Board of Directors

Winona Kent, Board Chair

Winona Kent is an award-winning author who was born in London, England and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, where she completed her BA in English at the University of Regina. After moving to Vancouver, she graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing. More recently, she received her diploma in Writing for Screen and TV from Vancouver Film School.

Winona’s debut novel, Skywatcher, was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Award and was published by Bantam Books in 1989. This was followed by a sequel, The Cilla Rose Affair, and her first mystery, Cold Play, set aboard a cruise ship in Alaska. Since then, she has written seven other novels, the latest, Ticket to Ride, came out in 2022. Her story “Salty Dog Blues”, in Crime Wave (Sisters in Crime-Canada West, 2020) was a finalist in the 2021 Crime Writers of Canada's Awards of Excellence for Best Crime Novella.

She's currently the national Vice-Chair as well as the BC/YT Rep, an active member of Sisters in Crime-Canada West and happily embracing life as a full-time author.

You can find out more about Winona at: http://www.winonakent.com

Del Chatterson, Vice Chair and International Rep.

Del is a strategic advisor and consultant for entrepreneurs and has written extensively on business topics for decades. Originally from the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, he has lived and worked for most of the past forty years in the fascinating, multicultural, bilingual, French-Canadian city of Montreal, Quebec.

https://delvinchatterson.com/

Isabelle Zimmermann, Secretary

Isabelle Zimmermann is a semi retired business owner. Her time is spent training for the next triathlon, enjoying long rides with her local cycling club, reading, travelling, cooking, volunteering, and now, writing the next big blockbuster. Isabelle has been a voracious reader since grade school and has always been drawn to the mystery/thriller genre starting with the Nancy Drew Detective series.

Isabelle is a member of Sisters in Crime National, Sisters in Crime Toronto Chapter, and Canadian Crime Writers. She is currently querying her first completed manuscript, a psychological thriller, while working on her second book.

Isabelle was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, where she currently lives with her husband. She is the mother of three grown and launched children of whom she is very proud. She has one beautiful granddaughter and a second on the way.

Barbara Joyce-Hawryluk, Manitoba/NU Regional Rep.

Barb Joyce-Hawryluk, MSW, is an award-winning crime fiction and creative non-fiction author who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband, three children, seven grandchildren, and Labrador retriever, TJ. She’s been an active member of Crime Writers of Canada and Sisters in Crime for several years. When she’s not writing, reading, or attending writing conferences, she can be found running with her children and grandchildren, and challenging herself in distance races.

https://scarletforce.com/

Jass Aujla, ON: SWest/North/GTA Regional Rep.

Jass Aujla is a Canadian South-Asian author of suspense-thriller fiction. Jass studied creative writing as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto and later earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from the School of Continuing Studies @ UofT. When she isn’t working on one of her twisty novels, she can be found writing poetry & prose on social media.

http://jassaujla.com/

Jane Burfield, ON: SWest/North/GTA Regional Rep.

Born and educated in Toronto, Jane sets many of her short stories in the physical and mental spaces where she has lived. North Toronto matrons are not to be treated badly without consequences.

After three careers in journalism, teaching and business, Jane’s writing career began when her first story won The Bony Pete Award in 2001. She has been an Arthur Ellis finalist, and has been published in more than ten anthologies.

The mystery community is a supportive and educational world, embodied beautifully in the Crime Writers of Canada, in Sisters in Crime, and especially in the Mesdames of Mayhem. Jane looks forward to serving as CWC Regional Rep. for Ontario.

Ann Lambert, Quebec Regional Rep.

Ann’s first novel of the Russell and Leduc mystery series, The Birds That Stay, was published in 2019 and was a finalist for the Concordia Best First Book Prize that same year. Her second book in the series, The Dogs of Winter, was a finalist for the Canadian Crime Writers Award of Excellence, and won an Audiophile award.Her third book in the Series, Whale Fall came out in the fall of 2023. All three books were released as audiobooks narrated by Ann herself.

Ann has also written over 25 plays for the stage and radio over forty years in the theatre. Several of her plays, including The Wall, Self Offense, Parallel Lines, Very Heaven, The Mary Project, Force of Circumstance and Two Short Women have been performed in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. Ann is the former head of The Playwriting Program at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Ann is the co-founder of Theatre Ouest End in Montreal, which was launched in the spring of 2019. It is dedicated to producing work new work that brings together an intergenerational community of both emerging and experienced theatre artists. http://www.theatreouestend.ca

Ann is retired from Dawson College in Montreal where she was a teacher of English literature for almost thirty years, and where for the last 13 years, she wrote, directed and produced shows with The Dawson Theatre Collective.

Ann is also the vice-president of The Theresa Foundation, dedicated to supporting AIDS-orphaned children and their grandmothers, the education of Malawian girls, and alleviating food insecurity in several villages in Malawi. https://www.theresafoundation.com/

https://www.annlambertbooks.com/

David Wickenden, Director-at-Large

David Wickenden spent time in the Canadian Armed Forces before the Fire Service, so is as comfortable with a rocket launcher as a fire hose. He has brought six people back from the dead using CPR and a defibrillator, and has helped rescue people in crisis. David has learned to lead men and women in extreme environments. He loves to cook, read and draw and write. He ran his own home-based custom art business, creating highly detailed wood and paper burnings called pyrography. One of his pictures of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien graces the walls of Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

After 31 years in the Fire Service and attaining the rank of Deputy Fire Chief, David took early retirement to write full time. He is a member of the Writer’s Union of Canada, The Crime Writers of Canada, the International Thriller Association, and the International Screenwriter Association. He has published five thrillers and one YA Fantasy. His short stories have appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines. He has adapted some of his manuscripts into feature screenplays and is working on creating a TV Pilot for his vigilante series. Currently, David offers Professional Beta Reading Services for authors and is working on his eighth novel, a firefighting thriller.

https://www.amazon.com/author/davewickenden

Craig Copland, BC/Yukon Regional Rep

In 2014, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada (aka the Toronto Bootmakers) held a contest for anyone who would write a new Sherlock Holmes story. Although he had never before written fiction, Craig entered and was surprised to be one of the winners. Sensing an opportunity for a fabulous retirement gig, he then began writing historical mysteries. First, he completed 60 novels, each a tribute to one of the original stories in the Sherlock Holmes Canon and twenty shorter stories for inclusion in several of the annual Sherlock Holmes anthologies.

Being done with Sherlock Holmes, he moved on to a new series, the Dr. Tabitha New York City Mysteries, set in Gotham in the fascinating era between the wars.

He now calls Vernon, British Columbia, home, and once upon a time, a long time ago, he studied English at the University of Toronto and had the great good fortune to take classes with both Northrup Frye and Marshall McLuhan. His subsequent career was primarily in international humanitarian aid, which took him to over 100 countries. He and his wife, Mary, still enjoy living abroad and have recently lived in New York, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Bahrain and California. He continues to write historical mysteries.

Lorne Tepperman, ON: Southwest/North/GTA Regional Rep

Lorne Tepperman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He has written several successful sociology texts, including Social Problems (in its 6th edition), Close Relations (in its 7th edition) and Making Sense in Social Science (in its 8th edition). He has also written books on gambling addiction, social inequality, deviance, and social control. Dr. Tepperman has received multiple awards for teaching, and received a Distinguished Contribution to Sociology award from the Canadian Sociological Association, which he also served as President. He has also consulted with clients in both the private and public sectors on issues related to delinquency and poverty. He has also written reports about the marital consequences of brain injury as expert testimony in court cases.

Born in Toronto and educated in Canada and the US, Dr. Tepperman has only recently started writing fiction. His first novel, Deadly Donation, will be published in September 2024 by Rock’s Mills Press (Oakville, Ontario).

You can find slightly more information on https://www.lornetepperman.com/

Veronica Purcell, Atlantic Provinces Regional Rep

Veronica and her husband live on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Before retiring to Atlantic Canada she was the Literacy Coordinator for a school board neighbouring Toronto.

She has written three supernatural thrillers and is currently working on a new mystery series about art fraud. When not writing, she is taking art courses in historic Lunenburg, sailing, enjoying the beautiful beaches near her home, or spending time with her children and grandchildren.

You can find Veronica author website at https://vapurcell.com

John Hill, ON: Central/East/Ottawa Regional Rep

John L. Hill is a retired criminal and prison law lawyer. He taught correctional law at the Queen's and University of Windsor Law Schools. But in private practice, he dealt with some of Canada's most notorious criminals as well as with some of Canada's best prosecutors and defence lawyers. In retirement, he has become a nonfiction writer. He is a columnist for Law 360 Canada (formerly The Lawyer's Daily), an online newspaper for the legal community. He has also had two books published: Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement and The Rest of the [True Crime] Story. He has also published a story dealing with slavery in southeastern Ontario in a Florida-based magazine. He is currently working on his third book, The Evil That Men Do.