Meet our guests!
Toren Atkinson
Toren Atkinson was raised on a ‘beefalo’ farm in Chilliwack BC, is the lead singer for the Cthulhu rock band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets and co-creator of the award-winning Spaceship Zero RPG. Toren has illustrated games like Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons, and provides art and storyboards for various Marvel and Star Wars animation, Agent King, and Last Kids on Earth. As an actor he’s appeared in Stargate: Atlantis and provided voices for Marvel Super Hero Adventures.
Sapha Burnell
Sapha Burnell is a renegade author, editor, producer and podcast host, known for cerebral and emotionally resonant science fiction and fantasy works. With a background in martial arts and a passion for lit theory and mythology, Sapha’s works, such as Usurper Kings, NEON Lieben, and the mythpunk Judge of Mystics Saga, have been praised for their exploration of queerness, faith, and the intersection of technology and humanity. As a structural editor for a small press, Sapha helps authors refine their works, on and off Twitch, where she focuses on education and live critique. As the co-host of the “We Aren’t Dead Yet” podcast, Sapha discusses literature, movies, and gamer culture. You can find her on social media @usurperkings and at www.saphaburnell.ca.
Janine Cross
Janine Cross is the author of Touched by Venom, voted by Library Journal as one of the top five sci-fi/fantasy novels of 2005 and the first book in The Dragon Temple Trilogy. She’s also the author of Shadowed by Wings, Forged by Fire, and a literary novel published by Dundurn Press, The Footstop Cafe. She’s the chair of the Vancouver Chapter of the Horror Writers Association, writes articles for various aviation magazines as a private pilot, and can be found at: janinecross.ca
Peter Darbyshire
Peter Darbyshire is the author of the Cross supernatural thriller series (The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, The Dead Hamlets, The Apocalypse Ark) as well as the books Has the World Ended Yet?, Please and The Warhol Gang. He lives in an eldritch safe house near Vancouver, where he spends far too much time organizing D&D campaigns.
Don DeBrandt
Don DeBrandt writes SF, urban fantasy, thrillers, police procedurals, and supernatural animal cozies under the pseudonyms DD Barant, Donn Cortez, Dixie Lyle and Don DeBrandt. He’s published twenty-four novels, numerous pop-culture essays and several short stories over the past thirty or so years. He’s also a digital artist with over 2000 pieces, a screenplay writer and playwright, and is the creator of the webcomic Supermythic Tales. He’s currently working on a YA Trilogy, The Anyverse Saga.
Linda DeMeulemeester
Linda DeMeulemeester’s first book, a spine-tingling middle-grade fantasy: The Secret of Grim Hill, won the Silver Birch and the Canadian Toy Testing Best Books. The series is now published by Wandering Fox – an imprint of Heritage Books. The Mystery of Croaker’s Island, selected for STEM by B.C. teachers is also published by Heritage and is a SF mystery for younger readers. Middle-grade Ephemia Rimaldi: Circus Performer Extraordinaire came out this year from Red Deer Press, and in 2026 another spine-tingly middle-grade book, Bottle Witch will be published by Orca.
Cat Girczyc
Cat Girczyc works as a technical communications manager while pursuing creative writing at night. She writes female-led stories, poems, and scripts, usually in science fiction or fantasy. She’s a Writer’s Guild of Canada member and has sold 15 television episodes, including two episodes of the dark fantasy The Collector and animated series such as Cybersix. Her short story The Lady M garnered a Finalist position in the Writers of the Future competition 2022 Qu.1. In 2024, she was a panelist at the writercon When Words Collide in Calgary, AB.
Liz Gordon
Liz Gordon is a professional game developer who also makes cute things from outer space. She has previously participated in the VCON art show, Fandom Bazaar, and Eastside Culture Crawl. Find her online at robotsandrocketships.com, On Instagram as @robotsandrocketships or in person at Vancouver Hack Space.
Wren Handman
Wren Handman is a queer novelist, screenwriter, and game writer. She has published eight speculative fiction novels, for both adult and teen audiences. Wren was the lead writer for the award-winning sitcom The Switch, and is a co-founder of Ludic Lemur Entertainment, where she is the Creative Director.
Bonnie Jacoby
Bonnie Jacoby writes young adult science fiction and fantasy novels set in the Pacific Northwest. As a child she hid in the forest to avoid chores and read without anyone finding her. Now she writes about ordinary heroes who discover just how special they can be. With a love of dragons and spaceships, Bonnie’s stories will transport you to a world both familiar and fantastical, where anything is possible if you just believe in yourself.
JM Landels
JM Landels, writer and illustrator of the Allaigna’s Song trilogy and co-founder of Pulp Literature Press wears far too many hats. The strange mix of a degree in Mediaeval English Literature, a misspent youth fronting alternative punk bands Mad Seraphim and Stiff Bunnies, and a career as a childbirth educator and doula informs her work. These days, when she isn’t writing, editing or drawing, she can be found heading up Academie Cavallo School of Mounted Combat in Langley BC where she swings swords and rides horses for fun and profit.
Rhea Rose
Rhea Rose has published many speculative short fiction stories and poems. She is a four-time Canadian Aurora Award Nominee, a Rhysling nominee, and recipient of several Ellen Datlow honorable mentions. She was the featured author in an issue of Pulp Literature. She is an active member of the HWA (Horror Writers Association), SF Canada and SFPA (Science Fiction Poetry Association) and is the editor of Polar Starlight, an online magazine of speculative poetry by Canadian authors. Her latest short story appears in ParSec Magazine’s 2024 issue #9. She can be found online at www.byrhearose.com, @rheaerose1 on X/Twitter, @roseypoesy577 on Instagram, and @rosewriter7 on TikTok.
Holly Schofield
Holly Schofield travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life in western Canada. The author of over a hundred speculative short stories in genres ranging from hard science fiction to magical realism, her works are used in university curricula and have been translated into multiple languages. Stories have appeared in Analog, Lightspeed, Tesseracts, Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change, the Aurora-nominated Lazarus Risen, the Aurora-winning Second Contacts, the Aurora-winning Nothing Without Us Too, and many other publications throughout the world. Find her at hollyschofield.wordpress.com.
Beth Wagner
Beth Wagner is a self-published comic creator residing in Burnaby, BC Canada. Her comics include but are not limited to sci-fi, such as Space Trucking, slice of life comics such as Isaac & Lee, and fantasy noir detective, Sam Hawke. With the death of her father (who was an author), Beth has now taken up the mantle of editor and writer in order to publish her father’s books and build on his literary legacy. The most recent being the epic fantasy novel The Saga of Haram.
Krista Wallace
Krista Wallace is a fantasy writer, musician, audiobook narrator, podcaster, mother, Gran; a lover of pie, dark chocolate, and fine single malt scotch. She hails from Port Coquitlam, BC, where she sings jazz and tap dances (not usually at the same time). She is the author of the Gatekeeper series (books 4 & 5 coming out in a few months), Griffin & the Spurious Correlations, and short stories in Pulp Literature, Heart’s Kiss, electricspec, and 49th Parallels. Learn more at kristawallace.com.
