Beyond the Veil of Things

Sophia Hannan and Rebecca Hirsch Garcia take to the stage with two remarkable fantasy novels. Hannan’s We Were Never Here, her debut novel, is ‘a slow-burn YA mystery steeped in Gothic atmosphere’ according to one reviewer.. O. Henry Prize-winner Rebecca Hirsch Garcia with Other Evolutions, where the boundaries between reality and unreality are not just blurred, but shattered.

Sophia Hannan is a Canadian author of YA and Adult fiction. When she’s not writing about ghosts and the girls they haunt, she can be found studying English literature and forcing her friends to watch horror movies with her. Her debut novel, We Were Never Here, comes out in 2026 with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Rebecca Hirsch Garcia is an O. Henry Prize-winning writer and the author of the story collection The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories and her latest novel Other Evolutions. She lives in Ottawa.

Moderator Kimberly Lemaire spent more than twenty years in the Canadian Armed Forces as a critical care nurse and later as a communications specialist. She recently completed a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of King's College. She lives in Carp.