Authors / speakers who are part of the Wild Writers Literary Festival.
Jen Albert is an acquiring editor at ECW Press in Toronto, where she specializes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Jen was editor-in-chief at PodCastle for five years and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Ignyte Award, the Aurora Award, the World Fantasy Award, and has won the British Fantasy Award for their editorial work.
LAMEES AL ETHARI holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative and academic writing since 2015. She has published a collection of poems titled From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and a memoir titled Waiting for the Rain (2019). Her poems have …
Lisa Alward’s stories have won the Fiddlehead Prize and the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award and have appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories. She grew up in Halifax and has lived in Toronto and Vancouver and for many years in Fredericton. Cocktail is her debut collection.
Jamaluddin Aram is a writer from Kabul, Afghanistan. His works have appeared in Numero Cinq, Cagibi, The New Quarterly and The Globe and Mail among others. He is the author of the novel Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday(Scribner Canada 2023). He lives in Toronto.
Ronna Bloom is the author of seven books of poetry. She has led initiatives to bring poetry into health care settings, specifically developing the Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health. Ronna has collaborated with filmmakers, choreographers and architects. Her new book A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, selected with an introduction by …
DAVID CHARIANDY lives in Vancouver and teaches literature and creative writing in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. His first novel, Soucouyant, was nominated for several prizes, including the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second novel, Brother, was also nominated for several prizes, winning the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson …
PAULINE CONLEY recently forayed from an established career as a painter and explainer to ‘do comics’. Fire Monster is her first graphic novel.
ALICIA ELLIOTT is a Mohawk writer and editor living in Brantford, Ontario. She has written for The Globe and Mail, CBC, Hazlitt and many others. She’s had numerous essays nominated for National Magazine Awards, winning Gold in 2017 and an honorable mention in 2020. Her short fiction was selected for Best American Short Stories 2018 (by …
LARA EL MEKAUI is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Waterloo. She studies the complicated connotations behind being a part of the world: her dissertation explores the traumas of forced migration and issues of belonging in Black and Palestinian Diaspora Contemporary Transnational Fiction respectively. Lara is the non-fiction editor at the Ex-Puritan. …
PAOLA FERRANTE is a writer living with depression. Her fiction collection, Her Body Among Animals (Book*hug Press, 2023), contains stories that won The New Quarterly’s Peter Hinchcliffe Award and were longlisted for The Journey Prize. Her debut poetry collection was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She lives in Toronto.
DAGNE FORREST’s poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in journals in Canada, the US, and the UK. In 2021 she was one of 15 poets featured in Canada’s Poem in Your Pocket campaign. She belongs to Painted Bride Quarterly’s editorial and podcast teams, a US-connection originally forged through a mentoring relationship.
HOLLAY GHADERY is an Iranian-Canadian writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021, her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, with Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press …
JENNIFER HARRIS’s picture books include She Stitched the Stars (Albert Whitman 2021), When You Were New (HarperCollins 2023), The Keeper of Stars (Owlkids 2024) and The Witching Hour (Tundra 2025). Her chapbook Poems for Reluctant Housewives was published by Gaspereau Press. When not writing, she’s a professor of English at University of Waterloo.
KATE JENKS LANDRY is the author of Beatrice and Barb (KidsCanPress 2023). Her second book is forthcoming in 2025. When she isn’t writing picture books, she spends her time thinking about them, usually while walking her wily bernedoodle, Leo. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario with her partner and their two daughters.
JERRI JERREAT’s writing, from Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory, appears in Grist/Fix: Imagine 2200 Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors; Solarpunk Creatures, Flyway:Journal of Writing & Environment, Alluvian, Onyx Publications, Yale Review Online, The New Quarterly, Feminine Collective, Glass&Gardens Solarpunk Winters and Solarpunk Summers (World Weaver Press); Fictive Dreams, and others. She has a growing pile of protest signs by the door & can’t resist a sweet-talking …
HELEN KNOTT is a Dane Zaa, Nehiyaw, Métis, and mixed Euro-descent woman living in Fort St. John, British Columbia.Her bestselling debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike.
ALYSIA KOLENTSIS is an Associate Professor of English at St. Jerome’s University / University of Waterloo. She is the author of Shakespeare’s Common Language (Bloomsbury).
ANITA LAHEY’s latest poetry collection is While Supplies Last (2023, Véhicule Press). Series editor for the Best Canadian Poetry anthology, she’s also co-author, with Pauline Conley, of the 2023 graphic novel-in-verse Fire Monster. Her 2020 memoir, The Last Goldfish: a True Tale of Friendship, was an Ottawa Book Award finalist.
VINCENT LAM’s first book, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was adapted for television and broadcast on HBO Canada. The Headmaster’s Wager, Dr. Lam’s first novel, was shortlisted for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award and the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. Dr. Lam is also the co-author of The Flu Pandemic and You, …
TANIS MACDONALD is the author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female (2022), Mobile: poems(2019), and five other books. She is the co-editor of the multi-genre anthology GUSH: Menstrual manifestos for our times (2018) and the Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series. Winner of the Open Seasons Awards for Nonfiction and the Bliss Carman Prize …
KYO MACLEAR is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and children’s author. Her books have been translated into eighteen languages and published in over twenty-five countries. She is the author of the hybrid memoir Birds Art Life (2017), winner of the Trillium Book Award. Kyo holds a doctorate in environmental humanities and is on faculty at the University of …
PAMELA MULLOY is the Editor of The New Quarterly and the Creative Director of the Wild Writers Literary Festival. She has published two novels, The Deserters (Véhicule Press, 2018) and As Little As Nothing (ECW Press, 2022). Her first book of nonfiction Off the Tracks: A Meditation on Train Journeys in a Time of No …
VINH NGUYEN is an educator and writer. His writing appears in Brick, The Malahat Review, PRISM international, and Grain. He edits nonfiction for The New Quarterly. His memoir The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse is forthcoming in 2025.
Dr. EMMY NORDSTROM HIGDON is a literary agent at Westwood Creative Artists, an advisor for the Festival of Literary Diversity and the Sheridan College Publishing and Creative Writing Program, a faculty member at the Manuscript Academy, and a proofreader for Rising Action Publishing. Emmy lives in Kitchener with their partner, a Deaf Dalmatian, two formerly feral …
ERIN NOTEBOOM trained as a physicist but gave it up to write poetry and children’s novels. Against the odds, this worked out well. She’s published three volumes of poetry and six novels, which between them have won the GG, the TD, and the CBC. Her most recent books are A KNIFE SO SHARP ITS EDGE CANNOT BE …
MARGARET NOWACZYK, MD, MFA, is a clinical geneticist and a writer. She is a professor of pathology and molecular medicine and pediatrics at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Medicine in Hamilton, ON. Her memoir Chasing Zebras (Wolsak&Wynn 2021) won the 2022 Sarton Award for Memoir. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary magazines. Her as yet untitled collection …
CHRISTOPHER PATTERSON (aka Kawika Guillermo) is an Associate Professor of Social Justice at The University of British Columbia, and an award-winning author. His fifth book, Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir, was published in September 2023 with Duke University Press.
THY PHU is a Distinguished Professor of Race, Diaspora and Visual Justice at the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media at the University of Toronto.
ZALIKA REID-BENTA’s debut story collection, Frying Plantain, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction. Frying Plantain was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and it was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, the Toronto Book Award, the White Pine Award, and nominated for the Evergreen Award. Zalika received an M.F.A. in …
ELIZABETH RUTH was named one of ten Canadian women writers you need to read by the CBC. She teaches creative writing at University of Toronto. Elizabeth’s first novel, Ten Good Seconds of Silence, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, Amazon.ca/First Novel Award, and City of Toronto Book Award. Smoke, her second novel, …
CARRIE SNYDER is the author of four books of fiction, including Girl Runner, which was translated into a dozen languages and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers Trust Prize, and The Juliet Stories, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Her new novel, Francie’s Got a Gun, is published by Knopf Canada (summer, 2022). …
AMY STUART is the #1 bestselling author of three novels: Still Mine, Still Water, and Still Here. Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award and winner of the 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition, Amy is the founder of Writerscape, an online community for hopeful and emerging writers. Amy lives in Toronto with her husband …
MADELEINE THIEN’s most recent novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, received the 2016 Giller Prize and the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
LINDSAY WONG is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction …
DAVID WORSLEY became co-owner of Words Worth Books in 2011, after managing the bookstore for 12 years. He has also volunteered with the CKWR FM Monday with the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, and facilitates speaker and lecturer events, including a men’s only book club, at Words Worth Books. David has over 25 years …
MADHUR ANAND’s debut book of prose This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020) won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (2015) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, named one of 10 all-time “trailblazing” poetry collections by the …
RAE ARMANTROUT’s recent book Finalists (Wesleyan 2022) “emanates the radiant astonishment of living thought,” writes David Woo for the Poetry Foundation. Her 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. Her other books with Wesleyan include Partly: New and Selected Poems, Just Saying, Money Shot and Versed. In 2010 Versed won …
MARTHA BÁTIZ is an award-winning writer, translator, and professor of Spanish language in literature. She is the author of four books, including the story collection Plaza Requiem, winner of an International Latino Book Award, and the novella The Wolf’s Mouth, winner of the Casa de Teatro Prize. Born and raised in Mexico City, she lives …
CLARENCE CACHAGEE is an Indigenous Community Educator, helper, visionary, and author known for investing his whole self into his community. Originally from Chapleau Cree First Nation, and now calling Cambridge home, he is the visionary behind Crow Shield Lodge—a place for reconciliation, land-based teaching, and healing. North Wind Man is his memoir.
SUE DANIC has a Master of Arts with a focus on early Canadian fiction. Retired after a thirty-year career teaching English and working as a librarian, she decided to read more romance: post-apocalyptic, historical, contemporary, erotic. You name it, she’s likely read it. Sue also spends her time proofreading for The New Quarterly, kayaking and …
FARZANA DOCTOR is a Toronto-based author, activist and a Registered Social Worker Psychotherapist. She has published four critically acclaimed novels, including Seven, which Ms. Magazine described as “fully feminist and ambitiously bold”, and was shortlisted for the Trillium and Evergreen Awards. Her new poetry collection, You Still Look The Same, which Quill & Quire has …
CYNTHIA FLOOD’s stories have won numerous awards, including The Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award, and have been widely anthologized. Her novel Making A Stone Of The Heart was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Prize in 2002. She is the author of the acclaimed short story collections The Animals in Their Elements …
KATHY FRIEDMAN is the author of the short-story collection All the Shining People (Anansi, 2022). She studied creative writing at UBC and the University of Guelph, and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her writing has appeared in Grain, Geist, PRISM international, Canadian Notes & Queries, and the …
FORREST GANDER, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and lives in northern California. His books, often concerned with ecology, include Twice Alive, Be With, winner of Pulitzer Prize, and the novel The Trace. Gander’s translations include It Must Be a Misunderstanding by Coral Bracho, Spectacle …
LUKE HATHAWAY is a trans poet, librettist, and theatre maker. His mythopoeic word-worlds have given rise to new choral works by Colin Labadie, James Rolfe, and Zachary Wadsworth, and to the folk opera The Sign of Jonas, a collaboration with Benton Roark. He is the author of four books of poems, one of which (Years, …
HELEN HUMPHREYS is an acclaimed and award-winning author of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, a Lambda Literary Award for Fiction and the Toronto Book Award. She has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Trillium Book Prize and CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. Her …
TASNEEM JAMAL was born in Mbarara, Uganda, and immigrated to Canada with her family in 1975. The author of the novel Where the Air Is Sweet (HarperCollins 2014), she serves as a nonfiction editor atThe New Quarterly and is at work on her second novel. When not writing, Tasneem serves as Communications Officer at Project …
JACKIE LAU decided she wanted to be a writer when she was in grade two, sometime between penning “The Heart That Got Lost” and “The Land of Shapes.” She later studied engineering and worked as a geophysicist before turning to writing romance novels. She is now the author of over twenty books. Jackie lives …
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 …
FAISAL MOOLA, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph. He works closely with a number of First Nations in defence of their lands including the Dunne-za First Nations in British Columbia and Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario. Faisal has published widely in scientific journals on topics of ecology and environmental …
