2024 Guests of Honour & Special Guests

Jack Castle has been labeled by the Coeur D’Alene Press as the “Man of Adventures!” He grew up in Florida and while working as a young stuntman for Orlando Theme Parks, he was hand selected by George Lucas to play a Han Solo look-a-like for Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was at Disney World he met, “Cinderella,” and after working and traveling all over the world, they were soon married.

Jack Castle’s novels have been consistently ranked as the Top 100 Bestselling books on Amazon and are available worldwide in e-book, print, iTunes, Kobo and Barnes and Noble. His Sci-Fi/Fantasy series, Stranger World, has already garnered a faithful following of cosplayers and inspired a fair amount of fan art and merchandise. He also enjoys helping others realize their dream of publishing by teaching writing classes at local colleges.

Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty with English-Irish ancestry and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation. Her debut novel, Bad Cree, was shortlisted for the Amazon first novel award and won the MacEwan Book of the Year prize.

Lambda Literary and Queerities awards nominee, P. J. Vernon writes, lives and loves on Moh'kinstsis (Mo-ghin-s-tis), which describes the gathering place where the Bow and Elbow rivers meet and the ancestral homelands of the Siksika (Six-ih-gah) Nation, Piikani Nation (Be-gun-ee), Kainai Nation (Gaa-nah), Îethka Stoney Nakoda (Eeiith-kah Stow-nee Nah-koh-duh) Nation -- consisting of the Chiniki (Chin-ih-key), Bearspaw (Bears-paw), and Good Stoney (Good Stow-nee) Bands -- the Tsuut'ina (Sue-tin-ah) Nation, and the Metis (May-tea) people of Alberta Region 3. Vernon's latest novel, Bath Haus, is published by Doubleday and recommended by The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Entertainment Weekly, and more. He shares a life and home with his husband Barry and their two wiley dogs.

Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ignyte, British Fantasy, and Crawford awards. She is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod and the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at www.premeemohamed.com. She is represented by Michael Curry of DMLA.

Tash McAdam is a Welsh-Canadian author, activist and educator. Their publications include The Psionics (Nine Star Press), and the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections Blood Sport and Sink or Swim (Orca Books). They are also featured in multiple anthologies. Tash is a recipient of the Shoot for the Moon fund for trans writers, and a founding mentor with the Gender Generations Project.

When they’re not writing or reading you can probably find Tash in a lake, lying on the carpet thinking about monsters, or getting a new tattoo. They enjoy regular cups of tea, existential philosophy, and sharp objects.

Wayne Arthurson is a writer and literary agent of Cree and French-Canadian descent, the author of eight novels, five books of non-fiction and countless articles. His novels have won an Alberta Readers’ Choice Award, an Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Writing and Best Trade Fiction from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. He lives in Edmonton.

2024 Special guests

Anthony Bidulka has dedicated his career to writing traditional genre novels in an untraditional way, developing a body of work that often features his Saskatchewan roots and underrepresented, diverse main characters. He tells serious stories in accessible, entertaining, often humorous ways.

Bidulka’s books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence (three times), the Lambda Literary Award (three times), the Saskatchewan Book Award (five times). Flight of Aquavit was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Best Men’s Mystery, making Bidulka the first Canadian to win in that category. 2022’s Going to Beautiful about a gay man rising from the depths of despair in search of joy on the Saskatchewan prairie won the Independent Publisher Book Award as the Canada West Best Fiction Gold Medalist and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel. Website: www.anthonybidulka.com

Ali Bryan is an award-winning novelist and creative nonfiction writer who explores the what-ifs, the wtfs and the wait-a-minutes of every day. She crafts stories about the downtrodden and disenfranchised, the brokenhearted, and the vulnerable. About lovers and losers, mothers and mutineers, prisoners with daddy issues, and sad auctioneers and single dads and feminist kids. She writes about herself. She writes you.

Her first novel Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and was the official selection of One Book Nova Scotia. Her second novel, The Figgs, was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and optioned for TV by Sony Pictures. She twice long-listed for the CBC Canada Writes Creative Nonfiction prize, twice shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Awards Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award and won the 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story. She is a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Emerging Artist recipient. Her debut YA novel, The Hill, was released in March and was longlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

She lives in foothills of the Canadian Rockies, where she has a wrestling room in her garage and regularly gets choked out by her family.

CREATING EXTRAORDINARY UNSCRIPTED THEATRE SINCE 2006.
The Kinkonauts have been delighting audiences, developing improvisers, and building community for more than 15 years. Every show is a unique, never to be repeated adventure. Enjoy the tightrope thrill of performers living in the moment. Spontaneous stories and characters you’ll still be laughing about on the car ride home.

Wendy McGrath is a Métis poet, writer, and visual artist living and working in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 Territory.

Winner of the inaugural Prairie Grindstone Prize 2023-2024, McGrath’s writing practice embraces multiple genres—fiction, poetry, spoken word, and creative non-fiction. She describes her writing as Prairie Gothic.

McGrath has published four novels and two books of poetry. Broke City (NeWest Press), the final book in her Santa Rosa Trilogy (which includes North East and Santa Rosa), is a prairie gothic novel.
Her two books of poetry, A Revision of Forward (NeWest Press), and common place ecstasies (Beach Holme Publishing) explore a range of poetic forms and approaches. McGrath’s work has been widely published in literary magazines and numerous anthologies.

She has a Masters’ Degree, English, from York University and a Bachelor of Arts, English (with Distinction) from the University of Alberta. Her scholarly work has explored the Prairie Gothic genre.

Jodi McIsaac is the author of six novels and several short stories and essays. She's also the owner of Inkwood Communications, a boutique copywriting agency serving the non-profit sector. Born and raised on the East Coast, Jodi made her way to Calgary via Belfast, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Vancouver. She lives with two delightful teenagers and their cat, Chaucer.

Robert J. Sawyer — called “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by both the CBC and The Ottawa Citizen — is the only Canadian to have won all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. One of the initial inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and winner of more Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”) than anyone else in history, Rob is also the only person ever admitted into The Order of Canada specifically for work in the science-fiction field; he is also a member of The Order of Ontario and the recipient of honorary doctorates from Laurentian University and the University of Winnipeg. The ABC TV series FlashForward was based on his novel of the same and he was one of the scriptwriters for that series. Rob’s latest novel — his twenty-fourth — is The Downloaded. Visit his million-plus-word website at sfwriter.com.

Jonathan Whitelaw is an award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster. After working on the frontline of Scottish politics, he moved into journalism, covering everything from sports to music to radioactive waste – and everything in between. He's also a regular reviewer, panelist and podcaster.

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The Alexandra Writers Centre Society
460, 1721, 29th Ave SW
Calgary, AB T2T 6T7

We are located on the 4th floor of cSpace Marda Loop.

August 16-18, 2024

2024 Special guests

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