Sean Costello
Sean Costello is the author of nine novels and numerous screenplays, one of which is currently under option to film. Depending on the whims of his muse, Costello’s novels alternate between two distinct genres: Horror and Thriller.
His horror novels have drawn comparisons to the works of Stephen King, his thrillers to those of Elmore Leonard. Sean is currently hard at work on several new writing projects.
Nikolette Jones
Nikolette Jones is an artist and teacher specializing in French immersion education. She grew up in Ardrossan, Alberta and currently resides in Edmonton. She finds her inspiration in pop culture and literary works and uses a variety of media to create paintings, illustrations and home decorations.
She has illustrated Canadian author Shawn Bird’s Nikki Knox book series, has created several commissioned artworks for other writers, and is the cover artist, illustrator and French-language translator for Mark Leslie’s short story collection Snowman Shivers.
Find out more about Nikolette at http://www.nikolettejonesart.com
Sarah Kades
Sarah Kades writes eco-thrillers, and narrative non-fiction as Sarah Graham. Her writing is largely inspired by her previous career as an archaeologist where she routinely lived in tents, caught rides in helicopters and adored the awesomeness of the landscapes around her. Sarah is a two-time Energy Futures Lab Banff Summit storyteller, a recipient of the Calgary Arts Development individual artist grant, and has presented at the British Society of Criminology conference on the application of using arts-based approaches.
When she’s not writing you can find her running, bumping into her next adventure, or trying to figure out where in the garden to put the makeshift wood-fired pizza oven.
Mark Leslie
Mark Leslie is a writer of “Twilight Zone” style speculative fiction, dark fantasy, thrillers and horror. He sometimes travels to book events with his life-sized skeleton companion, Barnaby Bones and quite enjoys giving people chills and thrills with his writing. He tacks “Lefebvre” back onto his name for his books about the business of writing and publishing.
When he is not writing, or reading, Mark can be found haunting bookstores, libraries or local craft beer establishments. Mark lives in Southern Ontario.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Mark’s highly successful experience in the publishing and bookselling industry spans more than three decades where he has worked in almost every type of brick and mortar, online, and digital bookstore.
The former Director of self-publishing and author relations for Rakuten Kobo, and the current Director of business development for Draft2Digital, Mark thrives on innovation, particularly as it relates to digital publishing.
Link to Mark Leslie Lefebvre’s Books
Peter C. Mitchell
London born, Canadian raised Peter Mitchell was bumbling his way through a moderately successful career in business journalism when an investigation into a story on Corporate Social Responsibility inspired him to look beyond profit margins and PR into the very real problems faced by society. This inspiration prompted him to dip his toes into a self-confessed Sanity/Vanity project of a biography of his great, great grandfather, Sir John Kirk.
In 2017, Peter returned to London to complete his research and begin the writing of “A Knight in the Slums.” The past was ready to be mined, and the future was assured. The present, however, took an unpredictable -and darkly ironic—turn.
A series of unfortunate events transpired, creating a perfect storm of calamities leaving Peter penniless and sleeping rough. He had unwittingly fallen victim to the same societal ailments John Kirk fought. That nightmare inadvertently provided him with an inside look into the current workings of these same systems put in place by his great, great grandfather, and others like him, put in place over a century ago. That experience frightened him more than the horrors of homelessness itself.
Armed with the scars of this unexpected, but disturbingly relevant, knowledge Peter continues to work on “A Knight in the Slums” with renewed insight. John Kirk created solutions over 100 years ago that are still in play today. Times have changed; yet the solutions have stagnated, and proven to not be solutions, but mechanisms that perpetuate the cycle of poverty: a Hell’s Carousel funded by well-meant individuals and institutions blinded by the brand of “charity.” New systems need to be developed; new solutions need to be found.
Link to Peter C. Mitchell’s Books
Wulf Moon
Wulf Moon‘s first science fiction story, written at the age of fifteen, won the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards–the same contest that first discovered Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Peter S. Beagle, and a host of iconic names in the arts. It became his first professional sale in Science World.
Moon has won over forty awards in writing and thirty in public speaking. His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications including Writers of the Future, Best of Deep Magic Anthology Two, Future Science Fiction Digest, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2, Best of Third Flatiron, Galaxy’s Edge, and DreamForge magazine.
His award-winning SUPER SECRETS Online Resource and Writing Workshop has had over 800,000 views. These Secrets have been attributed by a multitude of writers as the reason they obtained their first professional sales, and wins in national and international writing contests.
Explore the works of Wulf Moon by visiting driftweave.com.
Link to Wulf Moon’s Books
Julie Strauss
Julie Strauss is a writer, editor, and podcaster who lives, reads, writes, cooks, and gardens in Southern California with her family.
She is known in some circles as “that weird bookish lady who talks to her plants” and in other circles as “that foul-mouthed wine drinker who laughs at inappropriate moments.” She loves you as a person but does not care about your cats unless you have taught them how to talk. You can learn more about her online at http://www.juliewroteabook.com.
Edo van Belkom
Edo van Belkom, a former reporter on the sports and police beats for newspapers in and around Toronto, arrived on the horror scene in 1990. His first short story sale, Baseball Memories, was selected for the prestigious Year’s Best Horror Stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner. The story was also nominated for Canada’s prestigious Aurora Award and appeared side-by-side with work by authors such as Mordecai Richler and W. P. Kinsella in The Grand Slam Book of Canadian Baseball Writing.
Van Belkom hasn’t looked back since. Some 150 short stories have sold to a variety of top magazines and anthologies in the sf, fantasy, horror and mystery genres. He has twice won the Aurora Award, taken home the Bram Stoker Award and his YA novel WOLF PACK won Ontario’s prestigious Silver Birch Award.
In January 2023, that same 2004 novel and the other three books in the series was adapted into an American supernatural teen drama on Paramount+ starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and produced by Jeff Davis, known for creating the drama series Criminal Minds and the TV series “Teen Wolf.”
Link to Edo’s Books
Stark Publishing 