Just in time for Halloween, join us Tuesday, October 28 at 7:00 pm Pacific for our first Writing Circle Spotlight featuring the Dark Fiction Writing Circle with host Meaghan Hackinen and readers Kelli Etheridge (group facilitator), Louise Dumayne, Desiree Friesen, Kim Harbridge, Michelle C Jacobs, and Kristyn Pacione.
Register here (bcwriters.ca/events-for-writers) and a link will be sent to you. When it's time for the event, click on the link to join the live Zoom event. To find our more about the FBCW's online Writing Circles visit https://bcwriters.ca/circles. We look forward to seeing you there!
Digital Doors Open at 6:55 pm!
*This event will be recorded.
Kelli Etheridge lives on Vancouver Island. She loves dark beer, dark coffee, and dark fiction. While horror is her favourite genre, she’s gentle in life. She adopts rescued dogs, she doesn’t kill mosquitos, and she swerves for the monstrous banana slugs on the road. Despite that, she’s certain she’d make it to final girl status in a horror movie. Works-in-progress include a historical paranormal novel and a dystopian novella. Her story, Devour, appeared in the Graveside Press anthology, Bite, December 2024. Her short story, Infanticipation, will appear in the horror anthology, Choices, by Renaissance Press later in 2025. Find Kelli online: https://kellietheridgeauthor.com/
Louise Dumayne lives off-road and off-grid in the remote Yukon wilderness with her husband, Neil, and a retired sled dog called Blaze. She won the Lush Triumphant Short Fiction Award in 2021 with Impact. The Demon Fufu was shortlisted for the Federation of BC Writers Short Fiction Award. Other publishing credits include Deep Pool Bridge (Understorey Magazine, 2021) and The Bear (Words and Women IV, Unthank Books, also Highly Commended, Words and Women Short Story Competition). Spring Break Up was published in Riverside Review (Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture). She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio (Simon Fraser University) and is currently writing a supernatural thriller called Crooked Creek, set in the Yukon in winter.
Desiree Friesen lives in Abbotsford, BC, and started writing later in life after a career as a Chartered Accountant. She enjoys entering writing contests and has several top 10 placings in round 1 of the NYC Midnight challenges, including 3rd for the 500-word fiction challenge in 2024. She primarily writes dark or unsettling short fiction but has been known to come up with an occasional poem. She loves donuts, horror movies, and spending time at her second home at Bridge Lake.
Kim Harbridge (she/her) is a writer and editor of speculative, scary, and otherwise strange fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Strange Horizons, Pulp Literature, and The Years’ Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction (vol. 2). She is grateful to live in Burnaby, BC, on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim speaking peoples. In her non-writing life, she is a voracious consumer of horror movies, crime novels, and Haribo Tangfastics. Find her online at www.kimharbridge.com.
Michelle C Jacobs is of Kanien7keha:ka First Nations and European descent, currently residing on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Similamix people. She is an author and an artist, specializing in weaving fibres, beads, and words. Michelle has several short stories published in online magazines and anthologies, and her artwork can be found all over the world. She has Facebook pages “Beadwork By Michelle" and "Michelle C Jacobs-Author" and an under-construction website: www.michellecjacobs.ca.
Kristyn Pacione (she/her) is a Toronto-born writer embracing her new West Coast life on Vancouver Island, BC. A lifelong pluviophile, tea addict, and lover of the macabre, she is pursuing her dream of writing dark and twisted tales inspired by her quiet coastal town. She has a BA in Anthropology and Museum Studies, and her new adult dark fantasy novel was selected for mentorship through the Humber School for Writers Postgraduate program in Creative Writing (2020). Her current work-in-progress is an adult gothic fantasy novel influenced by her years working in museums and archives, which may or may not have been haunted.
Meaghan Hackinen (FBCW host): is a bike-obsessed bookworm on a lifelong hunt for exceptional cycling routes, both on and off the pavement. Her cross-continental bike race memoir, Shifting Gears, was released by NeWest Press in 2023 and is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. When she's not lost in the mountains or chasing the sunset, find her online: meaghanhackinen.com.
