Rhonda Parrish
Editor
Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She founded and ran Niteblade Magazine, is an Assistant Editor at World Weaver Press and is the editor of several anthologies including, most recently, Equus, Tesseracts Twenty-one and Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns.
In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been in publications such as Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012 & 2015). She also co-wrote a paranormal non-fiction title, Haunted Hospitals, with Mark Leslie.
Her website, updated weekly, is at http://www.rhondaparrish.com
Blake Jessop
She Alone
Blake Jessop is a Canadian author of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories with a masters degree in creative writing from the University of Adelaide. You can read more of his speculative fiction in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers from World Weaver Press, or follow him on Twitter @everydayjisei.
Kevin Cockle
Strange Attractor
Kevin Cockle is an author and screenwriter with over thirty short stories appearing in a variety of anthologies and magazines. His novel Spawning Ground is narrowly believed to have invented the sub-genre of “dark game-theory”, and was published by Tyche Books in 2016. Knuckleball, a feature film co-written with Michael Peterson, had its Canadian premiere at the 2018 Calgary Underground Film Festival, and has been accepted into the Cannes film festival among other international markets. Kevin’s literary bucket list is now almost complete, with only the boxes for “sell a poem” and “sell a country-and-western song” left unchecked.
Lizbeth Ashton
Magnesium Bright
Lizbeth Ashton works in a museum in southern England. In Magnesium Bright, her first published story, she combines her passion for history and fantasy.
Dusty Thorne
Permanence
Dusty Thorne has a penchant for urban fantasy and character-driven stories, particularly ones leaning towards the liminal side of life. When not writing, Dusty can often be found with her head in a beehive, or treasure-hunting her way through a second-hand store.
V.F. LeSann
Old Flames
V.F. LeSann is a dynamic co-writing duo comprised of Leslie Van Zwol and Megan Fennell, who enjoy adding a touch of grit to their fantastical worlds. Since travelling to Iceland, they’ve just been waiting for the chance to set a story there, especially as all of their efforts to observe local cryptids at the time were sadly in vain.
K.T. Ivanrest
The Hatchling
K.T. Ivanrest wanted to be a cat or horse when she grew up, but after failing to metamorphose into either, she began writing stories about them instead. Soon the horses became unicorns and the cats sprouted wings, and once the dragons and their riders arrived, there was no turning back. When not writing, she can be found sewing, editing, and drinking decaf coffee. She has a PhD in Classical Studies, which will come in handy when aliens finally make contact and it turns out they speak Latin.
Hal J. Friesen
The Djinni and the Accountant
Hal J. Friesen writes science fiction and fantasy in an attempt to see the stars a few kilometres closer. He’s also tried putting a “Have Space Suit: Will Travel” ad on Kijiji, wearing a space suit for over 100 days, and shooting things with giant lasers. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2016 and makes a mean campfire. Find him at www.halfriesen.com.
Laura VanArendonk Baugh
The Second Great Fire
Laura VanArendonk Baugh writes speculative fiction and less speculative non-fiction. She lives in an unfashionable sector of Indianapolis, drives a fast electric car, eats a lot of dark chocolate, and is always in the middle of too many projects. Find her at www.LauraVAB.com.
Krista D. Ball
Bait
Krista D. Ball is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. She was born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada where she learned how to use a chainsaw, chop wood, and make raspberry jam. After obtaining a B.A. in British History from Mount Allison University, Krista moved to Alberta, Canada where she currently lives.
Like any good writer, Krista has had an eclectic array of jobs throughout her life, including strawberry picker, pub bathroom cleaner, oil spill cleaner upper, and soup kitchen coordinator. These days, Krista writes full time in her messy office surrounded by corgis, spaniels, and a lot of cats.
Mara Malins
Double or Nothing
An avid gamer, Mara Malins battles spreadsheets by day and romantic fiction by night. She lives in Manchester, England with her menagerie of three cats, two turtles, a social media loving partner, and a disobedient garden. If you want to know when her next fiction is released, or see thousands of pictures of her cats sleeping in a variety of different poses, find her on Twitter at @maramalins or Goodreads on Mara_Malins
Claude Lalumière
A Girl, Ablaze with Life
Claude Lalumière (claudepages.info) is the author of five books and more than a hundred stories. His work has been translated into multiple languages and adapted for stage, screen, audio, and comics. Originally from Montreal, he now lives in Ottawa.
Susan Macgregor
Light My Fire
Susan MacGregor is the author of The Tattooed Witch trilogy published through Five Rivers Publishing, the first book of which was short-listed for a Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Aurora Award. As historical fantasy is one of her favourite sub-genres, she is currently co-editing the next anthology in the Tesseracts series: Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts (forthcoming in 2019) through Edge Books. Her short fiction has been featured in On Spec Magazine (she was also an editor with On Spec for 20+years), as well as other anthologies, the most recent being in Equus through World Weaver Press. Her story “Light My Fire”, is a near-historical fantasy based on the music, life, and death of Jim Morrison. The late ’60s and early ’70s were times of darkness and hope, loss and love. Who better to epitomize those than Jim and The Doors?
JB Riley
Ring of Fire
JB Riley writes and edits technical healthcare proposals for a major US-based corporation, but has loved reading and writing speculative fiction ever since discovering The Chronicles of Narnia at Age 8. When not trawling the shelves at the local bookstore, she enjoys travel, hockey, beer and cooking. JB lives in Chicago with her family; which currently includes a 90-pound dog, a 15-pound cat, and a 5-pound cat that scares the hell out of everyone. Available on Twitter at @JBRiley8.
Damascus Mincemeyer
Aladdin’s Laugh
Having been exposed to the weird worlds of science fiction, fantasy and horror as a young boy, Damascus Mincemeyer was pretty much ruined for ever having a real job and now spends his time creating comics that have seen print in Heavy Metal magazine while wandering the countryside around his home near St. Louis, Missouri, daydreaming of strange, far off realms filled with dragons, demons and even a Djinn or two.
Heather M. O’Connor
Phoenix Rising
Heather M. O’Connor is a freelance writer and author, which means she sees stories everywhere. While happiest plotting in fantasy, wild horses have dragged stories from her. So has the guest book in an Oshawa auto baron’s mansion. And an unlikely news item about match-fixing in Ontario soccer. And several deep, dark forests. As you can see, she’s easily distracted.
Heather’s short fiction has appeared in Geist and the Prix Aurora Prize-nominated Urban Green Man Anthology. Her young adult novel Betting Game was published by Orca in 2015. She lives in Whitby, Ontario.
Gabrielle Harbowy
Cold Comfort
Gabrielle Harbowy got her start in the publishing industry as a Pricing Analyst at Scholastic. Since leaving the corporate side of publishing in 2006, she has edited for publishers including Pyr, Lambda Literary, and Circlet Press, and spent a decade as the managing editor at Dragon Moon Press. She copyedits professionally and is a submissions editor at the Hugo-nominated Apex Magazine. With Ed Greenwood, she co-edited the award-nominated When The Hero Comes Home anthology series; their latest anthology endeavour is Women in Practical Armour, from Evil Girlfriend Media. Her short fiction can be found in several anthologies, including Carbide Tipped Pens from Tor. She’s also the author of two novels: Hellmaw: Of the Essence (TEGG), and Gears of Faith (Paizo). For more information, visit her online at @gabrielle_h or gabrielleharbowy.com.
R.W. Hodgson
Aitvaras
R. W. Hodgson lives with her husband and two children in Ottawa, Ontario. As a child in Nova Scotia, she got some cute baby chicks for pets, two of whom turned out to be roosters, who then one day tried to kill each other in a bloodbath battle-royale. Her story “A Walk in the Woods” appeared in Tesseracts Twenty-One: Nevertheless.
Chadwick Ginther
Midnight Man versus Frankie Flame
Chadwick Ginther is the Prix Aurora Award nominated author of the Thunder Road Trilogy (Ravenstone Books) and Graveyard Mind (ChiZine Publications). His short fiction has appeared recently in Abyss & Apex Magazine, Equus, and Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn. He lives and writes in Winnipeg, Canada, spinning sagas set in the wild spaces of Canada’s western wilderness where surely monsters must exist.
Wendy Nikel
Breath of the Caldera
Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and elsewhere. Her time travel novella The Continuum and its sequel The Grandmother Paradox were published by World Weaver Press in 2018. For more info, visit wendynikel.com
Annie Neugebaur
Cilantro
Annie Neugebauer is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with work appearing and forthcoming in more than a hundred publications, including magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Apex, and Black Static, as well as anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3 and #1 Amazon bestseller Killing It Softly. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association and a columnist for Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. She lives in Texas with two crazy cute cats and a husband who’s exceptionally well-prepared for the zombie apocalypse. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com for news, poems, organizational tools for writers, and more.
J.G. Formato
The Midwife and the Phoenix
J.G. Formato is a writer and elementary school teacher from North Florida. Her short fiction can be read in Bracken, Allegory, Equus from World Weaver Press, and elsewhere. You can listen to her stories at The Centropic Oracle and Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast.