2026 Featured Authors
Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Elamin Abdelmahmoud is the host of CBC’s daily arts, entertainment, and pop culture show Commotion. He is an award-winning culture writer who has written for the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, the Globe and Mail, and others. Elamin is the author of the No. 1 best-selling memoir Son of Elsewhere, a New York Times notable book and a Globe and Mail 100 book. He is the recipient of the 2025 Max Wyman Award for Critical Writing.
Khalil Akhtar
Khalil Akhtar is a Canadian journalist, broadcaster, and cooking instructor. Akhtar was born in the United Kingdom to a Punjabi family and grew up in small-town Atlantic Canada. He has spent two decades working in radio newsrooms across the country. He is the host of CBC Radio's Information Morning in Moncton, New Brunswick, and a past co-host of CBC On the Island. He created and hosted the CBC summer radio program, The Main Ingredient, and developed a long-running syndicated food column that aired on CBC morning shows across the country. How to Eat with Your Hands is his first book.
Donna Jones Alward
Since 2006, New York Times bestseller Donna Jones Alward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won several awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. She’s worked as an administrative assistant, teaching assistant, in retail and as a stay-at-home-mom, but always knew her degree in English Literature would pay off, as she is now happy to be a full-time writer. Her new historical fiction tales blend her love of history with characters who step beyond their biggest fears to claim the lives they desire.
Donna currently lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and two cats. You can often find her near the water, either kayaking on the lake or walking the sandy beaches to refill her creative well.
Renée Belliveau
Renée Belliveau is the author of the novels A Sense of Things Beyond, The Sound of Fire, and the memoir Les étoiles à l’aube. Her work has been nominated for the ReLit Novel Award, the Dartmouth Book Award, and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
She draws inspiration from her work as an archivist, where she spends her days surrounded by records of the past. In addition to her books, she has written numerous articles exploring lesser-known aspects of Canadian and regional history.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Allison University, a Master of Arts from the University of Waterloo, and a Master of Information from the University of Toronto. A proud acadienne originally from Shediac, NB, Renée now lives in Dartmouth, NS, with her husband.
Mark Blagrave
Mark Blagrave’s novel Silver Salts (Cormorant Books, 2008) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for First Novel (Canada and Caribbean). Lay Figures (Vagrant Press, 2020) was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize, and Felt (Cormorant, 2024) was shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Always a bridesmaid and never a bride, he has nevertheless been very grateful and honoured to be in the parties. His plays have been produced at university theatres and professionally in New Brunswick and his short fiction has not only appeared in several Canadian literary journals (including being shortlisted for the Malahat Review Novella Prize 2026) but also in a collection of linked short stories Salt in the Wounds (2014). After a long career in university teaching and administration, Mark now lives in Saint Andrews N.B. with his wife Sheila.
Lana Button
Lyse Doucet
LYSE DOUCET, author of The Finest Hotel in Kabul, is a Canadian journalist and the BBC's Chief International Correspondent. In the course of a career spanning four decades, she has reported from countries around the world and was based as a correspondent in Jerusalem, Amman, Islamabad, Kabul, and Abidjan.
She has led the BBC's coverage of major events including the recent Iran-Israel war, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War. She received an OBE in the Queen's Honours list in 2014, and was admitted to the Order of Canada in 2019. Her latest awards in the U.S. include the 2024 Zenger Award for Press Freedom from the University of Arizona, and the 2018 Trailblazer Award from Georgetown University. She was a recipient of the Colombia School of Journalism Award in 2016, an Emmy in 2014 for her team’s reporting from Syria, and Peabody Awards for her work from Syria and Afghanistan. In 2021, she was nominated for a Peabody for her work as a writer and reporter on the BBC podcast Afghanistan: Documenting A Crucial Year.
Doucet has twenty honorary doctorates from leading British and Canadian Universities. She has a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Toronto, and a BA Hons. from Queen’s University in Kingston. She is also a senior fellow of Massey College of the University of Toronto. Doucet has been reporting on Afghanistan since 1988. She visits the Inter-Continental whenever she is in Kabul.
LANA BUTTON is an award-winning Canadian author of over twenty books for children which have been translated into several languages. Lana’s stories are sparked by her love of early childhood education, and her desire to connect with children’s feelings, curiosity and play. Her books have been shortlisted for the Shining Willow Award, The Blue Spruce Award, the Jean Throop Award, the Hamiliton Literary Award among others, and have received the Crystal Kite Award, and the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Award. Many of her books have been named Best Bets and Best Books by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre and have been recognized by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Toronto Globe and Mail. Lana’s recent early chapter book, Brianna Banana and her picture book One Can which she co-wrote with Eric Walters, were named a Best Book of the Year by Bank Street Books, Kirkus and the New York Public Library. Lana lives in Southern Ontario but was proudly born and raised in St Stephen, New Brunswick.
Teri Kingston
Teri Kingston is one of Canada’s Top Ten Speaking Coaches, a TEDx speaker, and creator of the BRAVE Story Method™. She helps entrepreneurs, leaders, authors, and speakers transform their ideas and experiences into stories that create genuine human connection.
For more than a decade, Teri has coached thought leaders and professionals to move beyond simply communicating information to creating conversations that inspire trust, spark curiosity, and leave a lasting impression. Her clients have earned TEDx stages, keynote platforms, and international recognition—not because they learned to perform, but because they discovered how to communicate with authenticity and purpose.
Teri believes that every meaningful story has the power to change not only how people think, but how they feel. Whether she's coaching a TEDx speaker, guiding an entrepreneur, or working with a published author, her focus is the same: helping people bring the human story behind their work to life.
Teri lives in the seaside town of Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, where she eats far too much dark chocolate while she sits and soaks in the sea air.
