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  John Brady, Poacher’s Road
(McArthur & Company, 2007)
A native of Dublin, John divides his time between Ireland and Canada, where John and his wife Hanna raise their family. Though trained as a teacher, John tries to live by Yeats’ dictum: ‘Only that which is useless, or can’t be taught, is irresistible.’
As well as the eight Minogue books, John has written ‘A Rebel Hand’, a lengthy account of the life of Irish Australian patriot Michael Dwyer. John is currently working on three books and a screenplay. ‘Felix the Second’ is the first of a series of mystery / police procedural books centred around an officer in the (rural) Austrian Gendarmerie. ‘The Old Country’ is a mystery set in Toronto where a woman unwittingly meets with an uprooted, footloose man from Saskatchewan, who is drawn into her mysterious and violent family connections. ‘+”%$# This, I’m Going To Paris’ is a male midlife coming of age novel where the central character realizes that there’s more to life than sullen teenagers, banal adult talk and suburban life. He starts to stage what cannot remain a quiet revolution. The screenplay ‘The Promised Land’ is set in 1938. It is based on the efforts of the co-founders of the Israeli Army, John Patterson and Vladimir Jabotinsky, to enlist the help of Irish republicans in overthrowing the British administration in Palestine.
  Martha Brooks, Mistik Lake
(House of Anansi, 2007)
I write about ordinary people whose lives are broadsided by circumstances often beyond their control. Although my books are marketed as Young Adult, whatever that is, I am not the least bit interested in being contained within any specific genre. When I have a story to tell, I tell it and whatever happens after that is up to the reader. I love that people who enjoy my work are of all ages.
I am in my early sixties and have been told that I look about twenty years younger. Maybe that's my maternal Icelandic genes - or my paternal Celtic genes. May it's the way artists shape-shift through constant invention. Or, it could be because my feet are planted in two art forms. As a jazz singer and innovator of that musical form there's always the challenge to take risks I might not ordinarily take and after a gig I always feel great - music is about connection. But I am also aware of time ticking away, of the collective beauty in all living things, including boulders that have sat out on the Canadian prairies since before human memory, of how amazing life is, how hopeful. And I am grateful for my life and the healthy body I inhabit.
I am married to a man who has been my soul mate and best friend for forty years. We have one daughter, Kirsten, who is a poet and cultural anthropologist. When I'm not writing or appearing in clubs as a jazz singer, Brian and I like to tromp around in nature, summer at the family cottage at Pelican Lake, read, watch the kind of movies that much of the rest of the world seems to miss, and spend time with family and friends. These days, Brian, who is a magician with food, does all the cooking.
And there you have it.
  Douglas Arthur Brown, Quintet
(Key Porter, 2008)
DOUGLAS ARTHUR BROWN’s short fiction and translations have been published in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies, in Canada and Denmark. His first novel, A Deadly Harvest, appeared in 1999. A collection of short fiction, The Komodo Dragon and Other Stories, was published in 2006. He has also published two books for children. He has lived in Toronto and Copenhagen, and is fluent in Danish. He was born, and now resides, on Cape Breton Island.
  Carol Bruneau, Glass Voices
(Cormorant Books, 2007)
Carol Bruneau's most recent title from Cormorant Books is Glass Voices. She is also the author of Berth. Her novel Purple For Sky (Cormorant, 2000) won the City of Dartmouth Fiction Prize and the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize. She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Depth Rapture and After the Angel Mill, both published by Cormorant Books. She has taught creative writing in the continuing education departments of Mount St.Vincent University and Nova Scotia Community College; she is now on faculty of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, where she teaches writing. She lives in Halifax with her husband and three sons.
  Devon Code, In a Mist (Invisible Publishing, 2007)
Devon Code is from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He has studied at theUniversity of King's College in Halifax, and at Concordia University in Montréal. In a Mist, his debut collection of short fiction, was published in 2007 by Invisible Publishing. He lives in Toronto, where he is currently a writer-in-residence with the Toronto Catholic District School Board.
  Irene Gammel, Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic (Key Porter, 2008)
IRENE GAMMEL is the author and editor of eight books including Baroness Elsa—A Cultural Biography (voted one of the top 25 books of 2002 by New York’s Village Voice) and several scholarly books of essays, including Making Avonlea (PEI Heritage Award) and The Intimate Life of L. M. Montgomery. A regular contributor to New York’s The Literary Review and Bookforum, Gammel holds a Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture at Ryerson University in Toronto. She is the co-curator of the exhibit Anne of Green Gables: A Canadian Icon at 100 in venues in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, and Prince Edward Island, May 2008 – March 30, 2009.
  Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air
(McClelland & Stewart, 2007)
Elizabeth Hay’s fiction includes A Student of Weather, a finalist for The Giller Prize and the Ottawa Book Award, Garbo Laughs, winner of the Ottawa Book Award and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Small Change (stories). In 2002, she received the Marian Engel Award. Most recently, Elizabeth Hay was awarded the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her most recent work, Late Nights on Air. Hay worked for CBC Radio in Yellowknife, Winnipeg, and Toronto. She lives in Ottawa.
  Nalo Hopkinson, Brown Girl in the Ring
(HB Fenn, 2007)
Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born writer and editor who lived in several Caribbean countries and the United States before settling in Canada in 1975. Her novels and short stories often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Hopkinson is the daughter of Guyanese poet Abdur Rahman Slade Hopkinson. The list of awards that Nalo Hopkinson has received is formidable. They include the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for an Emerging Writer, the Philip K. Dick Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic in 2003, the Locus Award for Best New Writer, the James R. Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award as well as a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2001. Her debut novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, has also been chosen as a Canada Reads Nominee. Hopkinson has a Masters of Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and now teaches writing at various programs around the world. In all of her works, Nalo Hopkinson has helped expand the current definition of science fiction and fantasy and has brought a new, distinct voice to literature.
  Frances Itani, Remembering the Bones (HarperCollins 2007)
Frances Itani, Canadian novelist, poet and essayist, was born in Belleville, Ontario, and from age 4 grew up in a village in the Province of Quebec. A Member of the Order of Canada, she has a B.A. in Psychology and English, U. of Alberta (1974) and an M.A. in English Literature, U. of New Brunswick (1980). She studied with the late W.O. Mitchell and with Rudy Wiebe. Prior to writing, she studied Nursing at the Montreal General Hospital (R.N.), with graduate courses at Duke University and a year of graduate studies at McGill. She subsequently taught and practised Nursing for 8 years. She currently reviews for the Washington Post. Frances Itani lives in Ottawa.
She has written 11 books, including her World War One novel, Deafening, which was chosen for CBC’s “2006 Canada Reads” as well as for “2006 Combat des Livres” by Radio-Canada. Deafening won a 2004 Commonwealth Award for Best Book, was shortlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award and the 2005 William Saroyan International Award (Stanford Univ.). Deafening has been sold and translated in 17 countries and has been optioned for film by the producer of Shawshank Redemption. It was shortlisted by the CBA (Canadian Booksellers Assoc.) for 2004 Book of the Year and Itani was shortlisted for the CBA 2004 Author of the Year.
Her new novel, Remembering the Bones, was published in September 2007 in Canada.
  Pico Iyer, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
(Knopf 2008)
One of the most acclaimed and perceptive observers of globalism and Buddhism now gives us the first serious consideration—for Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike—of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s work and ideas as a politician, scientist, and philosopher.
Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father’s) for the last three decades—an ongoing exploration of his message and its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama’s position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the remotest, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity.
Moving from Dharamsala, India—the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile—to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West, where the Dalai Lama’s pragmatism, rigor, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.
Pico Iyer is the author of six works of nonfiction and two novels. He has covered the Tibetan question for Time, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and many other publications for more than twenty years.
  Oliver Jeffers, The Way Back Home, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, How to Catch a Star (HarperCollins)
Oliver Jeffers is from Belfast. He makes and exhibits art and enjoys a good game of Paper, Scissors, Stone. Oliver's first picture book, How to Catch A Star, was shortlisted for the Booktrust Early Years Award in 2004. His second, Lost and Found, won the Nestle Children's Book Prize Gold award 2006, was Blue Peter Book of the Year 2006, shorlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award 2006 and was shortlisted for the Bookstrust Early Years Book Award. His third book, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, won the Irish Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the BBA Children's Book of the Year and the Red House Children's Book Award.
  Beatrice MacNeil, Where White Horses Gallop
(Key Porter, 2007)
BEATRICE MACNEIL is the author of the bestselling novel Butterflies Dance in the Dark, winner of the Dartmouth Fiction Award, and the short story collection There is a Mouse in the House of Miss Crouse, which won the Marianna Dempster Canadian Author's Award for Nova Scotia. She has written ten plays, four of which have won awards and two of which have been adapted for Halifax CBC Radio. She is the recipient of the Tic Butler Award for her outstanding contribution to Cape Breton writing and culture, and is the founder of Cape Breton's Reading Ceilidhs. She lives in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
  David McGimpsey, Sitcom
(Coach House Books, 2007)
David McGimpsey was born and raised in Montreal. He has a PhD in English Literature and is the author of the award-winning study Imagining Baseball: America's Pastime and Popular Culture, as well as the books Hamburger Valley, Dogboy, Lardcake and Certifiable. His travel writings frequently appear in the Globe and Mail and he writes the “Sandwich of the Month” column for EnRoute magazine. He plays guitar and writes for the band Puggy Hammer and teaches at Concordia University.
  Judith Meyrick, Gracie the Public Garden’s Duck (Nimbus, 2007)
Judith Meyrick has lived and worked in Halifax, NS for many years. She has just returned from two years in her native New Zealand where she worked for the NZ Master Games in Wanganui. She is a freelance writer and discovered her passion for children's literature in recent years. Gracie The Public Gardens Duck is her first published children's book.
  Billy Munnelly, Billy’s Best Bottles: Wines for 2008
(McArthur & Company, 2007)
One of Canada's best-loved and most entertaining wine writers, Billy Munnelly has delivered irreverent, lighthearted and enlightening wine advice for over 25 years. Munnelly's goal has been to remove confusion and intimidation from the wine selection process, taking it back from "the snobs."
Before devoting his life to the pursuit of good, affordable wine, the Irish-born bon vivant spent years in the restaurant industry. In 1977 he opened Stratford's celebrated Rundles restaurant with current owner Jim Morris. In 1981 he opened the Rosedale Diner in Toronto.
In 1983 Billy switched to drinking full time and "hasn't missed a day's work since." His bi-monthly wine publication, Billy's Best Bottles Wineletter, is Canada's most widely circulated consumer wine report. No advertising or promotional copy are incorporated into Billy's Best Bottles publications; all wines reviewed are purchased with subscription money.
In the early '90s, Billy saw the need for an annual wine buying guide for the wines that are sold across Canada. His handbook, (this year's 15th edition is entitled 'Billy's Best Wines for 2005') has been a Canadian best seller each year since its inception. Besides the best buys, the handbook contains food and service suggestions for each wine, wine tour information and Billy's "Twenty Steps to Winedom." All 150+ wines are generally available and are featured with their label.
Billy has appeared on Canada AM, Christine Cushing Live, Breakfast TV, Hunter's Gathering, The Gardener's Journal, and CBC Radio. His writing has been showcased in newspapers and publications including The New York Times, Canadian Consumer Report, and Wine X magazine. Billy currently writes regular columns for The London Free Press and Metro newspapers, Toro, and LCBO's Food & Drink magazines.
He lives close to some of the best bars in Toronto.
  Ray Robertson, What Happened Later
(Thomas Allen, 2007)
Ray Robertson is the author of several novels, including Home Movies, Heroes, Moody Food and Gently Down the Stream, and a collection of non-fiction, Mental Hygiene: Essays on Writers and Writing. He is a contributing book reviewer at the Globe and Mail.
 Charles Saunders, Imaro (Night Shade Books 2006)
According to Saunders he read his first work of science fiction in 1958, this he states was what that got him into the genre. In 1974, he wrote a series of short stories for Gene Day's fanzine Dark Fantasy.
The issue of Dark Fantasy with the first Imaro story found its way to Lin Carter, who included it in his first Year's Best Fantasy Stories collection, published by Daw Books in 1975. This publication brought Saunder's work to the attention of Daw publisher Donald A. Wollheim, who eventually suggested that Saunders turn his Imaro stories into a novel. Six of the novellas originally published by Gene Day in 'Dark Fantasy ("Mawanzo", "Turkhana Knives", "The Place of Stones", "Slaves of the Giant Kings", "Horror in the Black Hills", and "The City of Madness") would later be used in his first novel, Imaro, which was published by Daw in 1981.
Saunders wrote and had published two more books in the series, The Quest for Cush (1984) and The Trail of Bohu (1985).
In 2006, a small publishing company, Night Shade Books, made a deal with Saunders to publish an updated edition of Imaro. This new edition excludes the novella "Slaves of the Giant-Kings", which Saunders felt held too many parallels to the present day Rwandan Genocide.
Charles Saunders lives in Nova Scotia.
  Anne Simpson, Falling
(McClelland & Stewart, 2008)
Anne Simpson’s acclaimed first novel,Canterbury Beach, was a finalist for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Winner of the prestigious Journey Prize for short fiction, Simpson is also the author of three books of poetry:Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry; and, most recently,Quick. She has also been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize. Anne Simpson lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
  Brad Smith, Big Man Coming Down the Road (Penguin, 2007)
Brad Smith was born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. Smith started writing in his late twenties, in part to see if he could, and for a while it appeared that, as a writer, he was going to make a hell of a roofer. There was a certain amount of partying going on at the time and the result was a lack of the self-discipline required to write. The first effort at a book ended after roughly five pages. A couple of years later though, holed up in the small town of Revelstoke in the Rocky Mountains, he actually finished a novel which is unpublished to this day, and will remain so. The next effort, however, was Rises A Moral Man, published by John Flood at Penumbra Press. Since then he has published One-Eyed Jacks (2000), All Hat (2003), Busted Flush (2005) and Big Man Coming Down The Road (2007).
  Mary Swan, Boys in Trees
(HB Fenn, 2008)
Mary Swan is the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction and is the author of the collection The Deep and Other Stories. Her work has appeared in several Canadian literary magazines, including The Malahat Review, the Ontario Review, and Best Canadian Stories, as well as American publications such as Harper’s. She lives with her husband and daughter in Guelph, Ontario. Mary Swan will be presenting her debut novel, The Boys in the Trees.
 Budge Wilson, Before Green Gables (Penguin, 2008)
Before she arrived at Green Gables, Anne Shirley had a difficult early life. Orphaned as a baby, she is sent from one foster-home to the next, caring for other people’s children though but a child herself, and escaping from her dark reality through the power of her vivid imagination. Curious, inventive, and outspoken, even at a young age, Anne battles to make a life for herself by searching out kindred spirits, finding solace in her books, and dreaming of the day she has a family of her own. Award-winning author Budge Wilson brings young Anne vibrantly to life in this highly anticipated and fully authorized prequel to the much-loved Anne of Green Gables.
Budge Wilson has published over thirty books, with twenty foreign editions appearing around the world, and her stories appear in over ninety anthologies. Budge has won over 25 literary awards and her latest book, Friendships, was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award. In 2004, Budge Wilson was made a Member of the Order of Canada. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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