Bio: Kelly S. Thompson is a writer and retired military officer with a master’s in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is also a PhD candidate in Literary and Critical Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. Kelly won the House of Anansi Press Golden Anniversary Award, the 2014 and 2017 Barbara Novak Award for Personal Essay, and was shortlisted for Room magazine's 2013 and 2014 Creative Nonfiction awards, placing 2nd in their 2019 contest. Her essays have appeared in several anthologies, and her military memoir, Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes from the Forces, released with McClelland & Stewart in August 2019, becoming an instant Globe and Mail bestseller and noted as one of the top books of 2019. Her work also appeared in the anthologies with publishers across Canada, and her essays have appeared in Carte Blanche, Chatelaine, Prairie Fire, Maclean’s, Maisonneuve, Globe and Mail, Reader's Digest, and more.

Her second memoir, Still, I Cannot Save You: A memoir of sisterhood, love and letting go, was also a national bestseller. She is a mentor in the University of King's MFA in creative nonfiction.