Ruby Barrett writes steamy romances with big feelings. Her 6 titles include: Hot Copy, The Romance Recipe (a 2023 LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist), The Friendship Study, The Match Faker, Most Likely to Match, and a novella, This Time, Next Year.

Before she was a romance author, Ruby worked as a horse groom, a cigarette package warning label researcher, a millennial Mommy-blog essayist, and a matchmaker with zero matches. She lives in Ottawa, Canada with her husband and their child. When she is not writing she enjoys reading, lifting weights, and sipping tea. 

Brenda Chapman is an Ottawa crime fiction author with twenty-six published novels. In addition to short stories and standalones, she has written the lauded Stonechild and Rouleau police procedural series, the Anna Sweet mystery novellas, and the Jennifer Bannon mysteries for middle grade. Blind Date is the first in her Hunter and Tate mysteries. Her work has been shortlisted for several awards including five Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence.

Books:

Cold Mourning and Butterfly Kills (Dundurn) and Blind Date (Ivy Bay Press)

Kate is a feminist romance writer who aims to amplify voices of women, particularly those who occupy roles traditionally held by men. Her Women in Trades Romance®️ series highlights one of the last frontiers for women: trade professions. 

Kate writes formidable FMCs who want to save themselves, and the MCs who love them for it—not in spite of it. 

Through her writing, Kate shows us there’s more to people than perhaps meets the eye, and how we’re all just working towards our happily ever after.

Christopher has been writing creatively for decades. His first forays into the literary world were in the form of film scripts for television, film and radio. His first book was a short story compilation called The Forgotten in the horror/ supernatural/ Canadiana genres which is still available on amazon. 

Christopher always tells his scriptwriting students to write what they know. And the same holds true for novel writing. GIRL: The Fruit of Yggdrasil Trilogy - Book One is very spiritual in theme and nature. Lili, the protagonist, is a thirteen-year-old shaman. Christopher is a shaman and runs his own shamanic healing practise called ‘Shaman Song Healing’. So, he knows what he’s talking about and writing about. 

Book Two is in the works and he hopes to publish that book by years end, 2026.

If you want to learn more about Christopher and see what he’s up to these days, please check out chrishind.com

Lavanya has lived in nine cities across India, China, the United States and Canada. She has a Master's Degree rom NYU, and lived in New York for nine years before moving to Toronto, which she now calls home. Lavanya has worked in the publishing industry for thirteen years and is on the board of directors for the Festival of Literary Diversity.

Her debut novel, LEAVE AND COME BACK, was named one of Indigo’s Best 100 Books of the Year So Far, a Most Anticipated Book by Electric Lit, was an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Romance, and was the June 2026 pick for Lilly Singh’s Lilly’s Library Book Club.

Tamara L. Miller writes psychological suspense steeped in atmosphere, emotional complexity, and the stark beauty of the Canadian wilderness.

Her debut novel, Into the Fall was a 2025 Amazon First Reads selection and a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Best Novel of 2026. Her second novel, The Weight of Glass, follows a daughter’s perilous search for answers after her mother’s disappearance along the snowbound shores of Lake Superior.

Tamara holds a Ph.D. in Canadian history and draws on a lifelong love of the wilder places in her writing. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Katie Tallo has more than three decades of experience as an award-winning screenwriter and director. After winning an international novel contest, she began writing mystery thrillers.

In 2020, her debut thriller, Dark August, was an instant bestseller, earning acclaim as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and an Apple Book of the Month. It also made the Globe 100 list.

Since then, Katie has written two more novels in the critically acclaimed Gus Monet trilogy including Poison Lilies and Buried Road. Her first standalone crime thriller, Where Her Secrets Lie, came out in August and her next thriller, The Last Villa, comes out in June of next year.

Katie lives with her husband in Ottawa where she is currently cooking up her next novel. 

Anuja Varghese (she/her) is an award-winning writer of literary fiction, fantasy, and erotica/romance where women of color get leading roles!

In 2023, her short story collection, titled CHRYSALIS, won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and in 2024, was longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, among others. Her debut novel, A KISS OF CRIMSON ASH, the first in a new medieval India-inspired romantasy trilogy, came out earlier this year, with book two scheduled for release in spring 2027. 

Anuja lives in Hamilton with her partner, two kids, and two cats.