Candas Jane Dorsey is an internationally known, award-winning author, editor, commentator, teacher of writing and communications, freelancer and cultural industries founder, community-builder, advocate, and arts community lifer.

She was born as patient number 1768 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and lives in inner city Edmonton with her partner, the writer/performer Timothy J. Anderson, and two Pomeranians who will likely appear throughout this website, to improve its cuteness quotient.

She writes across genre boundaries, writing poetry, fiction, main-stream and speculative, short and long form, arts journalism and arts advocacy. Dorsey has also written television and stage scripts, magazine and newspaper articles, and reviews. Since the 1980s she has been a strong presence in the speculative fiction world in Canada as a publisher, editor, and community-builder. She helped found, and served on the board of, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and SF Canada. She currently teaches writing and communication studies, and does workshops and readings.

Her published books include speculative novels Black Wine, A Paradigm of Earth, and (upcoming) (At the) Freak Show; mysteries The Adventures of Isabel, What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? And He Wasn’t There Again Today (the Epitome Apartments series); YA novel The Story of My Life, Ongoing, by C.J. Cobb; also short story collections Machine Sex and other stories, Dark Earth Dreams, Vanilla and other stories, and ICE and other stories; four poetry books; several anthologies edited/co-edited, and numerous published stories, poems, reviews, and critical essays. Her books have received numerous literary awards, and her work has been translated into German, French, Greek, Japanese and (allegedly, and illicitly) Russian.

Dorsey is known for her extensive formative work in the speculative writing community, particularly in Canada. Over her career of nearly 50 years, she has had numerous published stories, poems, reviews, and critical essays. She was editor/publisher fourteen years of literary press The Books Collective, including River Books and, for a time, Tesseract Books. She teaches writing to adults and youth, professional communications at MacEwan University, and speaks widely on SF and other topics. She was a major motivator and founding president of SFCanada, and has been president of the Writers Guild of Alberta.

She returned to her interest in making visual art recently, from vivid colours and strong texture in acrylics to precise and realistic in watercolours, Candas employs a variety of art forms to showcase a freeing, fun, and inter-referential expression.

In addition to being awarded numerous grants to develop her work, Dorsey has received a variety of awards and honours for her novels and short fiction. In addition, in 2005 she was awarded the Province of Alberta Centennial Gold Medal for her artistic achievement and community work, and in 2017 the WGA Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts. She was inducted into the City of Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2018, and the Edmonton Arts and Cultural Hall of Fame in 2019. Other awards include YWCA Woman of the Year Arts and Culture (1988), and an Edmonton Arts Achievement Award (1988).

She is also a community activist, advocate, and leader who has won two human rights awards and has served on many community boards and committees and community-building for neighbourhoods, heritage, social planning, and human rights advocacy.