BIO

Cara Martin is the author of several acclaimed novels for young people published under the name C. K. Kelly Martin, including a middle grade sci-fi, multiple contemporary YAs, a sci-fi duology set in 2063 and the 1980s, and an emotionally-charged ghost story. Four of these books received starred reviews and two were shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Book Award. Her most recent novel, Shantallow, is a young adult horror published under the name Cara Martin. Shantallow was long-listed for the 2020 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and was an Ottawa Book Awards fiction finalist. Booklist described Shantallow as "serious, literary and very scary" and Kirkus called it "gut-wrenching on various levels."

 

A graduate of the Film Studies program at York University, Cara has lived in the Greater Toronto Area and Dublin, Ireland. Within the space of 3500 miles she’s worked a collection of quirky jobs at multiple pubs and video stores, an electricity company, a division of the Irish post office, a London toyshop, and an advertising analytics company. She’s also been an image editor for a dot-com startup that didn’t survive the 90s, and a credit note clerk for Canada's largest national distributor of General Merchandise.

 

Cara is a member of SF Canada — Canada's National Association of Speculative Fiction Professionals. These days she's busy writing fiction about malicious hauntings and the mysterious future, wondering what if . . . Her new sci-fi novel, Rise, Tomorrow Girl, will be released on June 21, 2024 and should probably come with a CanCon sticker. Cara currently resides in Ottawa with her husband and is still afraid of the Child Catcher from the film adaptation of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.