Candas Jane Dorsey 

Edmonton-born and based, a writer from an early age, and a freelance writer since 1980, Candas Jane Dorsey writes across genre boundaries: poetry, fiction (mainstream and speculative, short and long form), non-fiction and professional writing. Her oeuvre includes: novels Black Wine (Tor, 1997, winner of Tiptree, Crawford and Aurora Awards) and A Paradigm of Earth (Tor, 2002, shortlisted for Sunburst and Spectrum Awards); short story collections, Machine Sex and other stories (Tessetact Books, 1988), Dark Earth Dreams (Tesseract Books, 1994), and Vanilla and other stories (NeWest, 2000) (winner of the WGA Short Fiction Award); four poetry books; several anthologies edited/co-edited, and numerous stories, poems, reviews, critical essays, and rants in anthologies and magazines--and she won the Three-Day Novel-Writing Contest with Nora Abercrombie for Hardwired Angel (Pulp Press, 1987).

Founding member and past publisher of The Books Collective, professional independent trade publisher 1992-2006, including past-publisher and editor-in-chief of: (1994-2003) Tesseract Books (Canadian speculative fiction) and (1992-2006) River Books (Canadian literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry). She  teaches and speaks widely on SF and other topics, and was founding president of SFCanada, the only Canadian professional writers’ organisation operating in both official languages.

Active educator since 1983, teaching part-time in the Professional Writing program at Grant MacEwan College, as well as writing and writing-related courses, and workshops for University of Alberta Faculty of Extension, Metro Continuing Education, and other school, college, university and continuing education venues. Extensive travel as a teacher, writer-in-residence lecturer and keynote speaker.

Since 1979 a freelance writer and editor, including: journalism; magazine/newspaper writing, editing and production; book, report, course and manual editing and production; educational documents, course design and editing, and educational media scripts; technical writing (software documentation and help file architecture); public information material; and consulting on communication needs. Founding partner of Wooden Door and Associates, professional communications company since 1991. Has done much community development in the writing, arts, and cultural communities, and has served on the executive (vice-president, president and past-president) of the Writers' Guild of Alberta.

Of note: one of her short stories appeared in NeWest Press' inaugural 1979 publication, Being There, a collection of short stories by five female writers, edited by Rudy Wiebe.

Awards include Edmonton Arts Award, Aurora Award, Tiptree Award, Crawford Award, Todd Janes Award, WGA Short Fiction Award, and the Alberta Centennial Gold Medal for her community advocacy and achievement in the arts.

Photograph: Hugh A. D. Spencer