Speakers
Pronouns: nekm/she/her
Krista Collier-Jarvis is a member of the Mi'kmaq First Nation and a third-generation residential school survivor. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at MSVU, the co-lead of the Two-Eyed Seeing program, an Early Career Representative for the Indigenous Literary Studies Association, and an Affiliate with Thinking through the Museum. She teaches Indigenous and American literatures, climate fiction, and film. She has recently published articles and book chapters on uncanny play in Pet Sematary, haunting back in Blood Quantum, dis/ins/pecting generic conventions and the case of Indigenous horror, endemicity in zombie narratives, the rise of the rhizombie, and Indigenous-Jewish dialogue as a decolonial research praxis.
Speaking/presenting at:Jodie Hamilton is currently in the thesis stage of her Master's in the Women and Gender Studies Program at Saint Mary's University. Her thesis explores the dark romance genre through Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection to argue that these books, while controversial and spicy, provide an important space that destigmatizes darker sexual fantasies, ultimately leading to increased agency and healthy relationships. Jodie's personal and scholarly interest in Dark Romance, coupled with her concrete experience discussing it in academic and public forums, ensure that this workshop will be an important and valuable addition to Monster Fest.
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Dr. Novotny Lawrence is the author of Blaxploitation Films of the 1970s: Blackness and Genre, Beyond Blaxploitation, and the editor of Documenting the Black Experience: African American History, Culture, and Identity in Nonfiction Films. He is also the Director of the Black Film Centre and Archive at Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Lawrence is an internationally recognized expert in Black Cinema and Black Horror, whose work is integral for thinking through historical and contemporary connections between race and monstrosity.
Speaking/presenting at:Fallen Matthews is an Afro-L'nu creative writer and ID PhD who lectures at Dalhousie University. Their research interests span artificial intelligence, history, gender studies, political science, and sociology with a concentration in cinema and media studies. Fallen is a programmer for HIFF After Images, the Animation Festival of Halifax, and the Canadian Labour International Film Festival through Mayworks Halifax. Their creative writing has been featured in bestselling anthologies. Her scholarly expertise in film studies, particularly animation (which features prominently in key sequences of Blood Quantum), coupled with her experience as a creative writer, provides an invaluable perspective through which to explore this film and its construction of monstrosity.
Speaking/presenting at:Tiffany Morris is an L'nu'skw (Mi'kmaw) writer from Nova Scotia. She is the author of the Ignyte, Indigenous Voices, Shirley Jackson, and Aurora award-nominated Green Fuse Burning (Stelliform Press, 2023) and the Elgin Award-winning horror poetry collection Elegies of Rotting Stars (Nictitating Books, 2022). Her work has appeared in the Indigenous horror anthology Never Whistle At Night, as well as in Nightmare Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, and Apex Magazine, among others. She provides an invaluable perspective on this film as an accomplished author whose works explore Canadian indigenous histories, myths, and experiences through the lens of horror and the monstrous.
Speaking/presenting at:Dr. Margaret Robinson is a bisexual and two-spirit scholar from Eski'kewaq, Nova Scotia, and a member of the Lennox Island First Nation. Her work examines the impact of intersecting oppressions and draws on critical, postcolonial, and queer theories, intersectionality, and third wave feminism. She has been a community-based researcher since 2009, incorporating participatory, action-based, feminist, and Indigenous research methods. She has led studies on decolonizing research funding in Canada, two-spirit people's understanding of mental health, and cannabis use among bisexual women. She conducted her postdoctoral training at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health and was previously a Researcher in Residence in Indigenous Health at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network.
Speaking/presenting at:Allyn Walker is Assistant Professor of Criminology at Saint Mary's University in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. Their work examines connections between stigma, mental health, and institutional harm within criminal-legal, immigration, and mental health care systems. Dr. Walker's ongoing research focuses on non-criminalizing strategies to address the root causes of harm while supporting people who have lived through violence and marginalization. They are the author of A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and their Pursuit of Dignity (2021, University of California Press). Their upcoming volume, Abolition and Queer Justice, co-edited with Aimee Wodda, will be published with UC Press in December, 2025.
Speaking/presenting at:Jade is pursuing an honours degree in Philosophy with a minor in Women and Gender Studies at Saint Mary’s University. Jade got back into their reading phase when they started university in 2021, reading popular booktok books such as The Folk of Air Trilogy and The Daughter of The Pirate King, and they have been hooked ever since. Jade loves books that discuss things such as the exploration of kink, involve the enemies to lovers trope, and address topics considered taboo.
Speaking/presenting at:Shay Donovan holds an MFA degree from NSCAD University in Halifax, NS. Through painting and installation, Shay explores notions of strangeness, and the interconnectedness of feral nature and human identity.
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Autumn Star is an interdisciplinary artist from the prairies, she has a Visual Arts Diploma from Red Deer Polytechnic, A Bachelor's of fine arts from Alberta University of the Arts and a Master's of Fine Arts from NSCAD University. Her current work revolves around visual poetry's ability to engage in a radical process of myth-making and mark-making. She has shown her sculptures and paintings across galleries in Canada. By using her hands & head she creates space for figural-focused exploration of language and autonomy from a thoughtfully queer fem perspective.
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