September Festival: Stage B: Across the Universe

Kenneth Oppel is the bestselling author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide and was adapted into an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award; its sequel, Skybreaker, was a New York Times bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the Times (UK). Kenneth Oppel is also the author of Half Brother, This Dark Endeavor, The Boundless, The Nest, Every Hidden Thing, Inkling and the Bloom trilogy. His latest novel is Ghostlight. Ken Oppel lives with his family in Toronto.

M.T. Khan is a speculative fiction author with a penchant for all things myth, science, and philosophy. She focuses on stories that combine all three, dreaming of evocative worlds and dark possibilities. ​When she’s not writing, M.T. Khan can be found travelling the world or cracking physics equations as she graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, she currently resides in Toronto, Canada, with a hyperactive cat and an ever-increasing selection of tea.

Matteo L. Cerilli (he/him) is a transmasc author and activist specializing in speculative fiction for all ages. His work features the YA horror novel LOCKJAW (Tundra, 2024), a featured short story in BURY YOUR GAYS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF TRAGIC QUEER HORROR (Ghoulish Books, 2024), and poetry in Augur magazine. His activism has included setting up gender care for trans students at York University, helping to found the Students for Queer Liberation—Tkaronto, and organizing with the No Pride in Policing Coalition. 

Mikaela Lucido is a Filipina-Canadian storyteller, fangirl, and amateur birdwatcher. She was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Mississauga, on the Treaty and Traditional Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and The Huron-Wendat and Wyandot Nations. She studied Creative Writing & Publishing at Sheridan College and was the 2021 recipient of the Ampersand Award. Her words have been featured in Ricepaper Magazine, Cambio & Co., Living Hyphen, and Augur Magazine. She writes for the awkward and anxious. 

AGA Wilmot (BFA, MPub) is a writer and editor based out of Toronto, Ontario. They have won awards for fiction, short fiction, and screenwriting, including the Friends of Merril Short Story Contest and ECW Press’s Best New Speculative Novel Contest. For seven years they served as co-publisher and co-EIC of the Ignyte- and British Fantasy Award-nominated Anathema: Spec from the Margins. Books of AGA’s include The Death Scene Artist (Buckrider Books, 2018) and Withered (ECW Press, 2024). They are represented by Kelvin Kong of K2 Literary (k2literary.com). Find them online at agawilmot.ca.

Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez was born in Manila, where she grew up with her family’s stranger-than-fiction stories. She developed a love for philosophy and classics in university. She then worked as a copywriter in advertising and later became associate creative director. She spent her twenties trekking around the Philippines, sampling regional food, and experiencing the hospitality of her fellow Filipinos.She moved to Canada in the mid-nineties, worked as a designer, then studied creative writing at the University of Toronto. She now works in communications. She lives in Toronto, with her spouse and daughter.

Madeline Ashby is a consulting futurist and novelist based in Toronto. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty series, Company Town, and contributor to How to Future: Leading and Sense-making in an Age of Hyperchange. She has developed science fiction prototypes for Changeist, the Institute for the Future, the Smithsonian Institution, SciFutures, Nesta, The World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Atlantic Council, and others. She is a member of the AI Policy Futures Group at the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination, and the XPRIZE Sci-Fi Advisory Council. Her work has appeared in BoingBoing, Slate, MIT Technology Review, WIRED, The Atlantic, and elsewhere.

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada. He returns with THE QUEEN (October 2024), a heart-pounding novel of terror about a young woman searching for her missing friend and uncovering a shocking truth.

Anime is a smart-wit packed host with a dynamic and welcoming demeanor. From her humble beginnings to becoming a Chartered Accountant Canada CPA, Anime’s wealth of knowledge and understanding spans into many different facets of life. Anime has moderated countless panel discussions and has hosted premier festivals, conventions and galas across North America. If you happen to have attended alongside the other 1.6M jet setters in Toronto, then you would have definitely watched Anime command some of Canada’s biggest festivals where she is the official Host of Taste of the Danforth on the celebrity main stage. She is an incredible act and a genuinely beautiful person.

Sarah Raughley grew up writing stories about freakish little girls with powers because she secretly wanted to be one. She is a huge fangirl of anything from manga to sci-fi fantasy TV and other geeky things, all of which have inspired her writing. Sarah has been nominated for the Aurora Award for Best YA Novel and works in the community doing writing workshops for youths and adults. She has a PhD in English, which makes her a doctor, so it turns out she didn’t have to go to medical school after all. She continues to use her voice for good.

Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) is a multiple National Magazine and GLAAD award-winning author, film programmer, pop culture critic, and PhD living in Toronto. He is the writer of Dayspring, the international bestselling story of the beloved disciple of Christ. His work is in a myriad of genres, often incorporating queer themes, and spans comics, prose, journalism, and academic research.

Jerrod Edson is the author of six books. His most recent novel, The Boulevard —hailed by author Ian Colford as an “irreverent triumph”— features Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, and Satan on a train ride through Hell. Edson was the recipient of the 2013 David Adams Richards Prize for his novella, The Moon is Real, while his novel, The Goon, was shortlisted for the 2011 Relit Award. He lives in Mississauga, ON, with his wife Leigh and daughters Hadley and Harper.

Sonia Urlando (she/her) is an editor, writer, and podcaster based in Toronto. She has a love of incisive questions, an affection for trickster figures, and a wealth of facts about greyhounds. You can find her at Augur Magazine, where she serves as a Senior Editor (Copy & Proofs) and hosts the newly-launched podcast Murmustations all about worldbuilding through speculative genres. 

Amanda Leduc is the author of the novel THE CENTAUR’S WIFE and the non-fiction book DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction. She is also the author of an earlier novel, THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN. Her new novel, WILD LIFE, is forthcoming in spring 2025. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

K.J. Aiello is a mentally ill, award-winning writer based in Toronto, ON. Their work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Chatelaine, The Walrus, and This Magazine. They are still waiting for their very own dragon. Sadly, this has not happened, so their cats will have to suffice.

Peter Counter writes about television, video games, film, music, mental illness, horror, technology, and the occult. He is the author of two essay collections that blend criticism and memoir: How to Restore a Timeline: On Violence and Memory (2023, House of Anansi) and Be Scared of Everything: Horror Essays (2020, Invisible Publishing). His nonfiction has also appeared in The Walrus, All Lit Up, Motherboard, Art of the Title, Electric Literature, Open Book, and the anthology Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church (2019, Epiphany Publishing). He lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with his spouse and two cats.

Alyanna Denise Chua is a Toronto-based writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life and Zoomer, among others. She currently serves as the assistant editor at Maclean’s, where she oversees the magazine’s back-of-book section, curating stories on arts, immigration and housing from across Canada.

Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor and teacher, author of five books, including The Dyzgraphxst and The World After Rain (M&S, 2025). Her work has received a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and Griffin Poetry Prize, among others. Lubrin has held fellowships at the Banff Centre, Civitella Ranieri, Literature Colloquium, and several universities. She is Asst. Professor and coordinator of the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA in the School of English & Theatre Studies, and poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart. Code Noir (Knopf, 2024) her fiction debut, contains 59 drawings by acclaimed visual artist, Torkwase Dyson.

Adriana Chartrand is a mixed-race Native woman from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her dad is Red River Metis (Michif) from St. Laurent and her mom is white. She speaks English and French and works in the film industry. She is based in Toronto.

Cheryl Isaacs is a Mohawk/white writer and the author of The Unfinished, a story born while running the trails of southern Ontario’s Carolinian forests. Cheryl educates by day, writes by night and is always on the lookout for delightfully creepy things.

Drew Hayden Taylor is an award winning playwright, novelist, journalist and filmmaker. Born and living on the Curve Lake First Nation, Drew has done practically everything from performing stand up comedy at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. to being Artistic Director of Canada’s Premiere Indigenous theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. Currently his 35th book, a novel titled COLD, published by McClellend & Stewart was recently released, and the third season of his documentary series on APTN, Going Native, will start at the end of August.

A.D.Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, disabled science fiction writer, and the author of THE DRAGONFLY GAMBIT. She is a failed academic, retired fencer, and coffee enthusiast. Her short fiction has appeared in Augur, Fusion Fragment, HavenSpec, and other venues. When not wrangling her two dogs you can find her on every social media platform as @thesuiway or on her website at www.thesuiway.ca

Christopher DiRaddo is the author of the novels The Family Way, shortlisted for the F.G Bressani Literary Prize, and The Geography of Pluto. He lives in Montreal where he is the founder and host of the Violet Hour Reading Series & Book Club, which has to date provided a platform for more than 275 LGBTQ+ writers in Canada.

Anuja Varghese (she/her) is an award-winning writer and editor based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, Corvid Queen, Southern Humanities Review, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and Plenitude Magazine, as well as the Queer Little Nightmares anthology, among others. Her debut short story collection, titled Chrysalis (House of Anansi Press, 2023) explores South Asian diaspora experience through a feminist, speculative lens. In 2023, Chrysalis won the Writers Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Find Anuja on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok (@anuja_v across platforms) or through her website www.anujavarghese.com.

Gary Barwin is the author of 31 books including Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984 and the national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates which won the Leacock Medal and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize and was long listed for Canada Reads. He lives in Hamilton. 

Paola Ferrante is a writer living with depression. Her debut fiction collection, Her Body Among Animals (Book*hug Press, 2023), was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Award, a Silver Medal Winner in Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, and is forthcoming in August 2024 in the UK from Influx Press. Her debut poetry collection, What To Wear When Surviving a Lion Attack (Mansfield Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She was born, and still resides in, Toronto with her partner Mat and their son.

Suzan Palumbo (she/her, they/them) is a Trinidadian – Canadian, dark speculative fiction writer and editor whose short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, Aurora, World Fantasy and Locus awards. Countess, her queer, Caribbean, space opera novella, will be published by ECW Press in September 2024. Skin Thief: Stories, her debut collection, is available now from Neon Hemlock Press. She is represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary agency and can be contacted via her website at suzanpalumbo.carrd.co

Anthony Salvalaggio is one of the founders and editors of Toronto Journal, established in 2022.

Ariella Garmaise is a writer and critic from Toronto. She is currently an assistant editor at The Walrus where she contributes to books coverage and the editing of short fiction. Her writing and literary criticism have been published in the Washington Post, Financial Times, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Nicola Hamilton RGD (she/her) is an award-winning editorial designer based in Toronto, Canada. For over a decade now she’s been art directing and designing magazines. She’s worked on publications like The Grid, Chatelaine, The University of Toronto Magazine, Best Health, Precedent, and Serviette to name a few. Nicola is the President of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD), where she advocates for the value of design. In July 2022, Nicola took her love of magazines to a whole new level by opening Issues Magazine Shop, a bricks-and-mortar magazine retailer with a mandate to celebrate the people and projects keeping print alive. 

Tali Voron-Leiderman is the managing editor of The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing and teaches in the Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing at Sheridan College. Tali was the founder and publisher at The Soap Box Press and is the founder and managing editor at Plume Press. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto and completed her Master of Arts in Literatures of Modernity at Toronto Metropolitan University. Tali is driven by her love for good writing, community building, and the desire to make the publishing industry a more accessible space.