Giller Power Panel: Murder! Horror! Mystery! The Appeal of Genre Fiction

Linwood Barclay, a New York Times bestselling author with twenty novels to his credit, spent three decades in newspapers before turning full time to writing thrillers. His books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, sold millions of copies, and he counts Stephen King among his fans. Many of his books have been optioned for film and TV, a series has been made in France, and he wrote the screenplay for the film based on his novel Never Saw it Coming. Born in the US, his parents moved to Canada just as he was turning four, and he’s lived there ever since. He lives near Toronto with his wife, Neetha. They have two grown children.

Daniel Kalla is an internationally bestselling author of many novels, including The Darkness in the Light, Lost Immunity, The Last High, and We All Fall Down. Kalla practices emergency medicine in Vancouver, British Columbia. Visit him at DanielKalla.com or follow him on Twitter @DanielKalla.

Sheena Kamal holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Her critically acclaimed adult thriller series (The Lost Ones, It All Falls Down and No Going Back) was published internationally by HarperCollins and won her a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Magazine Critics Award and Macavity Award. The Lost Ones has been sold in fifteen countries and was a Globe and Mail Bestseller, a Time Magazine Recommended Read, an iBooks Best Book, a Bustle Best Book and a Powell’s Pick. Fight Like a Girl, her debut YA novel published by Penguin Teen was nominated for the Arthur Ellis and Forest of Reading awards.

Shari Lapena is the #1 internationally bestselling author of six suspense novels including The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, and Not a Happy Family. Everyone Here is Lying is coming in July 2023.

A former lawyer and English teacher, Shari now writes full time from a farm in Ontario, where she lives with her husband.

Her first thriller, The Couple Next Door, was a runaway global bestseller, selling four million copies worldwide. It was WHSmith’s “Book of the Year” in 2016 and the #1 Adult Fiction Title in the UK for 2017. All of Shari’s novels have been New York Times, UK Sunday Times, and Globe and Mail bestsellers. Three of her books have been Richard & Judy Book Club Picks. Her books have sold into forty territories around the world and have been optioned for film and TV.

She doesn’t want you to be able to put her books down.

USA Today Bestselling author Rick Mofina is a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row; flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD and patrolled near the Arctic with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He’s also reported from the Caribbean, Africa, Kuwait and Qatar. He has produced more than 30 thrillers that have been published in nearly 30 countries. Most of his titles have been Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star bestsellers. He has won Canada’s prize for crime fiction, the Arthur Ellis Award, twice. He’s a Barry Award winner; and a multiple finalist for the Thriller and Shamus Awards. Library Journal calls him “One of the best thriller writers in the business.” Rick Mofina lives in Ottawa.

Marissa Stapley is the New York Times bestselling author of Lucky, which was the first-ever Canadian Reese’s Book Club pick (December 2021), as well as bestsellers Mating for Life, Things to Do When It’s Raining, and The Last Resort. Her next novel, The Lightning Bottles, a story of nineties rock and star-crossed love, will be published by Simon & Schuster in Fall 2024. She has also co-written the bestselling holiday rom-coms The Holiday Swap (a Book of the Month pick) and All I Want for Christmas under the pen name Maggie Knox. Her next rom-com, Three Holidays and a Wedding (September 26, 2023), is a collaboration with bestselling author and playwright Uzma Jalauddin. Many of her novels have been optioned for television and her journalism has appeared in publications across North America. She has also worked as a sports reporter, cemetery gardener, bartender, destination travel rep, stable hand, and magazine editor — but becoming an author is a dream she has harboured since the age of seven, when she decided she was going to be the next L.M. Montgomery. She lives in Toronto with her husband, two children and the best cat in the world — and is happiest while lakeside in Northern Ontario, a good novel or notebook and pen in hand.