Connect With Our Guests!
This event couldn’t happen without the many guests who come and participate in our scheduled programming! Learn all about who they are and where their expertise lies in the panels below.
FOR INTERESTED PRESENTERS
Pro, semi-pro and dedicated fans of speculative fiction of any type and in any format, or the same for “speculative fiction adjacent” topics, such as science and history, who would like to participate in Scheduled Programming at CONnections, can submit the form linked to the button below.
Toren Atkinson
Toren Atkinson is the founder and singer for the Cthulhu rock band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, co-creator of the award-winning TTRPG Spaceship Zero. Illustrator for Call of Cthulhu, D&D, and many others, and provides art and storyboards for various Marvel and Star Wars animation, and livestreams drawing and animation analysis on his youtube channel. As an actor he’s appeared in Stargate: Atlantis and provided voices for Marvel Super Hero Adventures. Co-created and -hosted the podcast Caustic Soda.
Scott Betson
Scott Betson, a local cinephile, podcast host, and fellow sci-fi and fantasy fanatic, Scott has been a member of the local fandom communities since 2016, a host of multiple podcasts, a short story writer (who never did get any of them published), Scott has always been one to want to help run a panel but never thought of running one himself, now he might be able to?
Noah Chinn
Noah Chinn is a writer, editor, and cartoonist who has published nearly a dozen novels and whose fiction and non-fiction has been featured in Amazing Stories, The Globe and Mail, Knights of the Dinner Table, and other magazines. His Get Lost Saga has been called “the far-future Hopepunk series for our times” by The Ottawa Review of Books, and is a refreshing blend of classic and modern science fiction, balancing drama and humour to create stories that are both comforting and challenging. He writes about the future because it reminds us all that there will be a future, and that is always worth fighting for.
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, secretary for the HWA Membership Committee, writes articles for various aviation magazines as a private pilot.
Peter Darbyshire
Peter Darbyshire is the author of seven published books and more stories than he can count. He lives near Vancouver with two boys and a very cunning mouse.
Paul Dean
Paul Dean is a Nebula-nominated writer and ENNIE-nominated games designer whose work includes Pacific Drive, the 2015 reboot of Paranoia, a bunch of TTRPG design and many years of games criticism and analysis.
Linda DeMeulemeester
Linda DeMeulemeester’s first book, a spine-tingling fantasy, The Secret of Grim Hill, was turned into a series and twice optioned for an animated T.V. show. Her latest middle grade book is The Bottle Witch of Brimley, published by Orca. It comes out May 16th, 2026.
Callyn Dorval
Callyn Dorval is representing Foolish Productions, an emerging collective focused on abstract and immersive performance-based art that cultivates conversation.
David A. Falk
Dr. David A. Falk is the author of two science fictions novels (“Reliquary of the Dead” and “All the Stars as Angels”). He is a professional Egyptologist holding four graduate degrees. His areas of interest include Egyptian archaeology and ancient Near Eastern religions.
You can also follow him on SubStack.
Mark Feenstra
Mark Feenstra has published over 45 works of fiction under various pen names and across a variety of genres, but these days he’s mainly focused on slice-of-life stories set in the fictional world of Tellen, home of the adventure fantasy series, The Traveling Librarian. He lives in Vancouver with his wonderful and inspiring fiancé, a daughter coming into her inheritance of a wicked sarcastic streak, and a fearsome bearded dragon named Cricket.
Lena Gibson
Award-winning author Lena Gibson is a storyteller as an elementary school teacher and keeper of the family lore. As someone with autism, she often creates characters that reflect this experience. A voracious reader from childhood onward, Lena seeks wonderful books in which to escape. She loves interesting characters and fast-paced, emotional narratives, leading her to write genre-defying stories in multiple categories. While her books are disaster romance, time slip, dystopian adventure, and sports romance, all are about love, resilience, and hope. When Lena isn’t writing, she reads, practices karate, and drinks a ton of tea. She resides in New Westminster, Canada, with her family and their fuzzy overlord, Ash, the fluffiest of gray cats.
Cat Girczyc
Cat Girczyc writes female-driven stories, usually in science fiction or fantasy, but also dabbles in romcoms. She has won two Canadian national awards, the Auroras, for her work in SFF. Recently, she has been actively writing and submitting science fiction and fantasy (SFF) poems and short stories. Her work has been published in SFF markets including On Spec, Pulp Literature, Polar Borealis, Neo-Opsis, The Vancouver Sci-Fi Magazine, The Unhelpful Encyclopedia: MurderBugs, Sally Port Magazine, and Tesseracts. As a TV writer, Cat is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and has sold 15 television episodes, including two episodes of the dark fantasy series “The Collector” and animated series such as “Cybersix”. Once in a while, she teaches tv writing.
Mark Gledhill
Mark Gledhill is representing the Royal Manticoran Navy, the Official Honor Harrington Fan Association, for which he is the CO for Victoria Station, covering all vessels (Chapters) in the geographic area of the Western provinces and territories (BC, AB, SK, YK, and NW), and the US state of Alaska.
Wren Handman
Wren Handman is a queer novelist, screenwriter, and video game writer. She has published eight speculative fiction novels, for both adult and teen audiences. Her latest novel is a cozy paranormal thriller called A Midnight So Deadly.
Stan Hyde
Stan Hyde is a Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and also award winner for Lifetime Achievement from G-Fest the annual Godzilla convention. He works in film education but has written for many magazines about movies, models, and fandom. Stan is an unabashed monster kid.
Bonnie Jacoby
Bonnie Jacoby spends her days creating new worlds and writing about ordinary heroes who discover just how special they can be. She loves origin stories and exploring what makes a hero. With a special love of dragons and spaceships, her stories will transport you to another place, where anything is possible if you just believe in yourself.
Konn Lavery
Konn Lavery is a Canadian author, living in East Vancouver. His award-winning fiction has reached the bestselling charts on Amazon and in his hometown of Edmonton, where The Edmonton Public Library’s Capital Press collection curated his novel, YEGman. Konn’s writing has been self-published and published by Canadian, United Kingdom, and American publishers. Within his Dark Fantasy and Horror stories, he showcases both Canadian people and real locations within Canada. He loves sharing, and respecting, these wide ranges of geography and our diverse communities with readers. Storytelling enthralled Konn at a young age while he was a homeschooled vegetarian. After graduating graphic design college, he began professionally pursuing his writing with his first release, Reality, in 2012.
Nina Munteanu
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist, award-winning editor and internationally published novelist of award-winning eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy. In addition to eight published novels, Nina has written award-winning short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which have been translated into several languages worldwide. Recognition for her work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, finalist for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the SLF Fountain Award, and The Delta Optimist Reviewers Choice.
Emily Paxman
Emily Paxman is an author and artist from Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Her debut novel, DEATH ON THE CALDERA, is a fantasy murder mystery published by Titan Books. In 2026, Titan Books will publish her second novel, ALL WE HAVE LEFT, a post-apocalyptic rom-com. She’s a huge fan of gardening, cats, watercolour painting, and several other hobbies that befit an octogenarian. She has her Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Chatham University and writes for indie video game company Wizard Games.
Holly Schofield
Holly Schofield‘s stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Analog, Escape Pod, and many other publications throughout the world.
Ziggy Schutz
Ziggy Schutz (she/him/he/her) is a queer, disabled writer who is at all times looking for ways to make his favourite fairytales and horror stories reflect people who look a little more like her.
Lisa Smedman
Lisa Smedman is the author of 23 books, an ecclectic collection of alternate history, science fiction, fantasy, gaming tie-in novels, local history books, and children’s books. One of her Forgotten Realms novels became a New York Times bestseller. She has also written three one-act plays that were produced by a local theatre company, and has dabbled in writing screenplays and comic books. She is also a game designer, with dozens of published RPG products, including a host of adventures and soucebooks for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft and Dark Sun worlds. She’s also done game design work for the RPGs Cyberpunk, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Deadlands, and Millennium’s End. She also designs tabletop miniatures games and board games. She’s been a journalist since 1984. This was her “day job” until 2008, when she began teaching game design at the LaSalle College Vancouver (formerly the Art Institute).
Beth Wagner
Beth Wagner is a micropublisher of fantasy and science fiction under the Moongate Studios imprint who has been publishing and selling her artwork for over 20 years.
Krista Wallace
Krista Wallace is a fantasy writer, musician, audiobook narrator, podcaster, mum, 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 (finale coming soon); an urban fantasy romcom Griffin & the Spurious Correlations; and stories in Pulp Literature, Heart’s Kiss, Electric Spec, and 49th Parallels.
Lynda Williams
Lynda Williams founded the Okal Rel Universe through works published by 3 traditional publishers, and online, in collaboration with over 20 creative contributors who engaged in many ways at different durations and intensities. Lynda goes by “the obscure Canadian Tolkien” as a quick way to convey the inherent complexities. As publisher at Reality Skimming Press she seeks to continue enjoying the future in the spirit of why and how the Okal Rel universe evolved.
Casey Wolf
Casey June Wolf is the author of Finding Creatures & Other Stories (2008). She writes short speculative fiction pieces in various genres, and has participated in VCon for many years. Her hometown is Vancouver, BC. East Van, that is.
