Adaptations and Genre Shifting

Sara de Waard is an author, screenwriter, and educator of Métis descent and is currently in the process of exploring her family’s heritage. Her debut novel, White Lies, won the 2022 ETFO Writer’s Award for Women and her latest novel, Defy, is set for its October 26 release (both from DCB, an imprint of Cormorant Books). Soon after completing her BA in Radio and Television Arts from Toronto Metropolitan University, de Waard returned to her hometown of Port Colborne, Ontario, where she currently lives with her two kids.

Vanessa Shields is the author of one memoir and three collections of poetry: Laughing Through a Second Pregnancy (2011, Black Moss Press), I Am That Woman (2014, Black Moss Press), Look At Her (2016, Black Moss Press), and Thimbles (2021, Palimpsest Press). She is the owner of Gertrude's Writing Room, where she teaches creative writing workshops and classes, mentors writers at all stages of their careers, and edits manuscripts (various genres). She is the editor of several poetry and prose anthologies, including The Alchemy of Tears (TOPS, 2023). Currently, she is publicist/social media support at Palimpsest Press as well as producer/administrator for Suede Productions Inc. (film & television production). She has been a juror for the Ontario Arts Council, the League of Canadian Poets, Windsor Endowment for the Arts, and the Markham Teen Arts Council, and she is an avid member and judge for Poetry in Voice. Shields is enrolled in the Humber School for Writers Creative Writing - Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry program, and working on a YA novel. She lives, writes and loves in Windsor, Ontario.