Photo: Gillian Foster
Carolyne Topdjian is an award-winning suspense writer, essayist, and novelist whose work fuses mystery, psychological suspense, and gothic horror. Her debut duology, The Black Moth and The Hitman's Daughter, has garnered critical acclaim from trade journals and readers alike, while her short fiction has appeared in literary journals such as PRISM International, Dreamers Magazine, Firewords Quarterly, and elsewhere. As an Armenian of the diaspora and Lebanese-Canadian displaced by war, Topdjian explores themes of belonging, transition, and human existence in her writing, often highlighting dark moments of contradiction and flux.
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Her scholarly essays on posthumanism and surrealism, as well as craft-focused articles for sites like CrimeReads, reflect her interdisciplinary approach to storytelling. Topdjian is a grant recipient from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Mississauga Arts Council, and has been shortlisted for the Ghost Prize by Fractured Literary. She holds a PhD from York University and is a professor in the Faculty of Media, Creative Arts and Design at Humber Polytechnic in Toronto. Notably, she’s lived in a century-old haunted house for over a decade.
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​Connect with the author online at carolynetopdjian.com or on social media @TopdjianC.
Carolyne Topdjian acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Mississauga Arts Council.