DONATE

Ghosts in the Machine: Readings and Conversation

With Sharon Bala, Michelle Porter, Jaime Forsythe, Robert J. Sawyer, and Natalie Zina Walschots

Friday, November 6, 2026
7:30 pm
to 10:00 pm
Doors Open: 7:00 pm
The Bus Stop Theatre
$15.00

In stock

Product total
Options total
Grand total

Description

We start the evening with readings by Sharon Bala (Good Guys, Michelle Porter (A Glacier’s Guide to Dying), and Jaime Forsythe (Yield). Then it’s the dean of Canadian science fiction himself, Robert J. Sawyer (The Downloaded 2), in conversation with Natalie Zina Walschots (Villain).

Speakers

  • Sharon Bala's second novel, Good Guys, was published in 2026. Publishers Weekly calls it “quietly profound” and a “blackly comic tale.” Her best-selling debut novel, The Boat People, won a Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was short listed for several awards and is in translation in four languages. Sharon is the Creative Non-Fiction editor at Riddle Fence Magazine and a member of The Port Authority, a St. John's writing group.

  • MICHELLE PORTER's debut novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story, won the 2024 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Her previous books include the memoir Scratching River and Approaching Fire, a work of creative nonfiction about her great-grandfather, a fiddler from the Red River, which was shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award. Michelle is the descendent of a long line of Métis storytellers and a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. Michelle lives in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, where she teaches creative writing and Métis Literature at Memorial University.

  • Jaime Forsythe is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Yield (Wolsak & Wynn/ Buckrider Books, 2026). A collaborative chapbook with Stuart Ross, Disposable Adult Emergency Raincoat, will be out with Proper Tales Press in Fall 2026. Jaime’s poems have appeared in journals such as Arc, Grain, The Ampersand Review, and This Magazine. As well, her short fiction has been published in Geist and The Malahat Review, and she has creative nonfiction forthcoming in EVENT. She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia/ Mi’kma’ki with her family.

  • Robert J. Sawyer—dubbed “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by the Ottawa Citizen and the CBC—has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year; a record-setting 16 Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”); the top science-fiction awards in China, Japan, France, and Spain; an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada; and over 50 other national and international writing awards. He is a member of both the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario and was one of the nine initial inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Maclean's says, “By any reckoning, Sawyer is among the most successful Canadian authors ever.” Rob's 26 bestselling novels include Quantum Night (longlisted for Canada Reads) and FlashForward (the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name). Website: SFwriter.com

  • Natalie Zina Walschots is a writer and game designer. She is the author of Hench (William Morrow, 2020), a novel about the mistreated and undervalued employees of supervillains. The direct sequel, Villain (William Morrow, May 2026) continues the story of the Auditor as she fights institutionalized superheroism and goes on the exact opposite of a redemption arc. Hench was a finalist on the 2021 season of Canada Reads and was nominated for a Locus Award for Best First Novel. Natalie is the Narrative Director at Double Rex Studios, currently at work on their debut title, Thumbsplitter. Her writing on the interactive adventure The Aluminum Cat won an IndieCade award for Innovation in Experience Design, and her work with Digital Howard as part of the social media team for the television show Wynonna Earp won Best Cross-Platform Project – Fiction at the 2017 Canadian Screen Awards. She is also the author of two books of experimental poetry: Thumbscrews, which won the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry; and DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains. She lives in Nova Scotia with her partner and four morally bankrupt cats.