Guests

Jacqueline Guest

Jacqueline Guest
Jaqueline Guest

Jacqueline Guest is an international award winning author with eighteen published novels. She has presented across Canada and in the United States to audiences of all ages including the University of Calgary; Manitoba Association of Teachers of English; Alberta Association of Library Technicians; MASC Conference Ottawa; University of Victoria; Cultural Diversity Institute North Central Teachers Association; Young Alberta Book Society; Wordsworth Writing Camp; Dreamcatcher Aboriginal Conferences; Saskatoon Reading Council Teachers Conference; Batoche Historical Site; the Edmonton Young Offenders Centre; Mamawenig; Back to Batoche Days; Fort Calgary's Metis Cultural Festival, the American Indian Library Association, plus a host of other conferences and engagements. She has been Writer in Residence for the Marigold Library System and is the proud recipient of the 2013 Indspire Award for the Arts. Jacqueline has expertise in all aspects of writing including editing, publishing, touring, business and promotion and feels sharing her expertise can help new authors achieve their goals faster and with better results.

AWARDS and NOMINATIONS:
2013 Indspire Award Arts
Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice Award: Hat Trick, Free Throw, Rookie Season, Rink Rivals, A Goal in Sight, Soccer Star, Belle of Batoche, Secret Signs, Wild Ride
Hackmatack and R. Ross Annette Award Nominee: Secret Signs
Arthur Ellis Mystery Award Nominee: Wild Ride
Golden Eagle Nominees: Wild Ride, Rookie Season, Rink Rivals, A Goal In Sight
Red Cedar and R. Ross Annette Award Nominee, Ontario Library Association Best Bet Selection
Edmonton Public Schools Best of the Best Award: Belle of Batoche
Silver Birch Finalist, ForeWord Book of the Year Finalist, R. Ross Annette Finalist, Golden Kite Finalist: Ghost Messages
Exporting Alberta Finalist: War Games, Ghost Messages
Burt Award Finalist: Free Throw
American Indian Youth Literature Award, (U.S.): Free Throw, Triple Threat
Gold Moonbeam Medal, (U.S.): Ghost Messages, Outcasts of River Falls
Willa Award Finalist, (U.S.): Outcasts of River Falls
High Plains Book Award Finalist, (U.S.): Outcasts of River Falls



Mark Leslie

Mark Leslie
Mark Leslie

Mark Leslie Lefebvre’s passion for writing and love of reading led him to the book industry, where he has worked since 1992 as a bookseller in virtually every possible bookstore environment (mall store, chain store, big box store, online bookstore and campus bookstore). 1992 was the same year Mark sold his first short story, and his most recent books (under the name Mark Leslie) include Haunted Hamilton and Spooky Sudbury, two non-fiction books on the paranormal published by Dundurn. Mark has also edited anthologies such as and Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound and North of Infinity II (science fiction anthologies) as well as Campus Chills, a collection of university themed horror stories. A hybrid author, Mark self-published his first book One Hand Screaming, a collection of previously published short fiction, in 2004, back when no self-respecting author would even venture in that territory, and he continues to firmly embrace both indie and traditional publishing.

Mark is the Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations at Kobo where he was part of the team that launched Kobo Writing Life, a DIY self-publishing portal for authors and small publishers that removes the barriers for making works available in Kobo’s global catalog to 190 countries. A past president of the Canadian Booksellers Association, Mark currently sits on the BookNet Canada Board of Directors. An author, bookseller, editor and avid reader, he often says the term “Book Nerd” is an apt description. Photo by John Robbie.




DJ McIntosh

DJ McIntosh
DJ McIntosh

One teenage summer at the cottage spent submerged in Perry Mason paperbacks sealed my fascination with suspense fiction, a love affair that has never ended. Since those days books have been friends, entertainers, and teachers, and when the opportunity for some personal time finally arose I wrote my own novel.

Short stories came first, and I was gratified to have two published. By then I'd gotten to know a number of authors, and the tales about their constant piles of rejections were enough to give a new writer nightmares. So, instead of sending my novel out to an uncertain slush pile future, I entered it into the Crime Writers Association (U.K.) Debut Dagger. Opening the email announcing that The Witch of Babylon had placed on the shortlist was a watershed moment, one I'll never forget. One year later the novel won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished Crime novel. My writing career was launched.

The Witch of Babylon has been sold in twenty countries. It was a national bestseller, an Amazon.ca Best Book, and was named one of CNN's Most Enduring Historical Thrillers. The sequel, The Book of Stolen Tales, is now available. I am a member of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies, a strong supporter of Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

When not staring at the proverbial computer screen, or walking my golden retriever, I indulge in the great venues that a big metropolis has to offer: films, galleries, and museums. I have a special affection for any live music that features rock/blues guitar. I live in Toronto, but in the summer I swing to the polar opposite of this, and spend four or so months enjoying the famous sunsets and wild beauty of Lake Huron's shores at my cottage.

http://www.babylontrilogy.com/

http://www.djmcintosh.com/




Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child Brandon enjoyed reading, but he lost interest in the types of titles often suggested to him, and by junior high he never cracked a book if he could help it. This changed when an eighth grade teacher gave him Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.

Brandon was working on his thirteenth novel when Moshe Feder at Tor Books bought the sixth he had written. Tor has published Elantris, the Mistborn trilogy and its followup The Alloy of Law, Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings, the first in the planned ten-volume series The Stormlight Archive. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; 2009’s The Gathering Storm and 2010’s Towers of Midnight were followed by the final book in the series, A Memory of Light, in January 2013. Four books in his middle-grade Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians series were released by Scholastic, and his novella Infinity Blade: Awakening was an ebook bestseller for Epic Games accompanying their acclaimed Infinity Blade iOS video game series. Two more novellas, Legion and The Emperor’s Soul, were released by Subterranean Press and Tachyon Publications in 2012, and 2013 brings two young adult novels, The Rithmatist from Tor and Steelheart from Delacorte.

The only author to make the short list for the David Gemmell Legend Award six times in four years, Brandon won that award in 2011 for The Way of Kings and was on the short list again in 2012 for The Alloy of Law. The Emperor’s Soul is a nominee for the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novella. He has also won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice award for Best Epic Fantasy twice and has been nominated three other years. He was twice nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and he won Audible.com’s third annual Tournament of Audiobooks. He has hit the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller List seven times, with all three Wheel of Time books hitting the #1 spot. A Memory of Light closed out the series by hitting the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller List top ten for a Wheel of Time record eight straight weeks. Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians was optioned for film by DreamWorks Animation, Mistborn was optioned by Paloppa Pictures, Legion was optioned by Lionsgate, and Steelheart was optioned by FilmEngine. A Mistborn video game, Mistborn: Birthright, will be released by Little Orbit in 2014 for multiple platforms. Brandon’s books have been published in over 20 languages, and he has won Spain’s UPC Science Fiction Award.

Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. With Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Dan Wells, he also hosts the thrice Hugo-nominated writing advice podcast Writing Excuses, which has thrice won a Parsec Award.




Jack Whyte

Jack Whyte
Jack Whyte

Jack Whyte was born and raised in Scotland, and educated in England and France. He migrated to Canada from the UK, in 1967, as a teacher of High School English, but he only taught for a year before starting to work as a professional singer, musician, actor and entertainer--a career he followed, one way and another and with many variations, for the next twenty years.

In the early 1970s, Whyte researched, wrote, directed and appeared in a one man show based on the life and times of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet. He toured Canada with the presentation, which he had written to appeal to non-Scots, Canadian audiences, de-mystifying the poet and his works and making them understandable and enjoyable to North Americans. The success of the show led him into writing for CBC National television, and eventually to a career in advertising, where he learned his craft as Head Writer and Creative Director of several advertising agencies before moving to the other side of the client-agency relationship, to act as Corporate Communications Director for a number of public and private companies.

Whyte's interest in 5th Century history and the 460-year Roman military occupation of Britain springs from his early Classical education in Scotland during the 1950s, and he has pursued his fascination with those times ever since. That interest, allied with an equally fervent preoccupation with the Arthurian legend, led him, in 1978, to a sudden realization of the probable truth underlying the legend's central mystery of the Sword in the Stone. Then, knowing how it had been done, Whyte set out to tell the story, and to establish King Arthur securely in a realistic and feasible historical context. His saga, fleshed out by years of research, continues to unfold to the delight of his large and growing audience. Whyte is married, with five adult children, and lives in British Columbia, Canada.

Visit his website: http://www.camulod.com/