Noelle Allen is the owner and publisher of Wolsak and Wynn, an award-winning literary press based in Hamilton, Ontario. She has served as the Chair of the Literary Press Group and the Co-Chair of gritLit: Hamilton’s Readers and Writers Festival. Currently, Noelle she is a member of the Hamilton Review of Books and is working with Hamilton’s Supercrawl on literary programming. She recently founded Sharp Words: Hamilton’s Winter Book Fair and in 2024 received the Arts Champion Award from the City of Hamilton.
Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli is an award-winning teacher and writer. She was born in Calabria, Italy, and immigrated to Sudbury, Ontario with her family when she was three years old. She has been published in over 20 anthologies and journals, and has read at many conferences and events in Canada, the US, and Italy. Along with writing historical fiction, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, Rosanna has also mentored both teachers and emerging writers. All her books are available at rosannabattigelli.com.
Farzana Doctor is a Tkaronto-based author, activist and psychotherapist. She’s written five critically acclaimed lit-fic novels, Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, Seven and The Beauty of Us, as well as a poetry collection, You Still Look the Same and a self- and community care workbook for helpers and activists, 52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life.
Kate Gies is a writer and educator living in Toronto. She is the author of It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body, which details her experiences as a girl born missing an ear. Her writing has also appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, The Malahat Review, The Humber Literary Review, Hobart, and the Best Canadian Essays 2024 Anthology. She teaches creative nonfiction and expressive arts at George Brown College.
Matthew Heiti was born on Wembley Drive and now survives one street away. He wrote the novel The City Still Breathing (Coach House Books) and a play for teens, Black Dog: 4 vs the world (Playwrights Canada Press). His short stories have received the Carter V. Cooper Award and Grain Magazine’s fiction prize. He is a member of TWUC and PGC. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Laurentian University. In his spare time, he is usually working.
Kyla Heyming (KPH), was the city of Greater Sudbury’s 7th Poet Laureate, is a bilingual writer who sets her soul to ink and paper with the help of her typewriter. Author of For Those I Have Loved, her poetry and nonfiction pieces have appeared in a number of arts and literature journals such as Sulphur, Otherwise Engaged, Mundane Joys and the League of Canadian Poets “Poetry Pause” and Fresh Voices anthology. Fiercely driven to ensnare all of life’s little moments, she works tirelessly for her passion so that she may someday lead others to find their own meaning in her words.
Jeremy John is the sixty-second most famous person from Brantford, Ontario. (Look it up. There are a lot.) He has written three collections of humorous short stories that he (and only he) calls The Poop Trilogy: Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooped My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories, The Strange Grave of Mikey Dunbar, and Other Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants, and The Death Swing at Falcon Lake and S’more Summer Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants. He currently lives with his wife and kids (plus a dog he pretends not to like) in Sudbury, Ontario..
Zilla Jones is an African-Canadian writer of Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and European decent living and working in Treaty 1 territory (Winnipeg). She was named a 2025 Writers Trust Rising Star and a 2024 CBC Writer to Watch. She was a finalist in the 2024 CBC Short Fiction Prize, and winner of the 2023 Writers’ Trust RBC Bronwen Wallace Award and the 2023 Journey Prize. Her debut novel, The World So Wide, was published in 2025 (Cormorant Books). Zilla is also a singer, mother, lawyer and anti-racist educator, and she is a co-author of Canada’s Black Justice Strategy.
Dr. Treena Orchard is an anthropologist, author, and activist whose work on sexuality, gender, and health sheds new light on human behaviour in the 21st century. As both a scholar and creative storyteller, Treena translates complex social issues into engaging narratives that are relatable to a wide audience. She shares her insights into digital culture, online relationships, and how tech is reshaping how we think in her book Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture & The Darker Side of Dating Apps.
Scott Overton was a radio broadcaster for more than thirty years, inspiring the setting of his first novel, the mystery/thriller Dead Air, which was published by Scrivener Press of Sudbury and was shortlisted for a Northern Lit Award. Since, Scott has published seven science fiction novels and a children’s chapter book. His short fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, and collected in his BEYOND collections. Now a freelance author and voice talent, Scott works from his home on a lake in Northern Ontario.
Jonathan Pinto is the host of Up North, CBC Radio One’s current affairs afternoon program for Northern Ontario. An urban planner by training, Jonathan has combined his knowledge of cities with his passion for public broadcasting as a CBC journalist in Toronto, Windsor, London, Thunder Bay, and Sudbury. His long-running radio food column spawned a cookbook version published by Biblioasis in 2016.
Waubgeshig Rice grew up in Wasauksing First Nation on the shores of Georgian Bay, in the southeast of Robinson Huron Treaty territory. He’s a writer, listener, speaker, language learner, and a martial artist, holding a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is the author of the short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge and the novels Legacy, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and Moon of the Turning Leaves. He appreciates loud music and the four seasons. He lives in N’Swakamok — also known as Sudbury, Ontario —with his wife and three sons.
Liisa Kovala is a Finnish Canadian author, book coach, and podcaster. Like Water for Weary Souls (2025) is her second historical novel. Liisa is the author of Sisu’s Winter War (Latitude 46, 2022) and Surviving Stutthof: My Father’s Memories Behind the Death Gate (Latitude 46, 2017) which was shortlisted for a Northern Lit Award and published in Finland by Docendo (2020). Liisa lives with her husband in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. She is inspired by her Finnish heritage and the northern landscape she calls home.
Connor Lafortune is from Dokis First Nation. Anishinaabek, Queer, and Francophone, Connor uses his understanding of the world to shape his creations as a writer, spoken word poet, and musician. Connor combines the written word with beadwork and sewing to recreate the stories of colonization, showcase resilience, and imagine a new future. Connor is co-editor of A Thousand Tiny Awakenings with Lindsay Mayhew. Above all else, Connor is an activist, a shkaabewis, and a compassionate human being. Visit nmkns.ca for more information.
A-M Mawhiney has lived in Greater Sudbury most of her life with brief times in Powassan, Montreal, and Toronto. At age 8, she was already writing poetry and short stories. She retired from Laurentian University in 2018 and was named a professor emeritus. Her first book, Spindrifts, was started during the first lockdown in 2020 and was short listed for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writing Literary Prize and the Whistler Independent Book Awards in 2022. Spindrifts sequel, Spelldrifts, was published in 2023. Her latest, Fugitive Rifts, was released in Fall 2025.
Lindsay Mayhew is a spoken word poet, workshop facilitator, and co-editor of A Thousand Tiny Awakenings. Lindsay is a seasoned slam competitor, placing as a runner up in the 2025 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam. She has featured in events across Canada, including Guelph Poetry Slam, Wordstock Literary Festival, Nuit Blanche, Vancouver Poetry House, JAYU Canada, and more. Lindsay’s poetry centres feminism, mental health, and human rights. Find her work in The Literary Review of Canada, Moria, and Sulphur.
Alex Tétreault is Greater Sudbury’s eighth Poet Laureate and a francophone theatre creator. He was born and raised in Sudbury and is known for his activism in the queer community and his social issues column in Le Voyageur. Alex has served on several theatre and cultural boards over the years, also appearing on stages in Sudbury, Toronto, and Ottawa. Alex’s play, Nickel City Fifs, in collaboration with Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario has won several awards.
Allister Thompson was born in the UK and spent his childhood in Mississauga, where he got his first job at age 16 in a small bookstore at the mall. His career in the publishing and bookselling industries includes 15 years at small and mid-sized publishers in Toronto. Allister is now a freelance editor in North Bay, and he has worked with dozens of authors from around the world for the past 10 years. He is the author of two speculative fiction novels, the latest being Birch and Jay.
Suzy Vadori is the Calgary-based bestselling author of The Fountain Series (The Fountain, The West Woods, Wall of Wishes), which has received three Aurora Nominations for Best Young Adult Novel. Suzy is the founder of the Inspired Writing Community, a Resident Writing Coach for Writers Helping Writers, a touring member of the Young Alberta Book Society (YABS), and a regular presenter at writers’ conferences across North America, both in person and online.
David Wickenden is a retired Deputy Fire Chief who now writes thriller novels full-time, penning six thrillers and one YA fantasy since 2018. He has adapted five books for feature films and his Laura Amour Vigilante series into a TV pilot. His last two novels, The Home Front and The Origami Deception, were finalists in the Global Thrillers Award hosted by the Chanticleer International Book Awards. He is currently working on a firefighting thriller and the third book in his Vigilante series. David is currently the Chair of the Crime Writers of Canada.
