Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

May 17, 2025

An Interview with Aphy Ray

I had the opportunity to interview up-and-coming author Aphy Ray about their first book Saffron and Honey. We explored the importance of representing Queer characters, the essentialness of having asexual representation, the role of independent publishing, genre-defying books, and the need to tell stories. Aphy Ray. They/them. Queer Canadian Canadian queer fiction writer. I have other qualifications but they’re not...

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April 8, 2025

An Interview with Marie Bilodeau about Empire Breaker

I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to the Glitterbomb of Canadian Speculative Fiction, Marie Bilodeau. In our chat, we explored indie versus traditional publishing, depictions of ageing women in fiction, intellectual property writing in shared worlds, and revisiting a world that she had written in before. Marie gave us a sneak peak at her latest book, Empire Breaker, the...

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December 12, 2024

An Interview with ‘Nathan Burgoine

Just in time for the holidays, ‘Nathan Burgoine and I sit down to talk about his latest collection Upon the Midnight Queer. We explore holiday story tropes, the importance of Queer people seeing ourselves in holiday media, the power of revisioning traditional stories, and the nuances of writing a yuletide story!! ‘Nathan Burgoine is a tall queer guy who writes...

Interviews Comments: 2

November 18, 2024

An Interview with Stephen Graham King

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview the fabulous Stephen Graham King about his work, exploring his latest work The Infinite Heist: Book 5 of the Maverick Heart Cycle. We explore Queerness, Disability, geekery and writing groups. Stephen Graham King (He/They) is a disabled survivor of metastatic synovial sarcoma, a story chronicled in the memoir, Just Breathe: My Journey Through...

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October 11, 2024

An Interview with Jen Storm

I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Jen Storm about her writing and art, while also addressing painful topics like missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. Jen reveals some of the ideas and thoughts that go into producing the Little Moons comic as well as her own experiences of a friend who went missing. Jen Storm (she/her/hers)...

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September 5, 2024

Haunting Lights

A review of Jen Storm’s “Little Moons”By Derek Newman-Stille Little Moons is a powerful exploration of the violence inflicted on the Indigenous community, particularly through missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. It is an examination of grief and how grief shapes us, changes us, and can bring some of us closer to traditions while it may also...

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September 2, 2024

An Interview with Drs. John Moores and Jesse Rogerson

I recently heard about an amazing upcoming book called Daydreaming in the Solar System by Drs. John Moores and Jesse Rogerson that would explore Science education about the solar system through science fiction stories. I was so fascinated, I had to contact them for an interview. John and Jesse are both professors of space sciences at York University, and their...

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August 20, 2024

An Interview With Rabbi Dr. Andrea (A.D.) Lobel

By Derek Newman-Stille Spec Can: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Andrea: Certainly! I’m a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement, a progressive Jewish group. I used to work full-time as an advertising copywriter, but decided to go back to school in 2002 to begin a career in religion, so I earned my M.A. and Ph.D., as well...

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July 3, 2024

An Interview with Kim McDougall

I’ve been reading and adoring Kim McDougall’s Valkyrie Bestiary Series for a while now, enjoying the idea of a world where magic has ruptured into our world and magical creatures need to be dealt with by professional pest control folks. In this interview, Kim and I discuss magical creatures, world-building a magical world, and the power of urban fantasy. If...

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June 21, 2024

An Interview with Clare Wall

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to bring Dr. Clare Wall’s voice to readers in an interview. Clare is a literary scholar and science fiction expert, focussing on climate fiction, apocalyptic fiction, and posthumanism. Dr. Clare Wall (she/her) is a contract professor in the Department of Humanities at York University in Toronto, Canada. She holds a PhD from York University in English Literature. Her research...

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