Darlene Madott is an award-winning writer who practised law in Toronto for more than 35 years. Author of a growing number of books, her 9th and most recent work, WINNERS AND LOSERS (Tales of Life, Law, Love and Loss) Guernica, spring, 2023, offers a front-row seat onto the field of battle. in 2021, EXILE published her 8th book, DYING TIMES, an experimental novel and fictional exploration of the last journey, to critical acclaim. Her short fiction has been widely anthologised and has garnered literary awards, including the title story of her MAKING OLIVES AND OTHER FAMILY SECRETS (Ripasso), which won the Bressani Literary Award in 2008. That collection included "Touching Calabria," a winner in an Accenti Magazine competition. STATIONS OF THE HEART, a collection of linked short-stories, (Exile Editions, 2013) again won the Bressani Literary Award. That collection includes "Vivi's Florentine Scarf," winner of the Paolucci Prize of the Italian American Writers' Association, and "Waiting," short-listed for the Gloria Vanderbilt sponsored Carter V. Cooper Exile Competition 2011-12. She has been short-listed for the CVC three times -- for "Waiting" (An Almost Love Story), "Winners and Losers," and more recently for "Newton's Law, a comedic exploration of escalating wars between separating spouses -- the latter two stories part of WINNERS AND LOSERS (GUERNICA, 2023), growing out of and inspired by her legal background.