The Killer Shorts Contest is proud to shine a spotlight on our talented Canadian #KillerAlum and the incredible work they’re creating after placing in the competition. Our Contest Director, Alison Parker, hails from the Great White North, after all! And in these wild times, it’s more important than ever for Canadians to support our homegrown talent—this time, in the form of 10 (okay, 12… let’s call it a Canadian dozen) Killer Canadian Screenwriters!
There’s no shortage of incredible storytelling coming from Canada, and while we could have filled this list with even more names, these screenwriting Canucks are ones to keep an eye on in 2025.
The emerging writers featured below are making waves, and many are seeking representation. Take a look at their profiles if you’re interested in connecting or checking out their short scripts.
#ElbowsUp #EhList #MadeInCanada
Toby Marks
Toby is a Season 6 Quarterfinalist with her script I Was Here and Honorable Mention with the script Quiet Minds, which is also a Quarterfinalist in the Screencraft Short Film Competition. Hailing from Vancouver, Toby is a trained actress, studying at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and has done a myriad of film projects in LA. She is currently acting on EARTH ABIDES from MGM+. Toby is an award-winning writer from Vancouver who is no stranger to screenwriting competitions. In 2023, she pitched her sci-fi pilot at the Scripted Series Summit to Netflix, Amazon, Paramount. In 2024, Toby participated in GEMS Vancouver’s Genre film lab and pitched her period zombie feature at the Frontières Market at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. And, recently, her sci-fi pilot, Displacement, won best hour pilot script at the Nashville Film Festival.
Check out Toby’s Killer Short scripts:
I Was Here: A woman faces her loneliness head-on.
Quiet Minds: In Victorian London, a woman’s quest to prove her worth through the use of cybernetic upgrades unleashes her deadly alter ego.
Find out more about Toby at the links below:
Lisa Ovies
Lisa is a Season 6 Quarterfinalist with her script Life. Lisa has representation at Valor Entertainment. As a Queer Mexican/Canadian writer & director, Lisa blends her comedy skills and love of horror to create compelling characters. With a love for action, blood, and fast paced camera work with practical effects, Lisa is continuing to push for impactful, engaging, Hispanic stories. As a founder of the EmpowHer female filmmakers program, her focus is to empower female representing filmmakers to get behind the camera and tell their own stories. She also owns Rogue Studios, a Vancouver studio home to 2 production companies, an improv school and an acting studio. Lisa made her directorial debut with the 2020 film Puppet Killer, cementing her in the cult genre and awarding her with over 100 nominations and awards.
Life: After waking up in a field outside of town bruised and bleeding following a night of drinking with no memory of how he got there, Mark struggles to discover the truth of what really happened to him.
Find out more about Lisa at the links below:
IMDb, Instagram, Linkedin, Bluesky
Arran Crawley
Arran is a Season 6 Quarterfinalist with his script Mother Wound, which was also a 2020 Slamdance Quarterfinalist with the feature version of the script. Originally from Vancouver, Arran is a writer who has been apart of several screenwriting competitions spanning from Raindance, PAGE awards, Filmmatic, Screencraft, and many more. With a strong passion for fun genre movies, Arran has won at the Vancouver Horror Show and Ethereal Horror Fest. Also as a contributing writer in horror screenwriting articles for What Sleeps Beneath, Arran is always writing.
Check out Arran’s Killer Short script:
Mother Wound: Cassie will never forget that terrible car journey from her childhood and now has the opportunity for a daughter’s revenge… but is her mother the real villain?
Find out more about Arran at the links below:
Linkedin, Instagram, IMDb, X, Facebook
Taryn Crankshaw
Taryn is a Season 6 Quarterfinalist with her script No Feelings Were Hurt In The Making Of This Film. Taryn was also a Season 2 Semifinalist with the script Midnight Shift. Based in Toronto, Taryn is a writer currently working for the Toronto International Film Festival. She is also an actress and graduate of the Second City Conservatory program. Her comedy feature Big Day was a 2023 Semifinalist in The Script Lab. This script also reached the Top 15% of all Academy Nicholls Fellowship entries in 2023.
Check out Taryn’s Killer Short script:
No Feelings Were Hurt In The Making Of This Film: When a film bro leaves a bad review for a movie, he discovers horror is more than just a genre.
Find out more about Taryn at the links below:
Renuka Singh
Renuka is a Season 6 Semifinalist for her script No Guts No Glory. Making a swift career transition from finance to storytelling in 2020, Renuka has quickly earned credits from story editor to writer on I Woke Up A Vampire (Netflix), Reginald The Vampire (SyFy), and Allegiance (CBC). She is repped by the Jennifer Hollyer Agency and is currently developing a comedy series backed by CMF and Bell Media. Renuka was recognized by Playback as one of Canada’s ’10 to Watch’ as she was a part of the Pacific Screenwriting Program’s Scripted Series Lab and the BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Training Bootcamp. She is also the sole British Columbian writer chosen for the 2023 WBD Access x Canadian Academy Writers Program. We’re excited to have Renuka join our ranks as a Killer Shorts alum.
Check out Renuka’s Killer Short script:
No Guts No Glory: A burgeoning long-distance runner stoops for ill-gotten gains in order to keep up with her group.
Find out more about Renuka at the links below:
Website, Linkedin, IMDb, Instagram
Dustin Moore
Dustin is a Season 6 Semifinalist for his script Still Echoes, which is also a Quarterfinalist in the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards. From Ontario, Dustin’s career spans through several creative ventures in the industry from writer, director, producer, actor, to audio engineer and composer. He even owns Moore Film and Sound, offering a wide range of services to fulfill your project’s sound needs. As an award-winning screenwriter, Dustin moves through genres, thrillers, horror, and sci-fi, with a craft for mind-bending, reality-warping stories with complex dilemmas, particularly humanity’s relationship with technology.
Check out Dustin’s Killer Short script:
Still Echoes: Aislin, ensnared in a surreal tapestry of shifting memories, confronts echoes of her past, seeking resolution within the mysterious corridors of her fractured psyche.
Find out more about Dustin at the links below:
Jordan Andrew
Jordan is a Season 6 Quarterfinalist with her script Creature. A natural born writer from British Columbia, Jordan received her BA in creative writing and English from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Jordan has published works in poetry, short stories, and a novel.
Check out Jordan’s Killer Shorts script:
Creature: A high schooler is followed by a shadow creature nobody else can see. One day, it gets closer.
Find out more about Jordan at the links below:
Sasha Duncan
Sasha is a Season 5 Quarterfinalist with her script easybake. Sasha’s crowdfunding campaign for her teen horror short film version of easybake was featured for the week by Seed & Spark and Mark Duplass. The short is currently selected for The Overlook Film Festival, Canadian Film Fest, Portland Panorama, and the Whistler Film Fest. From Vancouver, Sasha has a long career as a writer and filmmaker, currently acting as Director of Development at Kickstart Entertainment and a story editor for Coverfly. She worked as a popular essayist for Medium and currently is the co-director for the Run n’ Gun filmmaker society, encouraging voices of underrepresented filmmakers.
Check out Sasha’s Killer Short script:
easybake: After consuming a clay sculpture, an insecure teen wakes with the ability to sculpt her own body, leading to an obsessive pursuit of “perfection”.
Find out more about Sasha at the links below:
Shane Harbinson
Shane is a Season 5 Quarterfinalist for his script Freeborn. This script has placed in several other festivals from Slamdance, PAGE awards, HorrOrigins, Scriptapalooza, and many more. Hailing from Nova Scotia, Shane is a 55-year-old screenwriter with a deep interest in the ethical dilemmas of advancements in AI technology. In addition to his writing, Shane is also a seasoned ACTRA actor in film and television such as Molly’s Game and Diggstown. Shane also has an exciting feature written of his short Freeborn.
Check out Shane’s Killer Short script:
Freeborn: In a future where transhumanism is the law, a Freeborn father resists an authoritarian regime to protect his unmodified daughter, knowing his defiance will cost him everything.
Find out more about Shane at the links below:
Kristen McNaule
Kristen is a Season 5, Third Place Winner, with her short script Nosebleed. A writer from Ontario, she is no stranger to placing in screenwriting competitions, as her works have placed in many of the top contests. Kristen is working on a comedy pilot & feature script called THE INCREDIBLE L.I.P.S (a.k.a The Incredible League of Incredibly Practical SuperbHeroes) about a group of girls who do an experimental drug trial for birth control and develop superpowers, like superhuman financial literacy, which they use to smash the patriarchy. Her drama feature script, ALPHABET CITY, was a semi-finalist in Austin Film Festival and is in the top 1% of over 140,000 projects on Coverfly. Her short films have screened in several international film festivals. Her short LENNY was nominated for Best Canadian Film at the Canadian Screen Award qualifying Oakville Film Festival, and FROM SARAJEVO was acquired for broadcast by the CBC.
Check out Kristen’s Killer Short script:
Nosebleed: When hackers take all the Taylor Swift tickets, Santa Claus goes on a bloody crusade to save Christmas for the children.
Find out more about Kristen at the links below:
Alex Seltzer
Alex is a Season 4 Second Place Winner with his script Merrow. Alex also won Slamdance in 2022 with Merrow, as well as, the WeScreenplay short script lab. This script has placed in several reputable contests, from, Screencraft to Filmmatic, and is ranked the top horror short on Coverfly’s Red List. Alex is currently adapting the feature version of the script. In addition to winning Killer Shorts, Alex has found great success as a writer/director with his short films. His first short film 10-33 premiered at Fantasia Film Festival, won Best Short at TerrorMolins, and is distributed online by Alter. I DO, his short financed by Canada Council for the Arts, is a ScreenCraft Film Fund finalist. His short film The Door, starring Tanaya Beatty of Yellowstone and Raymond Ablack of Maid, is in its festival run with its Canadian premiere at Fantasia. In addition to his success with shorts, Alex has had several pilots score a 9 on the Blacklist.
Check out Alex’s Killer Short script:
Merrow: On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, a gentle boy confronts the dark reality of manhood when his father takes him on his first fishing trip to undergo a disturbing coming-of-age ritual.
Find out more about Alex at the links below:
Website, Instagram, IMDb, X, Bluesky
Walker MacDonald
Walker is a Season 6 Finalist with his script Twice Shy. As a screenwriter, designer, and filmmaker from Charlottetown, Canada, Walker has found success in several screenwriting competitions from Screencraft to placing as a quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship with his feature script Tomato Frog. With a penchant for comedy and genre writing, Walker is eager to continue making movies and be a feature genre writer.
Check out Walker’s Killer Short script:
Twice Shy: An ex-hunter with a rough past is approached by an old friend with an uncomfortable favor to ask.
Find out more about Alex at the links below:
Website, X, Instagram, Linkedin
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