Ainsley Hawthorn, PhD (Yale), is an award-winning author, cultural historian, and performer. She has written about forgotten events, curious folklore, and the surprising connections between past and present for The Washington Post, CBC, Psychology Today, The Globe and Mail, and more, and in 2020 she co-created Apocalypse Then, a CBC radio and web series that looked at past pandemics to help shed light on the COVID experience. Her nonfiction anthology Land of Many Shores: Perspectives from a Diverse Newfoundland and Labrador was named one of The Telegram's Top Ten Books of 2021, and in 2022 she received a Radio Television Digital News Award for Best Digital Opinion (East Region). She has appeared in film both as a guest expert and an actor, using her background as a dancer, public speaker, and storyteller to enrich her performances.