Footnotes

John Bemrose’s debut novel, The Island Walkers, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Bemrose is an arts journalist and contributing editor at Maclean’s. He has written for CBC Radio, the National Film Board and the Globe and Mail, and has also written a play, Mother Moon, and two poetry collections. His second novel, The Last Woman, set in the heart of Ontario’s cottage country, tells of the abrupt reappearance – after ten years absence – of local man Billy.

Quintin Jardine (Scotland/UK) is the author of two much-acclaimed and bestselling detective series – the Edinburgh-set Bob Skinner Series and the Oz Blackstone Series – 29 novels in all. Prior to his career as a writer, he worked as a journalist, government information officer, political spin-doctor and media relations consultant. Jardine’s lastest installment in the Bob Skinner Series, Fatal Last Words, finds Skinner on the edge of a career-defining moment; his fiancée, Scotland's First Minister Aileen de Marco, facing a political crisis; and a famous figure from another field dead.

Quintin Jardine appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

James W. Nichol is a playwright and the author of two previous novels – the Arthur Ellis Award-winning Midnight Cab and Transgression, which has sold more than 400,000 copies in Germany. Nichol presents Death Spiral, a complex, multi-layered thriller that opens with a hero’s welcome for a celebrated Canadian Spitfire fighter pilot during WWII, who miraculously survived terrible injuries.

Colm Tóibín is the award-winning author of five internationally bestselling novels – including The Blackwater Lightship, and The Master, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award – and a collection of short fiction, Mothers & Sons. In 2008 Tóibín served on the jury for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and became the first ever guest curator at IFOA. He presents his new novel, Brooklyn, which was longlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize. “Tóibín’s genius,” says the New Yorker, “is that he makes it impossible for us to walk away.”

Ian Weir is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He is the writer and executive producer of the acclaimed crime thriller Dragon Boys and the creator and executive producer of long-running CBC teen drama Edgemont. His new novel, Daniel O’Thunder – a rollicking, comic and ultimately haunting tale of fist-fighting, faith and fine madness – interweaves the voices of several narrators to tell the story of a troubled but charismatic prize-fighting evangelist in 1850s London, England, who challenges none other than the Devil to do battle in the ring.