highlighted the significant challenges that journalists of colour can face. Sunny worked as a print reporter for 10 years. He has also appeared on television and radio and spoken at conferences. He is passionate about racial justice and continues to write on that theme. He holds a Master’s degree in journalism from the University of British Columbia. He and his young family now live in Ottawa, where Sunny attends law school. This is his first book.

Farzana Doctor (she/her) is an author, activist and psychotherapist. She’s written five novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, Seven, and The Beauty of Us, a poetry collection, You Still Look The Same and a workbook for helpers and activists, 52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life.

In 2023, Farzana received the Freedom To Read Award. In 2020, Seven was chosen as an Amnesty International Reader’s Choice Pick and was shortlisted for the Trillium and Evergreen awards. Six Metres of Pavement won the Lambda and Writers’ Trust Dayne Oglivie prizes and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award in 2012.

Elle Douglas (she/her) is the author of ten small-town romances for Harlequin and Tule Publishing. Between writing love stories and working as a high school guidance counsellor, she works exclusively in helping others find their happily-ever-afters.
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Elle is a graduate of TMU’s Radio and Television Arts program, OISE at the University of Toronto, and the U of T Creative Writing program. She is an instructor in the Creative Writing program at Algonquin College.
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Find her on Instagram at @elledouglaswriter

Antonio Michael Downing (he/him) is the author of the acclaimed memoir Saga Boy and children’s book, Stars in My Crown. Antonio Michael is the current host of the CBC Radio program The Next Chapter where he discusses books with authors and columnists. He spends his time writing books, singing songs, and trying to make his grandma proud. Black Cherokee is his debut novel.

Lindo Forbes (she/her) is a first gen Canadian which means she speaks enough French to not disgrace herself when she visits Montreal but not enough Spanish to please her abuela. She happily holds grudges against fictional people and celebrities she’s never met, and has fully embraced her role as Indulgent Wine Aunt.

Her contemporary romances featuring layered ladies are a love letter to her hometown of Toronto.

Tyler Hellard (he/him) lives in Calgary with his wife and kids. His writing has appeared in Avenue Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Create Calgary, THIS Magazine, The Walrus, and on CBC Radio. His debut novel, “Searching For Terry Punchout,” was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon First Novel Award, the 2019 Kobo Emerging Writers’ Prize and Canada Reads 2026.

Sahira Javaid (she/her) is a poetess and author from Ottawa. She writes fantasy steeped in adventure and fantastical worlds. When not writing she can be found watching YouTube, daydreaming about her next story and making others smile and laugh every chance she gets.

Jackie Khalilieh (she/her) is a Palestinian Canadian writer with a penchant for Samoyeds, to-do lists and staying up too late. She is passionate about positive representation within her writing. Something More, her debut YA novel, was shortlisted for the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Award, as well as the Snow Willow Award, and was selected for several Best Books of 2023 lists, including the New York Public Library and Audible Canada among others. Her second novel, You Started It, was a JLG Gold Star Selection. She resides just outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two daughters, and Samoyed Pearl.

Canisia Lubrin (she/her) is the author of five books, Voodoo Hypothesis, The Dyzgraphxst, The World After Rain (2025), Code Noir and Bright Machine (2026). Her honours include a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Griffin Poetry Prize, Derek Walcott Prize, and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and has been twice a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. She is Associate Professor and coordinator of the University of Guelph’s Creative Writing MFA and the poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart. Code Noir, Lubrin’s fiction debut and winner of the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, has 59 drawings by celebrated visual artist Torkwase Dyson. Born in St. Lucia, Lubrin lives in Whitby.

Born in Shanghai, Yiming Ma (he/him) spent a decade in tech and finance before writing the dystopian novel These Memories Do Not Belong to Us, named a Spotify Editors’ Pick, longlisted for the Goodreads Choice Award, and featured on Best Books of 2025 lists by Electric Literature, Debutiful, PEN America and elsewhere.

Yiming lives in Toronto. He attended Stanford for his MBA, and Warren Wilson for his MFA. His stories and essays appear in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Florida Review, and elsewhere. His story “Swimmer of Yangtze” won the 2018 Guardian 4th Estate Story Prize.

ROZA NOZARI is a writer, artist and therapist based in Tkaronto (“Toronto”) and known as YallaRoza on social media. Her work weaves together writing and visual art to share stories of wounding, healing and community. It invites radical reimaginings of our world, towards one more invested in cross-generational, collective healing and liberation. She is the illustrator of three children’s books: Little People, Big Dreams’ Mindy Kaling (2021), Fluffy and the Stars (2023) and The Anti-Racist Kitchen (2023). Her illustrations have been featured locally and internationally—from university campuses to sports arenas and pride festivals.

Jinwoo Park (he/him) is a Korean-Canadian writer based in Montreal. Born and raised in Seoul, he has lived in various parts of North America and the UK since the age of 11. He obtained his master’s in creative writing at the University of Oxford in 2015. In 2021 he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award from the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop. He has also been actively working as a literary translator after winning the Emerging Translator Award from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea in late 2023. Oxford Soju Club, published by Dundurn Press, is his first novel.

Loghan Paylor (they/them) is a queer, trans writer whose first novel, The Cure for Drowning, was shortlisted for Canada Reads 2026, longlisted for the Giller Prize, named a Globe and Mail Best Book, and a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes. Their work has also appeared in Room, Prairiefire, and on the longlist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. A graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, they have an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and divide their time between teaching, writing, and co-owning a game company.

Joss Richard (she/her), international bestselling author of It’s Different This Time, is an editorial & social director who’s worked at companies such as Hello Sunshine and Reese’s Book Club, The Walt Disney Company, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Netflix, and Paramount. She’s also the creator and host of Three’s Company, Too: A Rewatch Podcast and has been formally recognized with a Daytime Emmy Award. Born in Toronto, Ontario, to Filipino immigrant parents, Richard currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

David A. Robertson (he/him) is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and recipient of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award. He has earned wide recognition for his work as a writer for children and adults, as well as a podcaster, public speaker, and social advocate. He was honoured with an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba in 2023 and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Lethbridge in 2025. A member of Norway House Cree Nation, he lives in Winnipeg and works nationally and internationally today.

Ahmad Saber (he/him) grew up on an all-girls college campus next to a massive fort in Pakistan before his family moved to Canada when he was in high school. While the move totally sucked at the time, it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to him. He’s now a medical doctor specializing in rheumatology by day but his passion truly burns at night when he sits down to tell stories with heart. Ahmad loves Broadway (favorite show = Phantom) and travel (favorite place = tie between Paris and Melbourne). His debut novel is based in part on his lived experience.

Ardra Shephard (she/her) is the author of Fallosophy: My Trip Through Life with MS (Douglas & McIntyre, 2025), nominated for the 2026 Forest of Reading® Evergreen Award™. She is the blogger and podcaster behind the award-winning Tripping On Air, and the host and creator of television’s Fashion Dis (AMI+). A columnist with Healthline’s BezzyMS (“Ask Ardra Anything”), Ardra is a sought-after writer, consultant, and speaker. Named one of The Kit’s Changemakers, she is a leading voice in the disability rights movement, serving on multiple advisory boards advancing accessibility and inclusion in Canada and beyond.

Kim Spencer (she/her) is an award-winning, bestselling author. Her debut novel, Weird Rules to Follow, won multiple awards, including a 2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award, a 2023 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and a 2023 Jean Little First-Novel Award. Named to both the USBBY Outstanding International Books list and the IBBY Honour List, the book also received a Kirkus starred review and was a 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award finalist. Kim is a proud member of the Gitxaala Nation and resides in Northern British Columbia.

Noah Steele (they/them) is a self-publishing queer romance author from Toronto, Canada. Raised roaming the library, playing Final Fantasy, and writing fan fiction, Noah’s work puts escapism, entertainment, and queer joy at the heart of every project. With a deep love of exploring other worlds and a gift for writing relationships that leave a mark, Noah is leaving contemporary queer romance behind to embark on a journey into writing queer romantasy in 2026 and beyond. Between writing projects, Noah can be found gaming, casting spells, and hiking Ontario’s parks and forests for fun and inspiration.

Alexandra C. Yeboah (she/her) is a Brampton-based writer, storyteller and creative facilitator whose work often drifts between the heartfelt and the hilariously human. A quiet observer with a mischievous curiosity, she writes stories exploring identity, discovery, belonging, and life’s awkward corners. Her nonfiction and poetry appear in Back Where I Came From, UpRising, and The Art of Solidarity anthologies. Alexandra is a second-generation Canadian with Jamaican and Ghanaian ancestry who is passionate about people, history, and culture. When not writing or facilitating, Alexandra can be found pretending her life is musical, daydreaming, or writing somewhere outdoorsy or by the light.

Liann Zhang (she/her) is a second-generation Chinese Canadian who splits her time between Vancouver, British Columbia and Toronto, Ontario. After a short stint as a skincare content creator, she graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in psychology and criminology. Her debut novel, Julie Chan Is Dead, was an instant bestseller. She lives with her two cats, Juice and Bean.