Carolyn Forde is a Partner, Senior Literary Agent and International Rights Director at Transatlantic Agency. She represents a wide variety of authors, ranging from bestselling commercial fiction to award-winning literary fiction, memoir, narrative non-fiction and investigative journalism. Carolyn is an active member of the literary community and has participated as speaker or mentor with the Surrey International Writers Conference, Word on the Street, Writers Guild of Alberta, Ontario Writers’ Conference, Diaspora Dialogues and the Sarah Selecky School. She is a founding member and current President of the Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents (PACLA) and is the Chair of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ International Visitor Committee. She is a graduate of Trent University and Robert Gordon University Publishing Program and Simon Fraser University's Publishing Intensive Program. She has lived in the UK, Czech Republic, Mexico and Japan.

Emily Hepditch is an award-winning author from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. In 2020, her debut novel, The Woman in the Attic, was published by Flanker Press and quickly became the #1 bestselling book in Newfoundland and Labrador. The book has remained on the Atlantic Books Today top five bestsellers list since its release. Emily's second thriller, Alone on the Trail, is also an ABT top-five bestseller. Sweater is her first children's illustrated book. Emily is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she studied linguistics, psychology and criminology. When she is not writing novels, she is studying law, working on an illustration or hiking the East Coast Trails.

Michelle Kaatz is the Director of Original Content at Rakuten Kobo, where she oversees the English language publishing program. In her career, she has published over 200 eBook and audiobook titles across a breadth of genres, including non-fiction, romance, and thriller. Before Rakuten Kobo, she was the publisher at Novel Audio and an original co-founder of Author's Republic, the audio industry's first aggregated wide distributor for indie authors and small publishers. Michelle also consults for authors and organizations in the audiobook space through her company MK Audiobooks Inc.

C.S. O’Cinneide is the Edgar-nominated author of the Candace Starr crime series as well as Petra’s Ghost, a semi-finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards. On her blog, She Kills Lit, she features women writers of thriller and noir. She lives in Guelph, Ontario.