When Words Collide 2026

Valerie L. King was a teacher, specializing in kindergarten, special needs, and the deaf.

She has been an IFWA (imaginative fiction writer’s association) member for 30 years. With IFWA she was involved in their many projects, the IFWA Players plays and radio shows, bedtime stories with IFWA, IFWA at the Improv, public readings at the Calgary Public Library, and more... Read More →

Michael Gillett is currently president (for life) of IFWA and enjoys writing as well as
hanging around with writers. He has multiple short stories published (with an Aurora
nomination for one of them) along with three urban fantasy novels, all available through
various on-line marke... Read More →

Ron S. Friedman is an award-winning science fiction author and AI & energy futurist based in Alberta, Canada. His Amazon.ca #1 bestselling novel Typhoon Time, short story collection Escape Velocity, and Aurora Award-finalist story "Game Not Over" highlight his achievements, with works... Read More →

Randy McCharles is a full-time author of crime and speculative fiction.

He is the recipient of several Aurora Awards (Canada's most prestigious award for speculative fiction), and in 2013 his short story Ghost-B-Gone Incorporated won the House of Anansi 7-day Ghost Story Contest.

His most recent publications include the Connecticut Gumshoe trilogy from Tyche Books, and the Peter Galloway soft-boiled detective series. Previous publications include Much Ado about Macbeth (also from Tyche Books), Capone's Chicago, a multi-dimensional alternate history romp, and the YA space o... Read More →