About us

Susan Sanford Blades was born and raised in Treaty 6 territory and now lives on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən  people, now known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations (Victoria, BC). She received her MFA in creative writing from UVic in 2016. Her debut novel, Fake It So Real, won the 2021 ReLit Award in the novel category and was a finalist for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Journey Prize Reader: The Best of Canada’s New Writers and has been published in literary magazines across Canada as well as in the United States and Ireland. Her fiction has most recently been published in Gulf Coast, The Malahat Review and The Masters Review. She has taught Academic Writing and Critical Thinking online through Royal Roads University since 2021. She publishes the e-newsletter, Gurls to the Front! and the Substack Zine of a Writer. She also created and runs the Wild Prose Reading Series in Victoria, BC. She sits on the fiction board of The Malahat Review and sells books and runs bookclubs at Books & Shenanigans in Cook St. Village in Victoria. She sat on the jury for the 2024 Victoria Butler Book Prize and, this winter, will sit on the jury for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Ali Bryan is a novelist and creative nonfiction writer who explores the what-ifs, the wtfs and the wait-a-minutes of every day. Her work has been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing prize, and the CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, and has been optioned for TV by Sony Pictures. Recent novels include Coq, which won the 2024 Book Publishers Association of Alberta Trade Fiction Book of the Year, The New York Times endorsed Crow Valley Karaoke Championships, and Takedown, a 2024 Forest of Reading White Pine Award finalist. Born in Halifax, she now lives in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies on Treaty 7 Territory with her family, and a chocolate lab named Lemon. 

Kerry Clare is the author three novels Asking for a Friend (out now from Doubleday Canada), Waiting for a Star to Fall and Mitzi Bytes, and editor of The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood. A National Magazine Award-nominated essayist, and editor of Canadian books website 49thShelf.com, she writes about books and reading at her longtime blog, Pickle Me This and talks about books on her new podcast, Bookspo. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Kathryn Mockler is the author of the story collection Anecdotes (Book*hug Press, 2023), five books of poetry, and several short films and experimental videos. She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020) and she runs Send My Love to Anyone, a literary newsletter, which was a Substack featured publication in 2023. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria where she teaches screenwriting and fiction.

Deborah Willis’ first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Globe and Mail and NPR, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Her second collection of stories was published in 2017 by Penguin Random House in Canada and W.W. Norton in the U.S, and translated into Italian by Del Vecchio Editore. The Dark and Other Love Stories was long-listed for the 2017 Giller Prize, won the Georges Bugnet Award for best work of fiction published in Alberta, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail, the CBC, and Chatelaine. Deborah’s first novel, Girlfriend on Mars, was released in June 2023 from W.W. Norton (U.S.), Penguin Random House (Canada), and Serpent’s Tail (U.K.), and translated into Italian, French, and Danish. It received rave reviews from The New York Times and The Guardian, and was long-listed for The Giller Prize, and shortlisted for the Leacock Medal. She lives in Calgary, Alberta and works at Freehand Books.