Calgary, Ep. 9

October 17, 2025 — After a masterpiece in 2024, Literary Death Match returned to Calgary even stronger, once again teaming with the wonder of Wordfest for a sell-out night at DJD Dance Centre that saw Gabrielle Drolet narrowly topple co-finalist Jon Hickey in a down-to-the-wire Author Spelling Bee V finale that won Drolet the LDM Calgary, Ep. 9 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here's the full lineup from the night-of:

ALL-STAR JUDGES: 

Literary Merit: Emma Donoghue, Irish-Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright & historian, her novel Room was a Booker Prize finalist and Oscar-nominated film adaptation, and she's written the bestselling The Paris Express, The Wonder, and way more.

Performance: Andrew Phung, actor, improviser, and comedian who played Kimchee Han on the CBC's Kim's Convenience, a role for which he was a five-time Canadian Screen Award winner for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. 

Intangibles: Cory Doctorow, a Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Hall of Fame inductee, he's an multi-award-winning novelist, journalist, blogger and digital-rights activist who wrote Little Brother, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Radicalized and so many more. 

ALL-STAR READERS:

Round 1: 
* Jon Hickey, Anishinaabe writer from Minnesota who earned an MFA at Cornell, was a Stegner Fellow, and writes fiction with Native identity at its core. His debut novel Big Chief was published in 2025. 

* Emily R. Austin, author of We Could Be Rats, Interesting Facts About Space, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and the poetry collection Gay Girl Prayers.

Round 2:
* Gabrielle Drolet, Montreal-based journalist, essayist & cartoonist, her debut memoir Look Ma, No Hands reflects on chronic pain, voice-to-text writing, disability, humor and identity. Her cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, Globe & Mail and The Walrus. 

* Wesley King, Canadian YA/middle grade author, known for OCDaniel, The Wizenard Series (with Kobe Bryant), and other works. His stories that tackle big feelings with humour and honesty. 

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)

Produced by Shelley Youngblut & Rita Sirignano

Where: DJD Dance Centre, 111 12 Ave SE, Calgary (map)
When: 7:30pm (until 8:57pm); Doors at 6pm