MARIAN BOTSFORD FRASER is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, critic, author of four nonfiction books, writer for Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Literary Review of Canada, and GRANTA; Books Editor, MORE magazine. In Vancouver in the 80s, freelance documentarian and host: CBC Radio, notably for IDEAS and Testament, and “casual temporary summer relief” announcer! PEN Canada president, 1994-95; PEN International board member and Writers in Prison Committee chair, 1999-2015. In 2022, Marian wisely moved back from Toronto to Vancouver.

LIZ NUGENT worked in film, theatre, and television before becoming a full-time writer. Her five novels—Unravelling Oliver, Lying in Wait, Skin Deep, Our Little Cruelties, and Strange Sally Diamond—have each been #1 bestsellers and she has won five Irish Book Awards, as well as the James Joyce Medal for Literature. Her books are sold in more than forty countries around the world. She lives in Dublin.

ALEX SPRING is the pen name of Jared Bland, a writer and editor who lives in Toronto and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

WILLIAM WODHAMS lives in Vancouver, BC with his wife and ill-behaved dog. His stories have appeared in several publications, and his first novel, Declan Tucker’s Grand Debut, was published in 2024. Thirty Feet Under was named a finalist for the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada Best Unpublished Crime Novel Award.