Alexander MacLeod’s short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and The O Henry Prize Stories. His first collection, Light Lifting (Biblioasis), was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In 2021, he and his friend, Andrew Steeves of Gaspereau Press, were awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award for their collaboration, Lagomorph. Alexander lives in Dartmouth and teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
J.M. Miro lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. He also writes, some days, under the name Steven Price.
Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Her bestselling book I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel,” and her album Part-Time Woman was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. The founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books, Shraya is a seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. She’s been a brand ambassador for MAC Cosmetics and Pantene, and is a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation, and an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Calgary. She’s currently adapting her debut play, How to Fail as a Popstar, for television with the support of CBC.
Peter Robinson grew up in the United Kingdom, and now divides his time between Toronto, Ontario, and Richmond, Yorkshire. Robinson’s forthcoming novel, Not Dark Yet, is the 27th book in the Inspector Banks series. He has also written two collections of short stories, and three stand-alone novels, including the #1 bestseller Before the Poison. In 2020, Robinson was presented with the Grand Master Award by the Crime Writers of Canada. His critically acclaimed books have won numerous other awards in Britain, the United States and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world. Several Inspector Banks novels have been adapted for television by ITV and have appeared on PBS. Visit www.inspectorbanks.com.
Maureen Jennings was born in the UK and immigrated to Canada as a teenager. After a long career as a psychotherapist, she became a full-time writer, starting with the Murdoch Mystery series, of which Except the Dying is the first. The series has since been adapted for TV and is still in production. She has also written several other series and a book of nonfiction relating to creativity, as well as four plays and one novella. Jennings has won several awards and honours, including eight nominations from Crime Writers of Canada, and her books have been translated into several languages. She lives in Toronto with her husband and her dog, Murdoch.
Phoebe Wang is a writer and educator based in Toronto, Canada, and a first-generation Chinese-Canadian. Her debut collection of poetry, Admission Requirements (McClelland & Stewart, 2017) was named a Globe and Mail Best Book, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and nominated for the Trillium Book Award. Recently her work has appeared in The Unpublished City, shortlisted for a Toronto Book Award, in REFUSE: Canlit in Ruins (Bookhug, 2018), What the Poets are Doing (Nightwood, 2018). She teaches and works as a Writing and Learning Consultant at OCAD University.
Tolu Oloruntoba was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, and practiced medicine before his before his current work managing projects for provincial health organizations. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, PRISM International, Pleiades, Columbia Journal Online, Obsidian, The Maynard and the Humber Literary Review, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His debut chapbook, Manubrium, was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award, while his debut collection of poems, The Junta of Happenstance, was published in Spring 2021 by Palimpsest Press and is a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. He lives in Surrey, BC, in the territories of the Semiahmoo, Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations.
Laurie D. Graham grew up in Treaty 6 territory, and she currently lives in Nogojiwanong, in the territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg, where she is a writer, an editor and the publisher of Brick magazine. Her books are Rove, Settler Education and Fast Commute, out now with McClelland & Stewart.
Marsha Lederman is the Western Arts Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Before joining the Globe, Marsha worked for CBC Radio, mostly in Toronto, where she held a variety of positions, including National Arts Reporter. Marsha also worked in commercial radio as a reporter, newscaster and talk show host. Born in Toronto, she now lives in Vancouver.
Colin Barrett was born in Canada in 1982 and grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. In 2009 he was awarded the Penguin Ireland Prize, and in 2014 his debut collection of stories, Young Skins was published and awarded The Rooney Prize, The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and The Guardian First Book Award. He is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree. He lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.