Wes Smiderle has learned to fear ringing phones. He hates hospitals, but loves the people who work and volunteer in them. He knows good luck can be sifted from bad. He abhors waiting.
Smiderle is a writer. Some of his stories have been published in magazines, including On Spec and SubTerrain.
He’s a member of SF Canada, but has written in a variety of genres. His short story “Maisie’s Safehouse” was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, while his story “Alouette” was nominated for an Aurora Award, Canada’s award for national science fiction and fantasy literature.
His short story “Shriek Season,” published in the 2015 Spring edition of On Spec, is set in a world where families resort to living in hovering ‘mag-rez’ houses to avoid catastrophic weather. Tangent Online called it “a fascinating read.”
Smiderle is a former reporter and editor and has written for daily and weekly newspapers. His three-part feature on youth mental health earned an Ontario Community Newspaper Award.
He is currently working on a novelization of “Shriek Season.”
He lives and writes in Ottawa, Ontario with his wife, Amanda, and their three children, Gwendolyn, Samuel and Griffin.
“Safebuoys” is Smiderle’s first published work of flash fiction. An early draft was written in a hospital room in the middle of the night during a lengthy stay while Sam was receiving treatment for cancer. Sam is back home, back in school and wants to be a nurse when he grows up.
