Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens is the author of the Governor General’s Award winning novel The Law of Dreams, published around the world to wide acclaim, and a collection of short stories, Night Driving. His short stories and essays have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, and the National Post. His newest work, The O’Briens, follows the family from The Law of Dreams two generations later as they climb from poverty to wealth.

Michelle Berry

Michelle Berry has published three short story collections and three novels, two of which have also been published in the U.K. What We All Want was shortlisted for a TORGI Award and is presently optioned for film. This Book Will Not Save Your Life won the inaugural Enfield & Wizenty novel award. Her third collection of stories I Still Don’t Even Know You has recently won a Mary Scorer Award for best book by a Manitoba Publisher.

John Boyko

John Boyko is the author of four books addressing Canadian history and politics. His most recent is the acclaimed Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation the first major biography of Canada’s 11th Prime Minister. John has degrees from Trent, McMaster and Queen’s and is an administrator and teacher at Lakefield College School. He has been elected to municipal council and served on a number of community boards, John is now at work on his next book.

Trevor Cole

Trevor Cole’s third novel, Practical Jean, appeared to rave reviews in Fall 2010. It is the 2011 winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, was chosen one of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of the Year and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize. Trevor is the author of two acclaimed previous novels Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life and The Fearsome Particles, both of which were short listed for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and long listed for the Dublin IMPAC Award. Trevor is also an award-winning magazine journalist.

Louise Dennys

Louise Dennys is publisher of Knopf Canada and one of the most influential figures in Canadian publishing. As an editor and publisher, Dennys has worked with renowned writers such as Graham Greene, John Irving, Alberto Manguel, Mordecai Richler and Salman Rushdie. A former president of PEN Canada, Dennys has twice won the Canadian Bookseller Association’s Editor of the Year Award and in 2006 was invested into the Order of Canada

Suzanne Desrochers

Suzanne Desrochers grew up in the French-Canadian village of Lafontaine on the shores of Georgian Bay. She is currently writing a Ph.D. thesis at King’s College, London, comparing the migration of French and British women to North America in the early modern period. She has lived in Paris and Tokyo and travelled extensively in Asia. Her travel writing has appeared in Toronto’s Now Magazine. Bride of New France is her first novel.

Terry Fallis

Terry Fallis is the author of The Best Laid Plans and The High Road, satirical novels of Canadian politics. His debut novel was originally self-published in 2007 and won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Subsequently, it was published by M&S and won several other prizes. In February 2011, The Best Laid Plans was chosen as the winner of CBC’s Canada Reads. The High Road, published in 2010, continues the adventures of book one. Terry is co-founder of Thornley Fallis, a communications consulting agency.

Charles Foran

Charles Foran has published nine books, including four novels, and writes regularly for magazines and newspapers in Canada and elsewhere. He is contributing editor for The Globe and Mail and has made radio documentaries for the CBC’s Ideas. Charles is the 2011 recipient of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for his biography Mordecai: The Life and Times. He has also just published a biography of Maurice Richard for the Extraordinary Canadians Series. .

Vicki Grant

Vicki Grant left her award-winning career in advertising and television to write her first novel in 2004. Since then she has written several critically acclaimed books for young people and ‘reluctant readers’, winning the Arthur Ellis Award in 2006 for Quid Pro Quo. In 2010, Not Suitable for Family Viewing received nominations for this award and the Red Maple Award. Vicki’s latest novel is Comeback.

Loris Lesynski

Loris Lesynski worked at various jobs until she discovered graphic design. This highly successful author, poet and illustrator has now been entertaining children for over a decade with her child-centred rhymes and brilliant illustrations. Her books include: Zigzag Zoems for Kindergarten, Cabbagehead, Cat Magic, Shoe Shakes and Dirty Dog Boogie.

Alexander MacLeod

Alexander MacLeod’s award-winning stories have appeared in many leading Canadian and American journals and The Journey Prize Anthology. This collection Light Lifting was a finalist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize. It offers us a suite of ‘darkly urban and unflinching’ stories. Currently, Alexander lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and teaches at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.

Lisa Moore

Lisa Moore is the national bestselling author of Alligator, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Thomas H. Raddell Prize for Fiction, and was a Globe and Mail Top 200 Book of the Year. Her story collection, Open, was also a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Jubilee Award for Short Stories, a nominee for the Winterset Award and a national bestseller. February is her second novel.

Sarah Selecky

Sarah selecky's writing has been published in The Walrus, Prairie Fire, Geist Magazine, The New Quarterly, Event and The Journey Prize Anthology. Her short story collection This Cake is for The Party was a 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. It won the 2011 Bookie, an award given by CBC’s Book Club for Best New Writer and is shortlisted for the Writer’s Trust Award.

Merilyn Simonds

Merilyn Simonds returns to the Lakefield Literary Festival with her latest novel A New Leaf: Growing with My Garden. Her books include The Holding (2004), the internationally acclaimed short story collection The Lion in the Room Next Door (1999) and The Convict Lover (Non-Fiction, 1996), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Arthur Ellis Award, and won the TORGI Award. Merilyn has worked as a freelance writer and a magazine editor, and won several national awards for her magazine writing.

Mary Smith

Kevin Sylvester

Kevin Sylvester is a renowned writer, illustrator and broadcaster. An award-winning sportscaster for seven years, he is familiar to CBC Radio One listeners for anchoring radio coverage for four Olympic Games. His first book for children, Sports Hall of Weird, was runner-up for a Silver Birch Award and a Rocky Mountain Honor Book. His second book, Gold Medal for Weird was a Silver Birch Award winner. He is the author of three mysteries as part of The Neil Flambe Capers, Game Day and a new picture book, Splinters.